CW Top 50 Cricketers of All Time - 2nd Edition

[Red]

I'd be happy to facilitate this. I think it'll be pretty obvious which lists are for real and which aren't.

 

[Coronis]

Flat track bully who played crappy bowlers in an easy era. Sachin Tendulkar for number 1 any day.

Only rated so highly for longevity.

 

[The Sean]

I ran the first one of these at the end of 2009, with the countdown concluding in the lead-up to Christmas. I wasn’t initially looking to do a second one quickly, and my thinking was probably to revisit it – were I to revisit it at all – after five years or so (meaning we would have just finished the second installation). Smali’s version 2.0 came along two-and-a-half years after mine, in mid-2012. It’s been another two and half years since that one, so if another were to be done now it would be the third CW50 in barely five years. The view expressed by a few blokes that it should happen every three years is probably pretty sound, but with that in mind I would personally be inclined to wait until later in the year to run part 3.

Just my opinion, obviously.

 

[The Sean]

There was a bit of a witch hunt last time to find out who hadn't voted for don as their number 1. So I think we have to be aware making the lists public will lead to some recriminations

As I recall, the issue wasn’t people not putting Bradman at no.1, it was people not putting Bradman in their list at all. From memory, something like ten times more people put Bradman at no.1 than Sobers (or anyone else), but a minority left him off their lists completely for one reason or another, thus Sobers getting the top spot. The problem some people had with that wasn’t that Sobers was no.1 per se, but that the final rankings didn’t reflect how CW as a community felt and rather had a kind of “sabotaged” feel to them. Not knowing who voted for whom I can’t say, but that was the prevailing view as I remember it.

As for public voting, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. While I’d have no problem with people making their vote public if they want to, a lot of the fun of these exercises is the suspense of the countdown, which will be removed somewhat if we can see how everyone voted in advance and work it out for ourselves.

 

[harsh.ag]

Doing this for the first time, and it pretty much off the top of my head - (I haven't been able to pen down what makes someone greater personally as such, so perhaps some of the sharper people here can tell me something from the list)

1. Sir Don
2. WG
3. Sir Garry
4. Sachin
5. Lillee
6. Imran
7. Warnie
8. Maco
9. Murali
10. Sir Jack Hobbs
11. SF
12. McG
13. Kallis
14. Sir Richard Hadlee
15. Wasim
16. Sir Viv
17. Sir Len Hutton
18. Brian Charles
19. Sunny
20. Sir Curtly
21. Hammond
22. Ponting
23. Steyn
24. Gilly
25. Miller

Chappell, Headley, Sangakkara, Botham, Kapil, Holding, and O'Reilly the closest. Difficult.

 

[Riggins]

Isn't that a given?

Pretty sure I had Marto at 1 last time and he's done nothing but go up since then.

 

[smash84]

As I recall, the issue wasn’t people not putting Bradman at no.1, it was people not putting Bradman in their list at all. From memory, something like ten times more people put Bradman at no.1 than Sobers (or anyone else), but a minority left him off their lists completely for one reason or another, thus Sobers getting the top spot. The problem some people had with that wasn’t that Sobers was no.1 per se, but that the final rankings didn’t reflect how CW as a community felt and rather had a kind of “sabotaged” feel to them. Not knowing who voted for whom I can’t say, but that was the prevailing view as I remember it.

As for public voting, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. While I’d have no problem with people making their vote public if they want to, a lot of the fun of these exercises is the suspense of the countdown, which will be removed somewhat if we can see how everyone voted in advance and work it out for ourselves.

yep, that was the problem. A ridiculously large number of people not putting Bradman into their lists at all. I remember one well known member removing Bradman from his list just for the heck of it. Was so annoying. The overall exercise was a lot of fun and had it not been for number 1 and number 2 coming out of order (IMO) the 2nd edition would have been almost as good as the first edition.

 

[weldone]

If you want to put up a list of 50, you should ask everyone to select 50 - not 25.

In that way, it will be a better representation too I believe. A troll voting Flintoff at #1 will be offset by 2 genuine #25 votes for Shaun Pollock for example - unlike now, where #25 only gets 1 point.

 

[Singh Is King]

Based on Benauds selection format of 2 openers, 3 middle order batsmen, 2 all rounders, 1 keeper, 2 fast bowlers and 1 spinner, the XI of our top 50:

Jack Hobbs
W.G Grace
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar
Vivian Richards
Garfield Sobers
Adam Gilchrist
Imran Khan
Malcolm Marshall
Shane Warne
Glenn Mcgrath

Happy Birthday Maco, R.I.P.

Sounds great to me, but would have Gavaskar over 1 of the openers considering the bowlers which were in his era.

When could this vote happen? Is it a definite?

 

[OverratedSanity]

As I recall, the issue wasn’t people not putting Bradman at no.1, it was people not putting Bradman in their list at all. From memory, something like ten times more people put Bradman at no.1 than Sobers (or anyone else), but a minority left him off their lists completely for one reason or another, thus Sobers getting the top spot. The problem some people had with that wasn’t that Sobers was no.1 per se, but that the final rankings didn’t reflect how CW as a community felt and rather had a kind of “sabotaged” feel to them. Not knowing who voted for whom I can’t say, but that was the prevailing view as I remember it.

As for public voting, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. While I’d have no problem with people making their vote public if they want to, a lot of the fun of these exercises is the suspense of the countdown, which will be removed somewhat if we can see how everyone voted in advance and work it out for ourselves.

The easy way to counter this would be to change the weightage of the points. At a glance it looks like the points system is very basic... It's a linear graph with no. 25 getting 1 point, 24 getting 2,.......No.2 getting 24 ,and No. 1 getting 25 points. This leaves it open for easy abuse. It should follow a gentle exponential graph.

It's the reason why formula 1 rankings don't just make the difference between the winner and the runner up just 1 point like the positions lower down the finishing order. Here's the points system used in F1:
1st : 25 points
2nd : 18 points
3rd : 15 points
4th : 12 points
5th : 10 points
6th : 8 points
7th : 6 points
8th : 4 points
9th : 2 points
10th : 1 point

This makes winning a big deal. Similarly finishing on top of a list should be a big deal and should give that player a boost. Now, if a system similar to this was used, it may well turn out to be even more open to abuse than the stupid simple linear one, but I think it's worth a shot.

 

[weldone]

The easy way to counter this would be to change the weightage of the points. At a glance it looks like the points system is very basic... It's a linear graph with no. 25 getting 1 point, 24 getting 2,.......No.2 getting 24 ,and No. 1 getting 25 points. This leaves it open for easy abuse. It should follow a gentle exponential graph.

It's the reason why formula 1 rankings don't just make the difference between the winner and the runner up just 1 point like the positions lower down the finishing order. Here's the points system used in F1:
1st : 25 points
2nd : 18 points
3rd : 15 points
4th : 12 points
5th : 10 points
6th : 8 points
7th : 6 points
8th : 4 points
9th : 2 points
10th : 1 point

This makes winning a big deal. Similarly finishing on top of a list should be a big deal and should give that player a boost. Now, if a system similar to this was used, it may well turn out to be even more open to abuse than the stupid simple linear one, but I think it's worth a shot.

It will obviously be more open to abuse, OS. Go with this:

If you want to put up a list of 50, you should ask everyone to select 50 - not 25.

In that way, it will be a better representation too I believe. A troll voting Flintoff at #1 will be offset by 2 genuine #25 votes for Shaun Pollock for example - unlike now, where #25 only gets 1 point.

 

[weldone]

An even better way to do this will be to select #1 by voting, then #2 by voting among the rest, and so on...That system will be perfectly resistant to any abuse

But apparently we think that's too tedious a process..

 

[Howe_zat]

I propose having Ikki and Kyear screen the submitted lists.

jesus

 

[Howe_zat]

As I recall, the issue wasn’t people not putting Bradman at no.1, it was people not putting Bradman in their list at all. From memory, something like ten times more people put Bradman at no.1 than Sobers (or anyone else), but a minority left him off their lists completely for one reason or another, thus Sobers getting the top spot. The problem some people had with that wasn’t that Sobers was no.1 per se, but that the final rankings didn’t reflect how CW as a community felt and rather had a kind of “sabotaged” feel to them. Not knowing who voted for whom I can’t say, but that was the prevailing view as I remember it.

As for public voting, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that. While I’d have no problem with people making their vote public if they want to, a lot of the fun of these exercises is the suspense of the countdown, which will be removed somewhat if we can see how everyone voted in advance and work it out for ourselves.

yeah the problem was flem iirc

 

[Spark]

Asking people to list 50 names in order is bound to be dodgy as hell IMO. Particularly because, for me, the gap between #50 and #40 will be miniscule compared to, say, the gap between #12 and #9. You could have some hybrid, asking people to rank a set number of names which get a diminishing number of points going down the list, then have a "pool" of names which all get the same number of points - your "honourable mentions", as it were.

 

[Cabinet96]

Tbh, I never quite got the logic of doing top 25's and having a top 50. What if say, hypothetically, there was a player everyone considered the 30th best of all time, he wouldn't make the top 50 just because he wasn't in the top 25, whereas other players, who only a few rated in the top 50, might make it due to being 20th in a few lists. The pick 25 system discriminates against solid performers in favour of more polarising.

 

[smash84]

Tbh, I never quite got the logic of doing top 25's and having a top 50. What if say, hypothetically, there was a player everyone considered the 30th best of all time, he wouldn't make the top 50 just because he wasn't in the top 25, whereas other players, who only a few rated in the top 50, might make it due to being 20th in a few lists. The pick 25 system discriminates against solid performers in favour of more polarising.

The chances of this happening are very very remote IMO

 

[smash84]

Asking people to list 50 names in order is bound to be dodgy as hell IMO. Particularly because, for me, the gap between #50 and #40 will be miniscule compared to, say, the gap between #12 and #9. You could have some hybrid, asking people to rank a set number of names which get a diminishing number of points going down the list, then have a "pool" of names which all get the same number of points - your "honourable mentions", as it were.

Yeah awta. Also it is difficult as hell to rank your top 25 let alone top 50. Makes the exercise stupidly tedious too.

 

[Hurricane]

If comparing results between years is an objective then having relatively similar voting structures is important as an end into itself.

 

[Spark]

I don't understand how that works but ok