CW chooses the second greatest batsman ever redux, 100 men from 5 eras whittled to 1

[mr_mister]

Must admit I find comparing batsmen the most fun part of my time on this forum.

Will apologise for not including Bradman in this thing but it would kinda ruin it to have him there considering there is no doubt about his title as best ever batsman at this point


I'm borrowing Slim Shady's method of in his best looking cricketer thread, which I actually prefer to my 1v1 knockout system, it allows for multiple players to advance in instances where both deserve to.


Because I want to have fun with this, I've split players up until 5 eras, Golden era, Inter-war, Post-WW2, Pre-Modern and the Modern age. I'll then be splitting those groups up again for Round 1.

I'm almost positive I've missed some valuable names and included some who are undeserving, so if there is a giant outcry of complaint before this starts I can fiddle with the names a bit. We'll start in a few days. I've tried to be as objective as possible and based this on CW opinion when choosing the names. When it got down to choosing the 19th and 20th player I went by test stats over anecdotal evidence.

So yeah, I'll be presenting a group of 10 players, chosen from their groups of 20 in chronological FC debut order and half of those names will advance to the next round. Users simply post the 5 out of 10 they think are worth advancing to the next round so there won't be too many tricky decisions at first. So each group of 20 will require 2 voting periods for the group.


I'll sort out the groups within the groups later

Golden age :

WG Grace
Arthur Shrewsbury
FS Jackson
CB Fry
Tom Hayward
Archie Maclaren
KS Ranji
Jack Hobbs
Phil Mead
Patsy Hendren
Frank Woolley
John Tyldesley
Andy Sandham

Victor Trumper
Charles Macartney
Clem Hill
Monty Noble
Warren Bardsley

Aubrey Faulkner
Herbie Taylor



Inter-War Period


Herb Sutcliffe
Wally Hammond
KS Duleep
Maurice Leyland
Eddie Paynter
Len Hutton
Denis Compton

Bill Woodfull
Bill Ponsford
Stan McCabe
Lindsay Hassett
Arthur Morris

Bruce Mitchell
Dudley Nourse

George Headley
Frank Worrell

Vijay Merchant
Vijay Hazare

Stewie Dempster
Martin Donnelly



Post-War Period (up until ~1975)


Ken Barrington
Peter May
Geoff Boycott
Graham Gooch

Neil Harvey
Bob Simpson
Bill Lawry
Greg Chappell
Doug Walters

Barry Richards
Graeme Pollock

Clyde Walcott
Everton Weekes
Gary Sobers
Rohan Kanhai
Clive Lloyd

Sunil Gavaskar

Hanif Mohammad
Zaheer Abbas
Javed Miandad

Pre-Modern Period (up until ~1995)

David Gower

Allan Border
Steve Waugh
Mark Waugh
Michael Slater
Matt Hayden
Damian Martyn

Gary Kirsten

Alvin Kallicharran
Viv Richards
Gordon Greenidge
Brian Lara
Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Sachin Tendulkar
Mohammad Azharuddin

Saeed Anwar
Inzamam Ul-Haq

Martin Crowe

Aravinda De Silva

Andy Flower


Modern Period (~1995 onwards)


Kevin Pieterson
Alistair Cook
Joe Root

Ricky Ponting
Adam Gilchrist
Michael Hussey
Michael Clarke
Steve Smith

Jacques Kallis
Graeme Smith
AB De Villiers
Hashim Amla

Rahul Dravid
Virender Sehwag

Mohammad Yousuf
Younus Khan

Ross Taylor
Kane Williamson

Mahela Jaywardene
Kumar Sangakkara





Hard part over

 

[Howe_zat]

Don Bradman is the second greatest batsman ever.

 

[mr_mister]

I know there are arguments that Grace is better or whatever, but I truly feel like Bradman being in this thing would kind of ruin it.

 

[mr_mister]

If people really want I can put Bradman in, I'm worried he would get troll anti-votes and if he doesn't end up in the final 2 the thing would be a joke

 

[fredfertang]

Don Bradman is the second greatest batsman ever.

I thought he came in at 8?

 

[harsh.ag]

Bradman will forever be number 2. Rigged vote #DownWithMrMrTheFascist

 

[mr_mister]

Right well if you want Bradman in, I suppose Joe Hardstaff can be booted off the inter-war group and a mod can change the title to best batsman ever


Much more important is whether I've got these groups right. I'm worried here are some potential big names I missed in the Golden Age period for example

 

[fredfertang]

I'd suggest you've got the wrong Tyldesley - not saying Ernest isn't worth his place in the top 100 but John Tommy was always considered the greater batsman even though his stats are inferior

 

[mr_mister]

noted and changed

 

[ankitj]

Who won the last edition of this?

 

[mr_mister]

Sobers beat Viv in the final IIRC, it was just a 32 man thing though

 

[Howe_zat]

change the thread title to second greatest test batsman and it can be conducted in the spirit you intended

 

[mr_mister]

But that's the thing, I want people from the Golden Age to be a chance of winning. I feel if it's subjected to test batsmen only Grace has no chance of making the final 20

 

[mr_mister]

I could just make it best ever FC batsman, change Hardstaff to Bradman and squeeze Graeme Hick somewhere in here as well.

 

[viriya]

Agreed on Test only.

 

[Furball]

Lara.

[/thread]

 

[mr_mister]

alright well I suppose Test only isn't that big a compromise from my original idea. Does mean some of these player's chances of advancing very far are shot (Vijay Merchant for example)

 

[weldone]

alright well I suppose Test only isn't that big a compromise from my original idea. Does mean some of these player's chances of advancing very far are shot (Vijay Merchant for example)

If it's test only then why isn't Rahane ahead of Kohli? And why isn't Sehwag ahead of both (based on their career so far)?

 

[viriya]

Missing:

Desmond Haynes
Lindsay Hassett
Stephen Fleming
Richie Richardson
Ross Taylor
Gundappa Viswanath
Misbah-ul-Haq
Angelo Mathews

probably more, but these are the most glaring.

 

[mr_mister]

If it's test only then why isn't Rahane ahead of Kohli? And why isn't Sehwag ahead of both (based on their career so far)?

Well my idea wasnt for it to be test only...