By Adrian Meredith
VICTORIA, Australia (TheSportsNEXT) September 28, 2012: All Time World XIs are often discussed. Since T20s are pretty new, and ODIs themselves are only 40 years old, for the purposes of this analysis, I am talking primarily about test matches, at least for people who played before the other two formats had international status.
Best wicket keepers:
The list of wicket keepers with the most dismissals has a number that recently played, with Mark Boucher from South Africa in first place and Adam Gilchrist from Australia in second. In 3rd place is Ian Healy, also from Australia, and in 4th place is still Rod Marsh, also from Australia. The only other wicket keeper with a substantial number of dismissals is Kamran Akmal, who, unlike the others, has nobody who seriously thinks he is amongst the best of all time. Other wicket keepers have at different time been popular. Sri Lanka's best of all time was probably Hashan Tillekeratne while by all reports India's was Farokh Engineer. The most popular English keeper was more of a batsman than a keeper, in Allan Knott, while the best from West Indies was probably Jeffrey Dujon. Pakistan's best may have been Moin Khan, though they have never had a steady keeper for a long time - Kamran Akmal is still the most long-term keeper in Pakistan history! Zimbabwe would be tossing up between Andrew Flower and Tatendu Taibu but neither really were proper keepers, though at least Taibu was close. Fielding standards weren't generally as good in days gone by as they are now, and hence keepers in times gone by were a lot worse than they are now - as their dismissal records prove. At the end of the day, the most popular keeper of all time is still Australia's Adam Gilchrist. Most people pick him as their All Time World XI wicket keeper. In ODIs Gilchrist makes it easily while he didn't play enough T20s to know but the fact he is still playing IPL some 4 years after he retired suggests that he would be good. Mark Boucher does hold the test record but he took less dismissals per match than Gilchrist and didn't perform nearly as well in ODIs. Some would say that Gilchrist gets there because his batting was better - but Sangakkara's batting record is better than any of the others yet nobody would rate him as the best keeper of all time - he doesn't even keep full time any more. So for me, in a very close contest, it is Adam Gilchrist. His fairness and integrity really helped too. Such a gentleman.
Best spinners:
In the early days of cricket it was very easy for spin bowlers. All they had to do was to bowl after it had been raining and with a wet pitch they were almost unplayable. So many cheap wickets came to spinners early in test cricket. It is easy to dismiss many of the early bowling performances, especially those by spin bowlers. Bowlers who would take 6 for 9 one day then 1 for 120 the next were wet pitch bowlers. Sure, so batsmen got used to playing against spinners on wet pitches but not really. Pitches only started to be covered in the 1960s, and realistically there weren't a lot of quality spinners before that anyway. There were some good one off performances but nobody took a bunch of wickets. A West Indian bowler called Lance Gibbs took 300 wickets while the Australian all rounder Richie Benaud - who bowled both pace and spin - took almost as many. But then in recent times have come the two big wicket takers - numbers 1 and 2 in test cricket amongst all bowlers - Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. It is really somewhat pointless to consider anyone else. Murali was in, for most of the time, a much weaker side than Warne was, and bowled a lot more. Murali was often the only quality player for Sri Lanka and had to do everything for the team, while Warne often played with the best team in the world - maybe even the best team in history. The only question mark is whether you think that Murali is a cheater - whether he throws the ball. If Murali throws, then Warne is the best. If he doesn't then it has to be Murali. Either way they are numbers 1 and 2.
Best fast bowler:
It was so easy for bowlers in the early days of cricket. Uncovered pitches, no helmets, no protective equipment of any kind. Early test bowlers averaged 10 or 15 in test cricket and, while uncovered pitches hugely favoured spinners, they were pretty helpful to fast bowlers too. Fred Spofforth was obviously one name that springs to mind of the early fast bowlers; but skipping ahead we have to go to the first man to get past the 300 mark - Dennis Lillee. One of the 4 great all-rounders of the 1980s, Richard Hadlee was clearly the best bowler of them and he surpassed Lillee's record. Hadlee, like Murali, had to do it himself much of the time - and he often had to bat too. Then we had so many great West Indian fast bowlers, and probably the best of them was Malcolm Marshall. There have been some good ones since then - Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis to name but 3 - but Marshall just typified fast bowling. Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh all did their bit and then Glenn McGrath has the record for most wickets by a fast bowler. Both McGrath and Marshall were in champion teams but while McGrath was good, he intimidated batsmen out a lot of the time. Marshall was just magnificent. So for me it is Malcolm Marshall.
Best all rounder:
Statistically, this is fairly easy. Garfield Sobers is so far ahead of anyone else to make a mockery of it. But more recently a fellow by the name of Jacques Kallis has come close. Kallis has a better bowling average while his batting average keeps sneaking closer to Sobers's. Another one who had a huge difference between batting and bowling averages was Pakistan's Imran Khan. These 3 are surely the greatest all rounders of all time. But at the end of the day it has been easier to bat in recent times and Kallis is often known as a selfish batsman - who goes for a not out or gets extra runs at the expense of the team cause. Imran Khan was a master tactician as a captain and helped to guide Pakistan to greatness. But Sobers, like Hadlee and Murali, played at a time when his team was pretty ordinary - yet he did amazing things for his team, often winning games single handedly. Sobers started off purely as a bowler and ended up mostly as a batsman. At the end of the day, Garry Sobers wins this category.
Best batsman:
On the surface, Donald Bradman is easily the greatest of all time - he averaged 99.94, more than 30 runs more than anyone else in history - and in a time when batting was difficult, with uncovered pitches, no protective equipment, and on top of that he had to put up with bodyline - designed explicitly to make it hard for him. But Sachin Tendulkar has such a great following, so has to be considered. Sure, so Tendulkar's average isn't anywhere near as good as Bradman's - he isn't 2nd or 3rd or even in the top 10 best averages. But Tendulkar has scored more runs than anyone else - more in tests and more in ODIs too - more centuries - by such a huge margin - and has been playing test cricket since he was 16 and is likely to keep playing until he is 40. But an English player did the same thing - a fellow by the name of Jack Hobbs. Hobbs was incredibly good and Tendulkar is more along his lines. Tendulkar's record isn't yet as good as that of Hobbs either - and Hobbs also played at a time when it was hard for batting. Brian Lara is another one worth considering - who holds the highest test score of 400 and the highest first class score - but the difference between Lara's best and his worst was huge. But perhaps the thing that really makes Bradman's record so amazing is that he scored at a rate well in excess of a run a ball - and holds the record for most runs scored in a day - miles ahead of the next best. Bradman's scoring rate was probably the equivalent of a strike rate of about 120 - in test cricket - while averaging 99.94. And this was a time when there were less test countries - and hence no minnows to boost the average. He also averaged even higher in first class cricket. There were a few South Africans with huge averages over a small period of time, and they may have been up there too, but it is hard to be sure over such a short career. Some, like Sunil Gavaskar, Allan Border and Ricky Ponting scored a lot of runs but they were never really at that amazing level. The best, by a mile, is Donald Bradman.
In summary, the best of each category are:
Wicket keepers:
Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
Mark Boucher (South Africa)
Allan Knott (England)
Spin bowlers:
Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)
Shane Warne (Australia)
Lance Gibbs (West Indies)
Fast bowlers:
Malcolm Marshall (West Indies)
Glenn McGrath (Australia)
Dennis Lillee (Australia)
All rounders:
Garfield Sobers (West Indies)
Jacques Kallis (South Africa)
Imran Khan (Pakistan)
Batsmen:
Donald Bradman (Australia)
Jack Hobbs (England)
Sachin Tendulkar (India)
Best overall:
Donald Bradman (Australia)
Garfield Sobers (West Indies)
Adam Gilchrist (Australia)
This is, of course, my opinion, as someone who was born in Australia and have lived in Australia for my entire life. I am only 37 years old so didn't see any cricket before about 1982 or so. I was never particularly good at cricket but always thought of myself as a wicket keeper; so I do focus more heavily on that position than others. I am undoubtedly biased, as everyone is; but I think that this is a reasonable analysis. What is yours?
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