Cricket -- Hall Of Fame

[zaremba]

Those that combined statistical achievements, a moderate to long career with a sublime genius at the height of their game with some landmark peformances.

So who would that be?

Tough one.

I have a list but Ill not post it as I dont want to have to defend my choices (or exclusions)

Oh no mate - if you've got a list, put your money where your mouth is and post it!

 

[Goughy]

Oh no mate - if you've got a list, put your money where your mouth is and post it!

More to do with not wanting to have to defend excluding Kapil.

 

[zaremba]

More to do with not wanting to have to defend excluding Kapil.

Well the cat is out of the bag, the horse bolted etc. So let's see the list.

 

[Goughy]

Using the players listed and my rough criteria I have

Bill O'reilly (1932-1946)Australia
Clyde Walcott (1948-1960)West Indies
Denis Compton (1937-1957)England
Dennis Lillee (1971-1984)Australia
Don Bradman (1928-1948)Australia
Everton Weekes (1948-1958)West Indies
Frank Worrell (1948-1963)West Indies
Fred Trueman (1952-1965)England
Garry Sobers (1954-1974)West Indies
Geoff Boycott (1964-1982)England
George Headley (1930-1954)West Indies
Greg Chappell (1970-1984)Australia
Ian Botham (1976-1992)England
Imran Khan (1971-1992)Pakistan
Jack Hobbs (1908-1930)England
Javed Miandad (1975-1996)Pakistan
Jim Laker (1948-1959)England
Keith Miller (1946-1956)Australia
Len Hutton (1937-1955)England
Malcolm Marshall (1978-1991)West Indies
Michael Holding (1975-1987)West Indies
Ray Lindwall (1946-1960)Australia
Richard Hadlee (1972-1990)New Zealand
Sunil Gavaskar (1971-1987)India
Sydney Barnes (1901-1914)England
Viv Richards (1974-1991)West Indies
Wally Hammond (1927-1947)England
WG Grace (1880-1899)England

Hardest to exclued were Harvey and Bedi.
I feel simplistic to include all of the 3 W's but I cant find a real reason to exclude.

Its still a pretty long list but I think limited to the special and exceptional.

 

[zaremba]

THe US does HoFs prety well and they are exclusive places.

A little research suggests that actually they may be less exclusive than I at first thought. Each of the Halls of Fame for Baseball, [American] Football and [Ice] Hockey has well over 200 inductees.

And this for sports which basically involve Good Ol' Uncle US Of Stateside and very few if any other countries.

Cricket in my view has a worldwide status and history which is (or bloody well should be) at least comparable with that of any of the Yank sports and therefore, by US Hall of Fame logic, ought to sustain a Hall of Fame of at least similar size.

 

[Anil]

Fair points.

But my personal view is that Richards' status in the game, even without Test cricket, is such as to warrant a place in this hall of fame. Without having thought much about it, I'd say he's one of the top 3 or so openers of all time and was in his day the best player in the world.

he would be in my all-time xi as the 1st choice opener in a heartbeat but for me a hall of fame needs to look for a wider set of conditions to be satisfied...

 

[zaremba]

Hardest to exclued were Harvey and Bedi.

I can't believe you felt able to ignore the claims of MW Tate.

 

[fredfertang]

Nor Harold Larwood

 

[Goughy]

Nor Harold Larwood

Its painful but I dont think it can be justified.

 

[fredfertang]

Its painful but I dont think it can be justified.

Why ever not?

 

[Cevno]

Sir Ranjit singhji?

 

[silentstriker]

Barry Richards? If they are going to do that, there is no criteria which they can use to exclude Vijay Merchant, Mark Ramprakash or a bunch of others. Plus, Kumble was better than Bedi and I wouldn't have him in there, along with about 20 others. The criteria is way too loose and inconsistant.

 

[silentstriker]

Oh, and I wouldn't have Ian Botham or Kapil Dev in there either.

 

[Cevno]

Barry Richards? If they are going to do that, there is no criteria which they can use to exclude Vijay Merchant, Mark Ramprakash or a bunch of others.

Have to agree.
with that sort of criteria of unauthorised tours and first class matches many more cricketers will come into question.(Vinoo mankad,vijay merchant,mohammad nissar are some that come to mind).Vijay hazare is also an interesting one seeing the broadness of the criteria which has been used for some players.

Plus, Kumble was better than Bedi and I wouldn't have him in there, along with about 20 others. The criteria is way too loose and inconsistant.[/QUOTE]


Not sure about that.
Bedi for me is better than kumble certainly but i would probably be 50-50 as to have him in my "hall of fame"

As for the criteria ,i agree it is loose and inconsistent.
Look at wicketkeeping for instance ,if you are gonna have the likes of alan knott and rod marsh,then you ought to have farokh engineer, jeff dujon and gerry alexander etc.. too i believe.

 

[Goughy]

Barry Richards? If they are going to do that, there is no criteria which they can use to exclude Mark Ramprakash.

I dont think Richards should be included in this but the above takes the biscuit.

Richards was considered by many to be the best player in the World during his time and performed across 3 continents. Ramps was never considered anything like that.

Richards scored the same number of Test centuries in 4 Tests as Ramps did in 52.

If Im building a team I take Barry Richards over the vast majority of openers. Sure a HoF selection may be a stretch but the above comparison makes me sad.

 

[susudear]

Three Ws

The problem with this sort of exercise is that, for the reasons you've given, the merely excellent should probably be excluded. Who, then, merits a place in the Hall of Fame?

We can probably agree on the following:

Grace
Bradman
Hobbs
Hammond
M.W. Tate
Sobers

Who else?

Weekes, Walcott, Worrell?

Hutton, Hammond?

 

[haroon510]

if players like Gavasker and boycotte can make it then i dont see any reason why ranatunga didn't make it.. or can't make it

 

[biased indian]

have seen a lot of people withthier ideas....onethink every one is forgetting is that they have 55 guys ...its easy to exclude peole from a list but if you whereasked to make a list of 55 guys ...who would you remove form the original list and add instead...its easy to reduce the list to say 10 and say this is my hall of fame .

hall of fame is not a one time entry thing they will be expanding it in coming years so some one who deserves to be entered 56 will get it what is the purpose of reducing it to say 38 (Goughy) and say that ok i have closed down my hall of fame for say 10 years and then will include tendulkar lara etc .its a sport with 100+ years of history a list of 55 is not that long fo me

 

[Xuhaib]

if players like Gavasker and boycotte can make it then i dont see any reason why ranatunga didn't make it.. or can't make it

yup also can't believe there is no Afridi

 

[NUFAN]

if players like Gavasker and boycotte can make it then i dont see any reason why ranatunga didn't make it.. or can't make it

He probably needed to score around another 10 more runs per innings to be included.

Fair dinkum, if I could include some recently retired players, Ranatunga wouldn't make it in my Hall of Fame if I had 155 choices..