Top Ten ODI cricketers of All Time

[Victor Ian]

what do you mean hurt their careers? You mean they were not good enough in that time?

Yeah - pretty much. Don't pick Ponting for his last couple of years, or even his first few, for that matter. But he has an amazing stretch in the middle that makes him worthy. What most people are doing is picking people based on their luck, not their skill. Ponting was unlucky to finish in a time when Australia were crap and needed him. Same with some other players who may have been slow starters. It is rather disingenuous to insist on picking a player over their whole career and doubly deceitful to oneself to think that current players qualify.

 

[weldone]

Viv
Tendulkar
AB
Gilchrist
Dhoni
Kohli

and 4 bowlers/all-rounders

 

[stephen]

Viv
Tendulkar
AB
Gilchrist
Dhoni
Kohli

and 4 bowlers/all-rounders

Great though he was, I wouldn't have AB in there. ABDV on the other hand might be a decent pick but wasn't an opener.

 

[stephen]

And by opener I mean top order player.

 

[stephen]

I was half expecting to see Alf Stewart, Harold Bishop and Skippy the bush Kangaroo in the list to be honest.

Australia have won 5 of the 11 (45%) world cups. I picked 8 Aussies out of 25 (32%) players. If anything, Aussies are underrepresented in my list.

In the history of the game, against top 8 sides Australia has maintained a 1.59 win/loss ratio, ahead of everyone else. South Africa are second with 1.45 and India are third at 0.93. Again, the stats point to more Australian representation in the top 25 players.

If I've short-changed any side it's South Africa, who to be fair to them have not managed the high pressure situations as well as their talent suggests they should.

 

[smash84]

For mine, a 5 year peak is more than enough to judge someone on. I respect guys whose careers extend over 20 years, but a 5 year peak is where you actually see how good someone was, especially in cricket. A lot can change once an eye players loses a bit of reflex speed or whatever, but if they can sustain brilliance over 5 or so years, that's enough.

Guys like Viv Richards and Ricky Ponting's test careers show that. Both had averages of above 60 after a good amount of tests, but loss of brilliance in they eyes and footwork bought their averages back to 50. They were still picked because they were still in the best batsmen in their countries, but they weren't at the peak of their powers any more. You probably see it more in guys who grew up on fast bouncy wickets rather than in the subcontinent tbh.

comes back to the age old question. sustained excellence or bursts of extreme brilliance and fizzling out?

 

[Burner]

Australia have won 5 of the 11 (45%) world cups. I picked 8 Aussies out of 25 (32%) players. If anything, Aussies are underrepresented in my list.

In the history of the game, against top 8 sides Australia has maintained a 1.59 win/loss ratio, ahead of everyone else. South Africa are second with 1.45 and India are third at 0.93. Again, the stats point to more Australian representation in the top 25 players.

If I've short-changed any side it's South Africa, who to be fair to them have not managed the high pressure situations as well as their talent suggests they should.

If Australia was an ODI cricketer, you would have a point.

 

[stephen]

If Australia was an ODI cricketer, you would have a point.

Surely the point of any kind of rating system is to determine who would most help their teams to a win. Surely then it's statistically more likely that the team that wins the most had more of those players more often.

 

[Daemon]

Australia have won 5 of the 11 (45%) world cups. I picked 8 Aussies out of 25 (32%) players. If anything, Aussies are underrepresented in my list.

In the history of the game, against top 8 sides Australia has maintained a 1.59 win/loss ratio, ahead of everyone else. South Africa are second with 1.45 and India are third at 0.93. Again, the stats point to more Australian representation in the top 25 players.

If I've short-changed any side it's South Africa, who to be fair to them have not managed the high pressure situations as well as their talent suggests they should.

 

[honestbharani]

Stephen wants to pick a side with quotas... Maybe he is really a RSA selector.

 

[Shri]

Stephen wants to pick a side with quotas... Maybe he is really a RSA selector.

Yeah, because moneyballing and racial quotas are the same thing.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, because moneyballing and racial quotas are the same thing.

Where is the Moneyball in anything Stephen has posted??

 

[Shri]

Where is the Moneyball in anything Stephen has posted??

He's using statistics and probability. Close enough.

 

[stephen]

He's using statistics and probability. Close enough.

I am aware that crude analysis like this is crude and I'm subject to bias (I have not watched every game/player).

Having said that, when I factor in the fact that South Africa have only played for half of the history of the ODI game, the numbers in my list roughly line up with the success of the teams. Maybe Sri Lanka is over-represented. Maybe Australia is over represented. Maybe India is under represented. But the point of these lists is not to be correct but to stimulate discussion to better understand the game.

One thing that I've realised from all of this is how people value fielding differently when rating ODI players. Particularly those who mostly watch Asian teams seem to value fielding less than those who support teams outside of Asia. I think that attitude is indicative of the type of cricket that a team needs to play to be successful in home conditions. In Australia, fielding is more valuable due to bigger (more likely to cut off runs), nicer (less risk of injury, Gabba notwithstanding) fields and bouncier (more catching opportunities) wickets. In the subcontinent decks tend to favour attacking the stumps and shorter boundaries make defending runs harder. Both of these factors reduce the value of fielding as a skill.

As for why I rate Lillee in my top 25 - there are still people who rate him higher than McGrath in ODI cricket. He was that good. People are happy to include Garner on the basis of an extra 30 odd games. Lillee played ODIs over a period of 9 years and was consistently great during that time. He's easily McGrath's opening partner in an Australian side (though Starc will probably replace him). There isn't much between a bunch of great fast bowlers. Roberts, Holding, Lillee, Donald, Ambrose, Hadlee, Wasim, Waqar, Garner, McGrath and soon possibly Starc are all amazing ODI ATG bowlers and it's hard to separate them based on ability.

 

[honestbharani]

Lol.. I completely agree with your post, Stephen and I love the discussion that is being stimulated by people picking their own different teams and top 25 ODI cricketers but surely the underlying point that many of us have made, that Australia have a line up of great players across generations, without quite being the greatest, is not lost on you?


The more stimulating topic for discussion would be, would the number of great players in Australia across generations in ODIs contribute to a few of them not quite going on to become the greatest ever? Like, to me, when people discuss Bevan's SR, the important point to note was that he mostly had a bowling attack that could win him the game if he got them to 250+ and if they were chasing, they were perhaps chasing less than a normal side because of how good their bowling line up was. Does it take anything away from Bevan though? I don't think so. The best any player can do is to ensure he does what he has to ensure his team wins and Bevan did it better than most in the history of the game. If we start speculating whether he would have been the same player had he had the Indian bowling attack backing him up instead of McWarneLee, for example, maybe his numbers might not have been enough to win games. But then again, maybe he would have opened out more earlier and scored even bigger runs at higher SR whilst maybe getting out a few more times. It just pure imagination though. To me, he is amongst the best 5-7 ever in ODIs and as such is in the running for my AT XI and easily part of the top 25 and I would even say top 10 ODI players of all time.

 

[harsh.ag]

Bevan was the man. First name on the second team.

 

[adub]

It's not the skill that's changed, it's the tools. Batsmen have better bats to hit the ball to shorter boundaries. That's what made Viv so special. He'd be downright frightening in the modern game.

It's frightening to imagine what Viv would do with Warner's bat. Seeing the King swagger out to the middle dragging his SS Jumbo behind him chewin his gum coming out to face some of the greatest fast bowlers of all time like it was a backyard game is as good as it gets. He wasn't called the Master Blaster for nothing, but an SS Jumbo is a ****ing log compared to a modern bat. **** woulda killed someone with a modern blade.

 

[stephen]

Lol.. I completely agree with your post, Stephen and I love the discussion that is being stimulated by people picking their own different teams and top 25 ODI cricketers but surely the underlying point that many of us have made, that Australia have a line up of great players across generations, without quite being the greatest, is not lost on you?


The more stimulating topic for discussion would be, would the number of great players in Australia across generations in ODIs contribute to a few of them not quite going on to become the greatest ever? Like, to me, when people discuss Bevan's SR, the important point to note was that he mostly had a bowling attack that could win him the game if he got them to 250+ and if they were chasing, they were perhaps chasing less than a normal side because of how good their bowling line up was. Does it take anything away from Bevan though? I don't think so. The best any player can do is to ensure he does what he has to ensure his team wins and Bevan did it better than most in the history of the game. If we start speculating whether he would have been the same player had he had the Indian bowling attack backing him up instead of McWarneLee, for example, maybe his numbers might not have been enough to win games. But then again, maybe he would have opened out more earlier and scored even bigger runs at higher SR whilst maybe getting out a few more times. It just pure imagination though. To me, he is amongst the best 5-7 ever in ODIs and as such is in the running for my AT XI and easily part of the top 25 and I would even say top 10 ODI players of all time.

Bevan's strike rate is quite misleading. He was striking at 80 in the first innings. He struck at 60 in chases to ensure the win. It was a lower scoring era and often we'd have to chase lower totals against great bowlers. Him being there secured us the win. I can't remember a game we lost where he was not out in the second innings.

Bevan played with Warne and McGrath in their pomp but only played a tiny amount with Lee. He was unceremoniously dumped by CA after the 2003 WC because they didn't think he'd be playing in 2007 (basically why Bailey won't play for Australia again). Lee only burst onto the scene a couple of years prior.

I do understand that being a better team doesn't mean that you have the better players - after all, Tendulkar and Lara would have walked into any Australian outfit even during our peak years. I was only making the point that it is more likely that players from the best team over the history of the game should be more likely to make these lists.

 

[Daemon]

I do understand that being a better team doesn't mean that you have the better players - after all, Tendulkar and Lara would have walked into any Australian outfit even during our peak years. I was only making the point that it is more likely that players from the best team over the history of the game should be more likely to make these lists.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. If say I knew nothing about cricket and had to go purely on team results, then I'd definitely predict more Australians would be in the top 25 of all time. It is simply more likely to be the case.

However, we have a whole list of cricketers to choose from, and we know a lot about them. Why then should we depend on the above model for any reason at all?

To use a somewhat racist analogy, say you had to predict the rankings of students in a Math class. For the sake of this example lets say you know that statistically, it's more likely that Asian kids top the rankings and so you predict accordingly. Now the results are out. Do you still rely on your predictions to rank them or just use the results?

 

[harsh.ag]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. If say I knew nothing about cricket and had to go purely on team results, then I'd definitely predict more Australians would be in the top 25 of all time. It is simply more likely to be the case.

However, we have a whole list of cricketers to choose from, and we know a lot about them. Why then should we depend on the above model for any reason at all?

To use a somewhat racist analogy, say you had to predict the rankings of students in a Math class. For the sake of this example lets say you know that statistically, it's more likely that Asian kids top the rankings and so you predict accordingly. Now the results are out. Do you still rely on your predictions to rank them or just use the results?

Think it's more along the lines of how you would expect more Asians in the top 25 mathematicians of the world, but that doesn't necessarily happen.