Best in the world title belt history

[AndrewB]

Good effort that, even though if you consider quality of opposition Crowe should have made it for his 2 tons along with a match-winning 80 odd in NZ's drawn 3 Test series against the champion Windies of 86/87.

Crowe was in the top 10 for most of 1987-1994, but never higher than 3rd.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Bowlers:

1924-1930: Tate
1930-1934: Grimmett
1934-1939: O'Reilly
1946-1954: Lindwall
1955-1963: Trueman
1963-1967: Pollock
1967-1972: Underwood
1975-1981: Lillee
1981-1986: Imran/Hadlee
1987-1989: Marshall
1990-1994: Waqar
1994-1997: Warne
1998-2002: McGrath
2002-2007: Murali
2007-2013: Steyn
21 Nov 2013-14 Mar 2014: Mitchell Johnson
2014-2016: Ashwin
2016- present: Rabada

None of them are clear choices, unlike the list of batsmen. Especially in the 80s and 90s, it gets pretty cluttered.

 

[morgieb]

Ashwin being the pick of the litter from 2014-2016 is a bit strange. Would say Steyn regained it after Hughes's death then Anderson became #1 after his body fell apart.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Hm, I guess so. Ashwin's long home season was pretty spectacular though I'm not sure anyone really considered him the best bowler in the world, so you have a point.

 

[jimmy101]

Reckon Allan Donald might have had a short reign as champ in the early 90's OS?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Hard to put anyone over Waqar in the 90-94 period. Maybe Ambrose, but it's hard to argue against 170 wickets @17 with 19 5fers in 25 matches.

 

[Rssll]

Reckon Allan Donald might have had a short reign as champ in the early 90's OS?

I think the late 90s was probably the period where Donald came closest to being the best bowler in the world. There was a 3-4 year period at the end of 90s where McGrath, Pollock and Donald were all consistently close to being the best. In hindsight it makes sense to give that period to McGrath but I remember thinking that Pollock and Donald were better at the time.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

This is a farce when Holding, Garner, Roberts are not even considered as title contenders.

 

[Slifer]

This is a farce when Holding, Garner, Roberts are not even considered as title contenders.

Well, considering they had each other for competition not to mention: Lillee, MM, Imran, Hadlee etc that sounds reasonable. Also, what's impressive about Ambrose for example, even though he probably didn't hold number one for that long he hardly fell out of the top 5 for most of his career.

 

[jimmy101]

Hard to put anyone over Waqar in the 90-94 period. Maybe Ambrose, but it's hard to argue against 170 wickets @17 with 19 5fers in 25 matches.

Nice. Waqar was killing it in his pomp. Come to think of it, he probably would have been a double champion, sharing the tag belts with Wasim for a while during 90-94.

 

[AndrewB]

Bowlers who topped the rankings for most days in each year since 1902:
1902-1904 Hugh Trumble
1905-1907 Wilfred Rhodes
1908-1909 Jack Saunders
1910 Colin Blythe
1911-1913 Sydney Barnes
1914-1921 Aubrey Faulkner
1922-1924 Jack Gregory
1925-1930 Maurice Tate
1931-1936 Clarrie Grimmett
1937-1946 Bill O'Reilly
1947 Jack Cowie
1948-1950 Ray Lindwall
1951-1952 Bill Johnston
1953 Alec Bedser
1954-1955 Ray Lindwall
1956-1957 Hugh Tayfield
1958 Tony Lock
1959 Fazal Mahmood
1960-1962 Alan Davidson
1963 Fred Trueman
1964-1968 Lance Gibbs
1969 Peter Pollock
1970-1974 Derek Underwood
1975-1977 Dennis Lillee
1978-1980 Ian Botham
1981 Colin Croft
1982 Michael Holding
1983 Imran Khan
1984 Richard Hadlee
1985 Malcolm Marshall
1986-1988 Richard Hadlee
1989-1991 Malcolm Marshall
1992-1996 Curtly Ambrose
1997 Glenn McGrath
1998-1999 Allan Donald
2000 Shaun Pollock
2001-2002 Glenn McGrath
2003 Shaun Pollock
2004 Muttiah Muralitharan
2005 Glenn McGrath
2006-2009 Muttiah Muralitharan
2010-2015 Dale Steyn
2016 Stuart Broad
2017 Ravindra Jadeja

 

[jimmy101]

Surprised to see that fiery Fred only had one year as world #1. And good on Tony Lock for earning a year at the top.

 

[Flametree]

Surprised to see that fiery Fred only had one year as world #1. And good on Tony Lock for earning a year at the top.

That would be on the back of his series against New Zealand in the wet summer. 5 test series, NZ's scores were
94 + 137
47 + 74,
67 + 129,
267 + 85,
161 + 91-3.

Lock took 34 at under 8 that series, compared to the relative flops of Laker (16@11) and Trueman (15@17)

Imagine if we had a "new zealand doom and gloom" thread back then....

 

[S.Kennedy]

I have always found it shocking that New Zealand didn't win a test series for their first forty years of test cricket! It is significantly longer than any other test team, even your Bangladesh's and Zimbabwe's.

 

[Starfighter]

They didn't play all that much it should be said. But they were very weak for a long time. Their 2-2 draw in South Africa was probably their best achievement until the late seventies. Sounds like it was a pretty thrilling series too.

 

[AndrewB]

If you take the bowler with the highest average rating in each year, you get a slightly different list:
1902-1904 Hugh Trumble
1905-1907 Wilfred Rhodes
1908-1910 Colin Blythe
1911-1913 Sydney Barnes
1914-1921 Aubrey Faulkner
1922-1924 Jack Gregory
1925-1930 Maurice Tate
1931-1935 Clarrie Grimmett
1936-1945 Bill O'Reilly
1946 Bill Voce
1947 Jack Cowie
1948-1950 Ray Lindwall
1951-1952 Bill Johnston
1953 Alec Bedser
1954-1955 Ray Lindwall
1956-1957 Hugh Tayfield
1958 Jim Laker
1959 Fazal Mahmood
1960-1962 Alan Davidson
1963 Fred Trueman
1964-1968 Lance Gibbs
1969 Peter Pollock
1970-1973 Derek Underwood
1974 Max Walker
1975-1977 Dennis Lillee
1978 Bishen Bedi
1979-1980 Ian Botham
1981 Joel Garner
1982 Michael Holding
1983 Imran Khan
1984-1989 Richard Hadlee
1990 Malcolm Marshall
1991-1992 Curtly Ambrose
1993 Waqar Younis
1994-1996 Curtly Ambrose
1997 Glenn McGrath
1998-1999 Allan Donald
2000 Shaun Pollock
2001-2002 Glenn McGrath
2003 Shaun Pollock
2004 Muttiah Muralitharan
2005 Glenn McGrath
2006-2008 Muttiah Muralitharan
2009-2015 Dale Steyn
2016 Ravichandra Ashwin
2017 Ravindra Jadeja

(Voce, Laker, Walker, Garner, Waqar Younis and Ashwin are the new entries; Saunders, Lock, Croft and Broad now miss out)

 

[jimmy101]

More surprises here. Tayfield trumping Laker in 1956 is interesting. Perhaps Tayfield had less competition for wickets amongst his teammates?

Ambrose's continued excellence in the early to mid 90's is also quite something.

And Max Walker king of the hill in 1974! Who would have thought?

 

[AndrewB]

As with the bowlers, you get slightly different results if you take the best average rating for each year.

1902-1904: Clem Hill
1905: Victor Trumper
1906-1909: Clem Hill
1910: Jack Hobbs
1911: Aubrey Faulkner
1912-1928: Jack Hobbs
1929-1931: Herbert Sutcliffe
1932-1947: Don Bradman
1948: George Headley
1949: Denis Compton
1950: Dudley Nourse
1951-1954: Len Hutton
1955: Clyde Walcott
1956-1959: Peter May
1960-1964: Gary Sobers
1965: Ken Barrington
1966-1968: Gary Sobers
1969: Bill Lawry
1970: Doug Walter
1971-1973: Gary Sobers
1974: Glenn Turner
1975: Gundappa Viswanath
1976: Greg Chappell
1977-1978: Viv Richards
1979-1980: Sunil Gavaskar
1981-1983: Viv Richards
1984-1986: Allan Border
1987: Viv Richards
1988: Dilip Vengsarkar
1989-1990: Javed Miandad
1991-1994: Graham Gooch
1995: Brian Lara
1996-1997: Steve Waugh
1998: Sachin Tendulkar
1999: Brian Lara
2000-2002: Sachin Tendulkar
2003: Matthew Hayden
2004: Rahul Dravid
2005: Jacques Kallis
2006-2007: Ricky Ponting
2008-2010: Kumar Sangakkara
2011: Jacques Kallis
2012: Kumar Sangakkara
2013: Hashim Amla
2014-2015: AB de Villiers
2016-2017: Steve Smith

Headley going top in 1948 is a bit of a statistical oddity, since he was never actually rated #1 that year (or indeed ever!).

 

[S.Kennedy]

Wasn't Headley past his best after the war?

 

[AndrewB]

Yes (though still a decent batsman), his high average rating in 1948 is due to not having had much chance to drop from his pre-war rating.