5 Most Influential Cricketers of All Time

[smash84]

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Murali - Changed the way we thought of the chucking law, created records that may never be broken. Also, while Saqlain invented the doosra, Murali perfected it.

Saqlain had pretty much perfected the doosra. I don't quite understand where exactly was he lacking in bowling the doosra that Murali completed??

 

[Teja.]

Grace - Father of modern cricket and all that..
Bradman - As Haigh said 'A name bigger than the game itself'
Lindwall/Lillee - Lillee was the model on which a hell load of ATG bowlers worked themselves on but then Lindwall was the same for Lillee himself (iirc)
Sarfaraz Nawaz - The phenomenon of reverse swing might have been achieved before him on occasions but he was the one who made it a science by finding the exact causal factors to deploy it on a regular basis and most importantly passed it down in his team which led to three ATG bowlers in the next 20 years.
Learie Contastine - The first true superstar black cricketer.

 

[Migara]

Saqlain had pretty much perfected the doosra. I don't quite understand where exactly was he lacking in bowling the doosra that Murali completed??

Amount of overspin perhaps?

 

[mrcheek]

The most influential man in English cricket history may be Tom Cartwright.

He was the man who withdrew from the England squad to South Africa, and was replaced by D'Oliveira. And suddenly history changed.

Also, he was doing some coaching at Somerset when he came across a young all rounder named Botham, who lacked any kind of discipline or commitment. Without Cartwright's guidance, Botham would never have even played first class cricket.

But seriously:
WG Grace
Ranjitsinghi
Don Bradman
Imran Khan
Shane Warne (surprised nobodys mentioned him. Leg spin had been written off until he arrived on the scene)

 

[mrcheek]

Saqlain had pretty much perfected the doosra. I don't quite understand where exactly was he lacking in bowling the doosra that Murali completed??

Saqlain had the misfortune of using a legal action, instead of chucking....

 

[cnerd123]

Saqlain had pretty much perfected the doosra. I don't quite understand where exactly was he lacking in bowling the doosra that Murali completed??

Also there was a change in Saqlain's runup/action which, once spotted, made him easier to read, along with his over-reliance on the doosra in his later years. That made him predictable, which lead to his eventual downfall.

Also, I don't think Saqlain's accuracy with the doosra matched up to Muralis. Although I could be wrong.

Murali, over his career, used the doosra perfectly and accurately, and was nearly impossible to pick.

 

[smash84]

Amount of overspin perhaps?

perhaps....but i wouldn't say that adding overspin perfected the doosra.....

 

[Migara]

The most influential man in English cricket history may be Tom Cartwright.

He was the man who withdrew from the England squad to South Africa, and was replaced by D'Oliveira. And suddenly history changed.

Also, he was doing some coaching at Somerset when he came across a young all rounder named Botham, who lacked any kind of discipline or commitment. Without Cartwright's guidance, Botham would never have even played first class cricket.

But seriously:
WG Grace
Ranjitsinghi
Don Bradman
Imran Khan
Shane Warne (surprised nobodys mentioned him. Leg spin had been written off until he arrived on the scene)

Wrong and very wrong. Warne was a media beast. There were good leggies and when Warne came in to scene leg spin was a surviving art, especially in SC. Since it was a dying art in ENG and AUS he's hailed as reviving the leg spin. But 15 years before Warne, Baghwat Chandrasekar was having one on one battles with Viv Richards, then came Qadir, both were predecessors of Kumble and Mushtaq Ahmed respectively. In between Lakshman Sivramakrishnan and Narendra Hirwani came and gone. When the art was extinct in other countries it doesn't mean the art is extinct from the cricketing world.

 

[cnerd123]

Warne made legspin ***y and gave it a role in modern cricket, and mae youngsters pursue it, but it hadn't been written off when he revivied. It was well and alive as Miagara explains.


Forgot Sarfraz Nawaz on my list. Reverse Swing is a big thing.

 

[Migara]

Warne made legspin ***y and gave it a role in modern cricket, and mae youngsters pursue it, but it hadn't been written off when he revivied. It was well and alive as Miagara explains.


Forgot Sarfraz Nawaz on my list. Reverse Swing is a big thing.

Still no my friend. Warne did inspire youngsters outside SC, but the inspiration for leg break in SC was there much earlier even Warne touched a cricket ball. Warne was a great bowler for sure, but not a trend setter for taking up leg spin, at least in SC (which accounts for about 75% of FC cricketers in the world).

 

[fredfertang]

Honourable mentions to

Arthur Shrewsbury - who was the first to use his pads as a second line of defence and to play mainly off the back foot and

Bart King - American swing bowling pioneer

 

[Migara]

perhaps....but i wouldn't say that adding overspin perfected the doosra.....

 

[Migara]

Who has first bowled the arm ball? Any one has any idea?

 

[cnerd123]

Youngesters in Aus, Eng, NZ, RSA possibly WI would look up to Warne. Didn't specify it, thought it was implied.

HOWEVER I myself wanted to bowl legspin thanks to Warne, as did a few of my friends. And we're all Indian/raised in the Middle East. So not completely wrong to say Warne could have inspired us. I know I found Kumble dull when I was younger, and had no clue who Chandrasekhar, Qadir and Mushtaq Ahmed were.

And to say that cricketers from SC form 75% of FC cricketers in the world is just pure BS. 50% maybe, but that's wayyy to high.

 

[cnerd123]

Who has first bowled the arm ball? Any one has any idea?

Who was the first offspinner ever?

Interesting question tho. I always wondered who's idea the topspinner/arm ball was.

 

[Migara]

Youngesters in Aus, Eng, NZ, RSA possibly WI would look up to Warne. Didn't specify it, thought it was implied.

HOWEVER I myself wanted to bowl legspin thanks to Warne, as did a few of my friends. And we're all Indian/raised in the Middle East. So not completely wrong to say Warne could have inspired us. I know I found Kumble dull when I was younger, and had no clue who Chandrasekhar, Qadir and Mushtaq Ahmed were.

And to say that cricketers from SC form 75% of FC cricketers in the world is just pure BS. 50% maybe, but that's wayyy to high.

If 1 in 200 in India takes up cricket, that will be 1/4 of Aussie population! I never added the pakistani and Banglo population to that!

 

[cnerd123]

Taking up cricket does not = FC cricketer, firstly.

If you add up all the cricketers who play official FC cricket, atm, in all countries in the world, then take the %s, it should not add up to show 75% of them being in Ind/SL/Pak/BD. Eng's domestic system is quite massive. BD's is small.

SL's is massive tho, and I forgot to take that into account...

 

[ankitj]

minor point, but headley had captained, albeit briefly -- one match, was it? -- the windies before worrell. just being pedantic, but your point about worrell still stands.

Headley is not remembered as a great captain, but for the fact that he was the first black captain (IIRC) for WI. He was first great non-white cricketer, and thus instrumental in popularizing cricket among the non-whites in Caribbean.

 

[dhillon28]

Well written. But disagree with most of the names and reasons.

Armstrong and Benaud (whose careers were three decades apart) were the pioneers of the school of captaincy that ian chappell followed. Even jardine could be credited with influencing ian.

Sarfraz Nawaz pioneered reverse swing; not imran. Imran has a case for being a top 5 cricketer of all time. But he did not invent this.

Trumper did 100 years ago what sehwag is doing now. He was the first all out attacking opener whose spirit was inherited by greenidge, jayasuriya and sehwag in the last three decades.

Flower was a batsman -wk before gilly. But walcott was one 50 years before them. And les ames 20 years even before him.
In my books, the following 5 had the most profound influence on the way the game is played.

Ranji - leg glance - no one had to place a fielder behind square leg until ranji started scoring runs in the area ignored by batters before his time.

Bradman - inspired jardine to employ the leg trap/ bodyline that resulted in a change in law.

Lillee -inspired lloyd to go for an all out pace attacked that dominated world cricket for 2 decades. This speeded up the introduction of helmets. And finally forced changes in bouncer laws as well.

Sarfraz - reverse swing

Saqlain - doosra

no of points here. from the literature that i'v read, it is uncertain as to who exactly first discovered reverse swing out of imran and safraz. however what is certain is that imran made the art famous because of his success and longevity as a player. these days people only remember safraz for that one series in australia. so regardless of who invented reverse (and there was a good chance imran did) it was imran who inspired others to do it.

same with sehwag. mcullum,dilshan and tamim will tell you their inspiration is sehwag, not victor trumper. It is not about the first to do it but the one who influenced others. Same with andy flower. Sledging became famous with chappell and it was because of that australian team that the culture exists today.

 

[dhillon28]

Possibly not. Erapali Prasanna seems to have bowled one. So did Jayananda Warnaweera, but his method may have been different.

key point is, who's doosra influenced everyone else to try it. Not Prasanna.