The Greatest Five. Review on Five Best Cricketers

Wisden recently named the following as the five cricketers of the century:

1. Sir Don Bradman

   
   




2. Sir Garfield Sobers

   
   




3. Sir Jack Hobbs

   
   




4. Shane Warne

   
   




5. Sir Vivian Richards

   
   

With due respect to all these legends, I will replace two names.

Five, being a very small number, compels me to remove Sir Jack Hobbs, the most enduring batsman that the game has seen, from the list. Sir jack Hobbs has a first class record that nobody has been able to get close to. With more than 60,000 runs and 199 centuries he is regarded by many as the greatest batsman after Bradman. But since the real test is at highest level i.e. test cricket we will have to do some rethinking on Jack Hobbs's place in the greatest five. The game of cricket has seen at least a dozen of cricketers with better test record than Hobbs. None more noticeable than Sachin Tendulkar. If endurance, consistency and dominance are the criteria of greatness, none can compete with the little master. With 36 hundreds here and 31 there, with a total of more than 20,000 international runs, with the honour of being the leading scorer at two world cup tournaments (an unmatched feat) and with more man of the match awards in international games to his name than anybody else, he can easily be a replacement to Jack Hobbs. Also if we combine the performances in test and ODI's we can truly test a batsman's completeness. A test average of 50+, an ODI average of 40+ and an ODI strike rate of 80+ will be the toughest possible (yet reasonable) set of benchmarks that can be set. And among all who have played both forms of games only Sachin Tendulkar and Viv Richard qualify all three of these stern benchmarks. Hence Sachin is one of the most complete batsmen the game has seen. Having argued out on the basis of statistics, talking about flair and talent is redundant where Tendulkar will probably beat any human being ever to hold bat in his hands.

The second name I will be forced to remove is of Shane Warne who has a very dismal record against the indians who are the best player of spin bowling. According to my experience with statistics, picking up more than 4 wickets a match and having a total of more than 300 wickets is a benchmark of greatness. Shane Warne qualifies both comfortably, but to claim a place in the top five, where not more than one place can be spared for a bowler, one has to pass some tougher tests. If we set five wickets per match to be the criterion along with minimum of 300 test wickets, we have three cricketers to choose from: Sir Richard Hadlee, Dennis Lillee and Muttiah Muralitharan. Of these only Murali picks up wickets at more than 5.5 wickets a match. Also Murali has more five wicket an innings and ten wickets a match hauls than any other bowler to have played the highest level of cricket. Also in the present age of ODI's where even targets of 275+ in 50 overs are not safe, lets see how many current bowlers have an economy rate of below 4 runs an over. The answer is only four, Wasim Akram, Shaun Pollock, Glenn McGrath and Muttiah Muralitharan, the only spinner. Hence Murali is easily a greater bowler than the great Shane Warne in any form of cricket.

The rest three cricketers in the above list are ofcourse irreplaceable and need no argument. Now coming to the ranking of these names, top 2 cannot be touched. At third place, I will put Murali who is far ahead of all those who can compete for a place with him. Sachin and Richards cannot be placed at 3 as they compete among themselves very closely for a spot in top five. Now between Tendulkar and Richards, its a tie, not a close tie but an equal tie. I will dare to make the decision on the basis of their test batting averages where Tendulkar edges ahead of Richards.

Hence my greatest five cricketers to have walked on the planet are as follows...

1. Sir Don Bradman

   
   




2. Sir Garfield Sobers

   
   




3. Muttiah Muralitharan

   
   




4. Sachin Tendulkar

   
   




5. Sir Vivian Richards

   
   

And if you ask me to name and rank the five greatest modern cricketers they are as follows.

1. Muttiah Muralitharan

   
   




2. Sachin Tendulkar

   
   




3. Shane Warne

   
   




4. Brian Lara

   
   




5. Wasim Akram

   
   

I could argue their choice and ranking in a similar fashion but will rather leave it on the readers to do that excercise.