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What is your definition of ATG?

P

peterhrt

U19 Captain
Some of you may recall Wisden's exercise on the leading cricketers of the 20th century. 100 judges from the nine Test nations at the time were asked to name five players each. The proportion of judges by country was based roughly on the number of Tests each team had played during the 20th century. They were mostly ex-players, journalists and cricket historians.

49 players received at least one vote (1% of the electorate). 22 received at least five. 15 received ten or more.

Only 5 cricketers were nominated by a fifth of the electorate. Everyone voted for Bradman so he got 100 votes. Sobers had 90. Then there was a massive gap. Hobbs came third on 30 votes, followed by Warne (27) and Viv Richards (25).

If you defined an ATG cricketer as somebody whom one in twenty experienced judges would place in their top five, then there would be 22 from the 20th century. Add the last thirty years of the 19th century and the twenty-odd years of the 21st, then given the odd candidate overlapping centuries you would be up around the 30 mark.

Only one wicket-keeper was nominated. Godfrey Evans received three votes, one of which came from fellow keeper Bob Taylor.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
peterhrt said:
Some of you may recall Wisden's exercise on the leading cricketers of the 20th century. 100 judges from the nine Test nations at the time were asked to name five players each. The proportion of judges by country was based roughly on the number of Tests each team had played during the 20th century. They were mostly ex-players, journalists and cricket historians.

49 players received at least one vote (1% of the electorate). 22 received at least five. 15 received ten or more.

Only 5 cricketers were nominated by a fifth of the electorate. Everyone voted for Bradman so he got 100 votes. Sobers had 90. Then there was a massive gap. Hobbs came third on 30 votes, followed by Warne (27) and Viv Richards (25).

If you defined an ATG cricketer as somebody whom one in twenty experienced judges would place in their top five, then there would be 22 from the 20th century. Add the last thirty years of the 19th century and the twenty-odd years of the 21st, then given the odd candidate overlapping centuries you would be up around the 30 mark.

Only one wicket-keeper was nominated. Godfrey Evans received three votes, one of which came from fellow keeper Bob Taylor.
Click to expand...
Obviously flawed methodology. Though I don't mind seeing pundit list and all-time XIs.
 
P

peterhrt

U19 Captain
subshakerz said:
Obviously flawed methodology. Though I don't mind seeing pundit list and all-time XIs.
Click to expand...
Judges:

England (28): Agnew, Bailey, Alex Bannister, Jack Bannister, Bedser, Scyld Berry, Bird, Close, Cowdrey, Dexter, Engel, Gover, Graveney, Keating, Tony Lewis, George Mann, Marks, Martin-Jenkins, Pringle, Netta Rheinberg, Selvey, Swanton, Bob Taylor, Trueman, Crawford White, Woodcock, Wooldridge, Wynne-Thomas.

Australia (20): Baum, Beames, Benaud, Bill Brown, Cashman, Ian Chappell, Coward, Davidson, Haigh, Hedgecock, Inverarity, Lawry, McFarline, Maxwell, Morris, Pollard, Sheahan, Bob Simpson, Starr, Steve Waugh.

South Africa (11): Bacher, Barlow, Bryden, Endean, Goddard, Gordon, Owen-Smith, Peter Pollock, Reddy, van der Merwe, Waite.

West Indies (11): Alexander, Becca, Burton, Cozier, Kentish, Lloyd, Pereira, Rae, Donna Symmonds, Walcott, Weekes.

India (10): Bose, Doshi, Gavaskar, Ayaz Menon, R Mohan, KN Prabhu, Raj Singh, Srikkanth, Umrigar, Venkataraghavan.

New Zealand (8): Brittenden, Cameron, Walter Hadlee, Neely, Reid, Sutcliffe, Weir, Graeme Wright.

Pakistan (8): Arif Abbasi, Fareshteh Gati, Hanif, Intikhab, Javed Burki, Mushtaq Mohammad, Omar Kureshi, Qamar Ahmed.

Sri Lanka (3): Stanley Jayasinghe, Madugalle, Vaidyasekera.

Zimbabwe (1): Houghton.

Each picked five players. So 500 votes cast. Maximum for any one player 100. Player votes:

100 - Bradman
90 - Sobers
30 - Hobbs
27 - Warne
25 - Viv Richards
19 - Lillee, Worrell
18 - Hammond
14 - Compton
13 - Hadlee, Imran
12 - Gavaskar
11 - Barnes, Hutton
10 - O'Reilly
9 - Botham
6 - Larwood, Lindwall, Tendulkar
5 - Benaud, Headley, Kapil Dev
4 - Graeme Pollock, Rhodes, Trumper
3 - Evans, Marshall, Wasim Akram
2 - Bedser, Grimmett, Trueman, Woolley
1 - Ambrose, Bland, Border, Bosanquet, Chandrasekhar, Ian Chappell, Constantine, Donald, Tich Freeman, Lance Gibbs, Holding, Lloyd, McCabe, Bruce Mitchell, Ranjitsinhji, Tate, Pelham Warner (mostly for off-field)

Among those who received no votes were Greg Chappell, Macartney, Keith Miller, Lara, Knott, Laker, Waqar and Barry Richards.
 
Last edited:
Lillian Thomson

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
That Wisden list is complete bollox. Those who left out Sobers said they did so because he would get in anyway and they wanted to squeeze someone else in. Lucky all 100 didn’t think that way.
Others just dumped in some random team mate they wanted to give a mention.
 
Coronis

Coronis

International Coach
Lillian Thomson said:
That Wisden list is complete bollox. Those who left out Sobers said they did so because he would get in anyway and they wanted to squeeze someone else in. Lucky all 100 didn’t think that way.
Others just dumped in some random team mate they wanted to give a mention.
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Shocker
 
F

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
The ESPN Legends of Cricket series (2001) is a good place to start. Most of the videos should be on YouTube. The 25 players in that series are:

Bradman
Sobers
IV Richards
Warne
Hobbs
Lillee
Tendulkar
Imran
Hammond
Gavaskar
Botham
Hadlee
Miller
Grace
G Pollock
Marshall
G Chappell
Headley
Worrell
Hutton
Wasim Akram
Kapil
S Waugh
B Richards
Border

I reckon 60 ATGs easily
 
Slifer

Slifer

International Captain
My atg list subject to changes:

Aus : McGrath, Lillee, O'Reilly, Lindwall, Miller, Bradman, Gilchrist, Ponting, Chappell

Wi: Lara, Viv, Sobers, Headley, Ambrose, Marshall

Pak: Imran, Wasim

Ind: Sunny, Sachin

Nz: hadlee

Rsa: Donald, Steyn, Kallis, G Pollock

SL: Murali

Eng: Hobbs, Hutton, Sutcliffe, Hammond, Barnes, Trueman, Knott, Laker, Verity

I go back and forth with the following players: Sangakkara, Davidson, Border, Barrington.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
Slifer said:
My atg list subject to changes:

Aus : McGrath, Lillee, O'Reilly, Lindwall, Miller, Bradman, Gilchrist, Ponting, Chappell

Wi: Lara, Viv, Sobers, Headley, Ambrose, Marshall

Pak: Imran, Wasim

Ind: Sunny, Sachin

Nz: hadlee

Rsa: Donald, Steyn, Kallis, G Pollock

SL: Murali

Eng: Hobbs, Hutton, Sutcliffe, Hammond, Barnes, Trueman, Knott, Laker, Verity

I go back and forth with the following players: Sangakkara, Davidson, Border, Barrington.
Click to expand...
Decent list. Don't think Sutcliffe and Verity quite make it. Border needs to be there.
 
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