smash84
The Tiger King
All righty then, we start off with a bit of a tragic story and end on a happy note.
Number 40 Aubrey Faulkner
Highest Ranking 7
Total Points 65
Number of Votes Received 6/57
Rank in 1st Edition NR
One of the greatest allrounders and arguably - despite an unorthodox and extraordinary grip of the bat - the best of coaches. His pupils included Ian Peebles and ET KIllick. He made a double-hundred against Australia at Melbourne in 1910-11; but was this a finer feat than his 6 for 17 in the third Test ever played at Leeds? Some would say, rather, that he accomplished nothing better than his 153 followed by 6 for 64 against the Australians at the Saffrons, Eastbourne in 1921. Afflicted by melancholia, he died tragically by his own hand.
Number 39 Joel Garner
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 69
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition 47
Batsmen would say that the overriding feeling when first confronted by the Big Bird was that he would trample on them such was the foreshortening effect of his 6ft 8 inches. Delivered from the clouds it seemed, and at a lively pace that when the mood took could be cranked up to the brisk side of rapid, the ball would rear alarmingly from barely short of a length. Allied to that was the most devastating toe crunching yorker the game had seen since that of Charlie Griffith. Of the top wicket-takers, few have a lower average than his parsimonious 20.98.
Number 38 Graeme Pollock
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 78
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition 27
Perhaps the finest left-hand batsman the game has ever produced - Donald Bradman certainly thought so, classing only Garry Sobers as his equal among those he saw play. Another deprived of greater exposure by South Africa's isolation, Pollock showed in his 23 Tests what an awesome talent he possessed; his highest score of 274 was for many years the South African Test record. Pollock was an extremely powerful batsman, although his timing was perhaps his most obvious natural asset, and could also bowl effective legspin at times. He scored his maiden first-class century when he was just 16 and then posted his first Test hundred at 19 in Australia.
Number 37 Waqar Younis
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 79
Number of Votes Received 11/57
Rank in 1st Edition 38
The man who really put the reverse into swing. Waqar Younis bucked the 1980s trend of pitching fast and short by pitching fast and full. Not an obvious recipe for success until you factor in prodigious late inswing, which was designed to smash into the base of leg stump or the batsman's toes. In his youth, he was one of the fastest ever. Waqar's surging run was a glorious sight - and an incredible strain on his body. His method of aiming for the stumps rather than the batsman earned him the best strike rate of any bowler with over 200 Test wickets. It could have been better: back injuries cut short his prime, but determination has always resurrected him, although he was easily pushed over the line that divides aggression and intimidation.
Number 36 Greg Chappell
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 80
Number of Votes Received 14/57
Rank in 1st Edition 24
Upright and unbending, with a touch of the tin soldier about his bearing, Greg Chappell was the outstanding Australian batsman of his generation. Though he had an appetite for big scores, it was his calm brow and courtly manner that bowlers found just as disheartening. He made a century in his first and final Tests, and 22 more in between - although perhaps the outstanding batting of his career left no trace on the record-books, his 621 runs at 69 in five unauthorised World Series Cricket "SuperTests" in the Caribbean in 1979, off a West Indian attack of unprecedented hostility. Less empathic as a captain than his elder brother Ian, he nonetheless won 21 of his 48 Tests and lost only 13. He lost the Ashes in 1977, but reclaimed them in 1982-83. His feat of scoring centuries in each innings of his captaincy debut is unequalled.
Number 35 Shaun Pollock
Highest Ranking 15
Total Points 87
Number of Votes Received 14/57
Rank in 1st Edition 37
Considering the type of stuff floating around in his gene pool, it would have been surprising if Shaun Pollock had not been an international cricketer - and a very good one at that. Dad Peter led the South African attack through the 1960s; uncle Graeme was one of the finest, if not the finest, left-hander to play the game. Shaun has bits of both in his makeup, but it is as an immaculate, Hadlee-esque, line and length seamer that he has established himself. At the start of his first-class career, though, he was both slippery and aggressive and his Natal team-mates delighted in totting up the number of batsmen he pinned match after match. He was brought into the South African Test side against Michael Atherton's England tourists in 1995/96 and although his father was the convener of selectors, there was never a hint of nepotism and the younger Pollock took quickly to the higher level.
Number 34 Michael Holding
Highest Ranking 4
Total Points 91
Number of Votes Received 15/57
Rank in 1st Edition 35
It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotising its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerised. To the umpires he was malevolent stealth personified so they christened him Whispering Death. No-one in the game has bowled faster. His over to Geoff Boycott in the cauldron of Kensington Oval early in 1981 has gone down in history as the finest, fastest, most ferocious gambit of all time. Five years earlier, towards the end of the drought-ridden summer of 1976, The Oval had become a wasteland, parched beyond recognition, with slow flat heart-breaking pitches, and it was on this, in the final Test of the season, through the simple device of bowling ramrod-straight at high pace and to a full length, that he conjured 14 wickets for 149, the finest match figures ever by a West Indian. Now in the commentary box, he is gentle but fearless, a rational critic who beguiles with his deep fruity measured Jamaican twang.
Number 33 Frank Worrell
Highest Ranking 4
Total Points 96
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition NR
Sir Frank was a man of strong convictions, a brave man, and it goes without saying, a great cricketer. Though he made his name as a player his greatest contribution was to destroy for ever the myth that a coloured cricketer was not fit to lead a team. Once appointed, he ended the cliques and rivalries between the players of various islands to weld together a team which in the space of five years became the champions of the world.
He was a man of true political sense and feeling, a federalist who surely would have made even greater contributions to the history of the West Indies had he not died so tragically in hospital of leukaemia at the early age of 42
Number 32 Allan Border
Highest Ranking 6
Total Points 113
Number of Votes Received 17/57
Rank in 1st Edition 34
Allan Border parlayed three shots and a fanatical zeal about not giving away his wicket into the most durable career that cricket in his time had known. At his retirement he had featured in more Tests, more consecutive Tests, more Tests as captain and more catches than any other player - and a batting average of 50 as well. His underused left-arm spin once brought him 11 for 96 against West Indies, and he was also an artful one-day player with a deadly arm from short midwicket. Not a natural leader, nor a man of frills, he came reluctantly to the captaincy in a dark age for Australia after Kim Hughes' tearful resignation at Brisbane in 1984-85, but eventually applied himself to the task as proudly as to his batting. From the World Cup win in 1987 and regaining the Ashes two years later, Australia crusaded under Border until in 1993 they came within one ball of conquering the world by beating West Indies.
Number 31 Steve Waugh
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 128
Number of Votes Received 17/57
Rank in 1st Edition 32
Steve Waugh is the ultimate evolved cricketer. Thrown to the wolves at 20, he flailed at all bowling, sent down bouncers at Viv Richards, and tasted Ashes defeat. Then he helped win a World Cup and made 393 runs before losing his wicket in England in 1989 - but admitted that he did not understand his own game, and 18 months later lost his place to his minutes-younger twin, Mark. It was his catharsis. Upon his recall, he minimalised his batsmanship, forgoing risk and waiting for the loose ball, which he still punished severely. He was all but forced to give up bowling by back problems. A series of epic innings ensued, none better than his 200 in Jamaica in 1994-95 to speed Australia to an historic series win, or his twin hundreds at Old Trafford to turn the 1997 Ashes series.
Number 40 Aubrey Faulkner
Highest Ranking 7
Total Points 65
Number of Votes Received 6/57
Rank in 1st Edition NR
One of the greatest allrounders and arguably - despite an unorthodox and extraordinary grip of the bat - the best of coaches. His pupils included Ian Peebles and ET KIllick. He made a double-hundred against Australia at Melbourne in 1910-11; but was this a finer feat than his 6 for 17 in the third Test ever played at Leeds? Some would say, rather, that he accomplished nothing better than his 153 followed by 6 for 64 against the Australians at the Saffrons, Eastbourne in 1921. Afflicted by melancholia, he died tragically by his own hand.
Number 39 Joel Garner
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 69
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition 47
Batsmen would say that the overriding feeling when first confronted by the Big Bird was that he would trample on them such was the foreshortening effect of his 6ft 8 inches. Delivered from the clouds it seemed, and at a lively pace that when the mood took could be cranked up to the brisk side of rapid, the ball would rear alarmingly from barely short of a length. Allied to that was the most devastating toe crunching yorker the game had seen since that of Charlie Griffith. Of the top wicket-takers, few have a lower average than his parsimonious 20.98.
Number 38 Graeme Pollock
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 78
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition 27
Perhaps the finest left-hand batsman the game has ever produced - Donald Bradman certainly thought so, classing only Garry Sobers as his equal among those he saw play. Another deprived of greater exposure by South Africa's isolation, Pollock showed in his 23 Tests what an awesome talent he possessed; his highest score of 274 was for many years the South African Test record. Pollock was an extremely powerful batsman, although his timing was perhaps his most obvious natural asset, and could also bowl effective legspin at times. He scored his maiden first-class century when he was just 16 and then posted his first Test hundred at 19 in Australia.
Number 37 Waqar Younis
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 79
Number of Votes Received 11/57
Rank in 1st Edition 38
The man who really put the reverse into swing. Waqar Younis bucked the 1980s trend of pitching fast and short by pitching fast and full. Not an obvious recipe for success until you factor in prodigious late inswing, which was designed to smash into the base of leg stump or the batsman's toes. In his youth, he was one of the fastest ever. Waqar's surging run was a glorious sight - and an incredible strain on his body. His method of aiming for the stumps rather than the batsman earned him the best strike rate of any bowler with over 200 Test wickets. It could have been better: back injuries cut short his prime, but determination has always resurrected him, although he was easily pushed over the line that divides aggression and intimidation.
Number 36 Greg Chappell
Highest Ranking 10
Total Points 80
Number of Votes Received 14/57
Rank in 1st Edition 24
Upright and unbending, with a touch of the tin soldier about his bearing, Greg Chappell was the outstanding Australian batsman of his generation. Though he had an appetite for big scores, it was his calm brow and courtly manner that bowlers found just as disheartening. He made a century in his first and final Tests, and 22 more in between - although perhaps the outstanding batting of his career left no trace on the record-books, his 621 runs at 69 in five unauthorised World Series Cricket "SuperTests" in the Caribbean in 1979, off a West Indian attack of unprecedented hostility. Less empathic as a captain than his elder brother Ian, he nonetheless won 21 of his 48 Tests and lost only 13. He lost the Ashes in 1977, but reclaimed them in 1982-83. His feat of scoring centuries in each innings of his captaincy debut is unequalled.
Number 35 Shaun Pollock
Highest Ranking 15
Total Points 87
Number of Votes Received 14/57
Rank in 1st Edition 37
Considering the type of stuff floating around in his gene pool, it would have been surprising if Shaun Pollock had not been an international cricketer - and a very good one at that. Dad Peter led the South African attack through the 1960s; uncle Graeme was one of the finest, if not the finest, left-hander to play the game. Shaun has bits of both in his makeup, but it is as an immaculate, Hadlee-esque, line and length seamer that he has established himself. At the start of his first-class career, though, he was both slippery and aggressive and his Natal team-mates delighted in totting up the number of batsmen he pinned match after match. He was brought into the South African Test side against Michael Atherton's England tourists in 1995/96 and although his father was the convener of selectors, there was never a hint of nepotism and the younger Pollock took quickly to the higher level.
Number 34 Michael Holding
Highest Ranking 4
Total Points 91
Number of Votes Received 15/57
Rank in 1st Edition 35
It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotising its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerised. To the umpires he was malevolent stealth personified so they christened him Whispering Death. No-one in the game has bowled faster. His over to Geoff Boycott in the cauldron of Kensington Oval early in 1981 has gone down in history as the finest, fastest, most ferocious gambit of all time. Five years earlier, towards the end of the drought-ridden summer of 1976, The Oval had become a wasteland, parched beyond recognition, with slow flat heart-breaking pitches, and it was on this, in the final Test of the season, through the simple device of bowling ramrod-straight at high pace and to a full length, that he conjured 14 wickets for 149, the finest match figures ever by a West Indian. Now in the commentary box, he is gentle but fearless, a rational critic who beguiles with his deep fruity measured Jamaican twang.
Number 33 Frank Worrell
Highest Ranking 4
Total Points 96
Number of Votes Received 9/57
Rank in 1st Edition NR
Sir Frank was a man of strong convictions, a brave man, and it goes without saying, a great cricketer. Though he made his name as a player his greatest contribution was to destroy for ever the myth that a coloured cricketer was not fit to lead a team. Once appointed, he ended the cliques and rivalries between the players of various islands to weld together a team which in the space of five years became the champions of the world.
He was a man of true political sense and feeling, a federalist who surely would have made even greater contributions to the history of the West Indies had he not died so tragically in hospital of leukaemia at the early age of 42
Number 32 Allan Border
Highest Ranking 6
Total Points 113
Number of Votes Received 17/57
Rank in 1st Edition 34
Allan Border parlayed three shots and a fanatical zeal about not giving away his wicket into the most durable career that cricket in his time had known. At his retirement he had featured in more Tests, more consecutive Tests, more Tests as captain and more catches than any other player - and a batting average of 50 as well. His underused left-arm spin once brought him 11 for 96 against West Indies, and he was also an artful one-day player with a deadly arm from short midwicket. Not a natural leader, nor a man of frills, he came reluctantly to the captaincy in a dark age for Australia after Kim Hughes' tearful resignation at Brisbane in 1984-85, but eventually applied himself to the task as proudly as to his batting. From the World Cup win in 1987 and regaining the Ashes two years later, Australia crusaded under Border until in 1993 they came within one ball of conquering the world by beating West Indies.
Number 31 Steve Waugh
Highest Ranking 3
Total Points 128
Number of Votes Received 17/57
Rank in 1st Edition 32
Steve Waugh is the ultimate evolved cricketer. Thrown to the wolves at 20, he flailed at all bowling, sent down bouncers at Viv Richards, and tasted Ashes defeat. Then he helped win a World Cup and made 393 runs before losing his wicket in England in 1989 - but admitted that he did not understand his own game, and 18 months later lost his place to his minutes-younger twin, Mark. It was his catharsis. Upon his recall, he minimalised his batsmanship, forgoing risk and waiting for the loose ball, which he still punished severely. He was all but forced to give up bowling by back problems. A series of epic innings ensued, none better than his 200 in Jamaica in 1994-95 to speed Australia to an historic series win, or his twin hundreds at Old Trafford to turn the 1997 Ashes series.
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