Your All-time Top 5's

[wpdavid]

I wonder who we think is the best actual all-time top 5 batting lineup?

Maybe WI circa early 1980's? One of several Aus lineups in the last 15 years? Aus in 1948?

 

[King Pietersen]

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Flintoff
Read

England's 2006 Ashes line-up > *.

 

[Trumpers_Ghost]

As silly as it is to have a club cricketer like WG Grace on these lists, ...............

ok then i'l correct it too: As silly as it is to have a very good club cricketer like WG Grace on these lists



I'm perfectly willing to debate the legitamacy of that comment on a dedicated thread. May get around to it, may not.

 

[Michaelf7777777]

Best actual batting lineup for me in history is Bradman's invincibles of 1948 with a top 6 of Morris, Barnes, Bradman, Hassett, Miller and Harvey with Loxton/Johnson, Tallon and Lindwall still to come. Backup's fror the top 6 in Bill Brown, Loxton and Ron Hamence were hardly sloppy either.

 

[zaremba]

Top 3 Opening Batsman

1. Hobbs
2. Hutton
3. Sutcliffe

Top 5 Middle-Order Batsman

1. Bradman
2. Hammond
3. IVA Richards
4. G Pollock
5. Headley

Top 4 Allrounders

1. WG Grace
2. Sobers
3. Imran
4. Hadlee

Top 3 Wicketkeeper-Batsman

1. Gilchrist
2. Sangakarra
3. Flower

Top 5 Spin Bowlers

1. Yawn (chucker)
2. Yawn (drugs ban)
3. Verity
4. Laker
5. Abdul Qadir

Top 1 Pace Bowler

1. Marshall

Top 3 Cricketers

1= Bradman / Grace
3. SF Barnes

 

[Evermind]

So chucker ahead of druggie?

 

[zaremba]

Yes but I am bored to tears even thinking about the comparison between the 2

 

[Indipper]

ok then i'l correct it too: As silly as it is to have a very good club cricketer like WG Grace on these lists



I'm perfectly willing to debate the legitamacy of that comment on a dedicated thread. May get around to it, may not.

No one will debate something that stupid. Or looking at this thread, they most definitely will.

 

[Migara]

Here are the ODI versions

Top 5 openers

1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. Adam Gilchrist
3. Sanath Jayasuriya
4. Saeed Anwar
5. Desmond Haynes

Top 5 middle order batsmen
1. Viv Richards
2. Ricky Ponting
3. Brian Lara
4. Kevin Pietersen
5. MS Dhoni

Top 5 pacemen
1. Glenn Mcgrath
2. Wasim Akram
3. Joel Garner
4. Waqar Younis
5. Shaun Pollock

Top 5 spinners
1. Mutthiah Muralidaran
2. Saqlain Mushtaq
3. Shane Warne
4. Anil Kumble
5. Abdul Qadir

Top 5 keepers
1. Adam Gilchrist
2. MS Dhoni
3. Kumar Sangakkara
4. Brendon McCullum
5. Mark Boucher

Top 5 all rounders
1. Jaques Kallis
2. Imran Khan
3. Sanath Jayasuriya
4. Chris Cairns
5. Kapil Dev

Top 5 Cricketers
1. Sanath Jayasuriya
2. Viv Richards
3. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Wasim Akram
5. Muralidaran

 

[Debris]

Then why not Barry Richards who scored 2 hundreds and 2 fifties in just four Tests averaging 72.6.

OR Andrew Ganteaume who scored a hundred in a solitary innings in Tests averaging above Bradman.

OR Charles Mariott who

• took a five-for in every Test innings he played and
• a ten for in every Test.
• The only bowler ever to perform the feat

OR SF Barnes who

• Took 49 wickets in a Test series. He would have been closer to 60 if he had played all five Tests of the series !! No one comes close even in a six Test series.
• He took 189 wickets in mere 27 Tests. Here is how long it took some of the players you are more familiar with to reach that mark

• Murali : 42
• Warne : 41
• McGrath : 43
• Marshall : 41
• Imran : 43

I could go on and on

Umm Barnes was in my list.

And as previously stated, I don't rate anyone who played after the first world war.

 

[Evermind]

Umm Barnes was in my list.

And as previously stated, I don't rate anyone who played after the first world war.

A little too liberal, TBH. I'd say anyone who debuted in the 20th century (or thereafter) is crap.

 

[The Sean]

Nah, anyone who ever even played Test cricket is over rated.

Alfred Mynn FTW.

 

[silentstriker]

Top 5 Opening Batsman

1. Jack Hobbs
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Sir Len Hutton
4. Herbert Sutcliffe
5. Arthur Morris

Not interested at all in the Hayden debate, but he wouldn't make my top ten openers. By the time his career is over, Sehwag will be as good as Hayden was. And Sehwag sucks.

Top 5 Middle-Order Batsman

1. Sir Donald Bradman
2. Gary Sobers
3. Greg Chappell
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Wally Hammond

Top 5 Allrounders

1. Sir Garfield Sobers
2. Imran Khan
3. Keith Miller
4. Jacques Kallis
5. Ian Botham

Top 3 Wicketkeeper-Batsman

1. Adam Gilchrist
2. Andy Flower
3. Kumar Sangakkara

Top 5 Spin Bowlers

1. Shane Warne
2. Muttiah Muralitharan
3. Jim Laker
4. Bill O'Reilly
5. Underwood

Top 5 Pace Bowlers

1. Glenn McGrath
2. Malcolm Marshall
3. Curtly Ambrose
4. Imran Khan
5. Fred Trueman

Top 5 Cricketers

1. Sir Donald Bradman
2. Sir Garfield Sobers
3. Glenn McGrath
4. Jack Hobbs
5. Malcolm Marshall

Just picked the #1/#2 from various lists...

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Top 5 Opening Batsman

1. Jack Hobbs
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Sir Len Hutten
4. Hebert Sutcliffe
5. Arthur Morris

...

"Hutten" and "Hebert". The same typing errors as the opening post..........either a duplicate account or very lazy.

 

[Richard]

Shoaib Akhtar and Waqar Younis at Sharjah in 2002- they not any good?
Caddick, Hoggard and Jones at Brisbane in 2002- they not any good?
Pollock, Donald and Kallis at Melbourne in 2001- they not any good?
Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff at the Oval in 2005- they not any good?
Vaas and Malinga at Cairns in 2004- they not any good?
Walsh and Bishop at Adelaide in 1997- they not any good?
Zaheer Khan at Melbourne in 2007- he not any good?
Harmison, Flintoff and Kallis at Sydney in 2005- they not any good?
Sharma and Pathan at Adelaide in 2008- they not any good?
Pollock, Ntini, Nel and Kallis at Durban in 2006- they not any good?


If you believe none of those bowlers mentioned above are any good, then you've got an incredibly warped opinion of what makes a decent bowler. Hayden made hundreds against all of those bowlers, and if guys like Donald, Pollock, Waqar Younis, Akhtar, Hoggard, Zaheer, Sharma, Ntini, Caddick, Jones, Vaas, Walsh, Bishop, Flintoff and Harmison and the others aren't good Test bowlers, then I don't know what makes a good Test bowler.

Try to take note of the difference "good Test bowlers at some point" and "good Test bowlers at the point in question".

 

[Richard]

Just write it off as one of Richard's crackpot theories and move on.

It isn't, though. Though clearly it helps some people to think as such.

 

[Richard]

Harmison was a good Test bowler in 2004/2005. He was picked in the World XI in 2005, and took 17 wickets in that 2005 Ashes series, he may be a slightly laughable character now (although I believe he's still got it in him, in England anyway), but in 2005 he was genuinely quick, and a serious wicket-taker.

No he wasn't, actually. Harmison has been poor for almost all his Test career. In 2005 he was as bad as ever, despite knocking-over a load of wickets at the end of both innings' in the Lord's Test. For most of that Test and the entire rest of the series he was terrible. He was also abysmal in 2004/05 in South Africa, and in the home series against West Indies.

He was better at the start of 2004 in West Indies and at home to New Zealand but that's it, and apart from those 2 series' he's always been absolutely shambolic.

 

[silentstriker]

"Hutten" and "Hebert". The same typing errors as the opening post..........either a duplicate account or very lazy.

Whoops. Copied and pasted, and then changed the names. Very lazy . The OP has Matthew Hayden as the best opener of all time, and someone other than McGrath as the best fast bowler.....

 

[Richard]

Rubbish. When a batsman dominates for 3-4 years straight without having 1 bleak patch, they're going to eventually going to experience a period of lapse, unless you're Sir Donald Bradman. It's part of the rigours of International cricket.

It is indeed, but that wasn't what happened in that case. Hayden simply got worked-out by the sort of bowling he never had the power to counter.

When you've got well over 120 Test caps to your name, I think you'd be able to assess the conditions regardless of what form you were in.

The conditions are completely different depending on what form you're in, see?

Nope, it's more of an indication of what a garbage was posted before it.

No, it's an indication of a poor-quality poster, simple as. If you actually read a few posts you'd notice that.

Averaged under 30 after 2001/02, when you claim it became signifcantly easier for batsman. By your logic, Ntini is one of the best bowlers of all-time.

No he's not.

Bad decisions even themselves out. Hayden had several poor umpiring decisions go against him this summer which later resulted in his exit from the game.

Bad decisions don't even themselves out actually, not remotely close. In any case, nothing that happened in 2008/09 is remotely relevant to what happened in 2001/02 or 2005/06 or anywhere else.

And that's why he scored a 100 in the Test that featured the least amount of runs out of that entire series.

No, that was because he was twice given n\o wrongly.

If he ceased his ability to take wickets on flat pitches then why did he maintain the exact same average from 2001 to 2003?

Because not every wicket is a non-seaming one.

Nope, that's just another excuse to downplay Hayden's acchievements.

Actually it has precisely nothing to do with Hayden whatsoever, I've said that about Caddick since before I even made a single comment on Hayden.

Well, you'd imagine that he'd lift his game against the team that has dominated world cricket for the past 15 years.

Would you? I wouldn't, as when he's lifted and dropped his game has conformed to precisely no pattern whatsoever.

Okay, he did have it over Hayden there but to say that he was significantly weaker in 2001/02 is a joke. You just don't lose it within' the snap of someones fingers. If you told Donald that Hayden's acchievements against him were flawed because he was a useless old hack during the 2001/02 series then he'd most likely slap you.

Actually he wouldn't. Donald himself has acknowledged that he should not have played that series. He recognises that he tainted himself badly there, and some ignoramuses still hold it against him and will continue to do so.

I think all that watched that series would firmly disagree with you.

Not really. I know plenty who don't on here just for starters.

Haha, a joke? That's why they all came out before the match and said they wanted to belt Australia to benefit their own home countries. It's easy to say you didn't try after you destroyed though, aye?

Most people who watched that World XI "series" have acknowledged that it was a terrible idea and no-one has remotely countenanced the idea of repeating it. It's just a shame the silly thing was played ITFP. Many people, myself included, were against it before it was put on.

 

[Richard]

It's funny how there are like 101 little excuses Richard has for each point to denigrate Hayden.

"Between 01-02 x bowler was crap or between 02-03, y bowler was crap for 2-3 tests, then good, then crap again, and Hayden played him when he was crap. z bowler was at the end of his career, it doesn't matter that he was still bowling good...don't you know that...anyone who knows cricket knows that...I don't care if Hayden averaged 100 because in the 3 tests in the 90s he failed!"

Actually every single thing relates purely to the bowler \ pitch in question and has precisely nothing to do with Hayden. Not that you'd know that, because as I say you don't have a clue where it comes to assessing me.