The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Oh right, I even remember that now. Old age catching up with me...
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Who is Australia's second best Test cricketer ever?
- Thread starter G.I.Joe
- Start date
Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
If the poll was similar to this one ie: "best Test cricketer ever" I don't see any argument in favour of WG Grace. The greatest ever English cricketer certainly.Worth a poll/battle I reckon - though I'm not convinced that Grace would win it. I reckon a lot of CWers would find the era he played in to be an immovable obstacle to considering him England's greatest ever.
As for Grace and Hobbs being unquestionably the top two - well if you as John Woodcock he's got Alfred Mynn sandwiched in between them.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
No argument from me. But as that Battle of the Englishmen showed, there are plenty here on CW who don't share that sentiment.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Dominance x Influence x Beard = the Greatest by a mile
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
A very fair point
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
This formula proves that Grace's beard was so important that if he'd shaved it he'd have been nothing. I can only concur - 'twas truly the king of beards.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
A wonderful player, though it's a push to consider him Australia's second greatest ever. That being said, there were those who saw both men in action who considered Noble to be Australia's greatest all rounder ahead of Miller.
When you read accounts from the first decade of the 20th century you begin to get a good idea of just what a colossal figure he was in Australian cricket. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that relatively speaking he was at least as big a name in Australian culture in the 1900s as Border was in the 1980s or Waugh in the 1990s.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
I would daresay there's more early cricket knowledge on CW than there is in most, if not all, other cricket forums in existence. I think we can be really proud of the depth and breadth of knowledge that we have here.
Precambrian
Banned
And there are valid reasons for that.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Yeah, odd TSTL for mine from he of the birth in '79. "Best" and "greatest" are just euphemisms for one another, the way I see it. Of course, "most valuable" is a bit different, but by-and-large the best players are the most valuable ones.
What's the difference between "best" and "greatest" then? All to do with mystic auras, I guess?
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Well put.
(Except that "euphemism" isn't a synonym for "synonym")
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Maybe so. What's annoying, though, is when posters try to make the case that the stuff that they care about was better than that which they don't. If a poll question is posed about 110 years, quite often you'll see the results skewed by votes from people who pretty well never discuss anything that predates 40 years - or even 10 - and are simply voting for that which they are familiar with over that which they are not. Stay out of such things completely, IMO.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Maybe Ray Lindwall; maybe Dennis Lillee; maybe Glenn McGrath. Maybe even Alan Davidson, though his time at the top was too short for mine, these days. He was 29 before he developed into a Test-class bowler and 33 when he retired.
The three right-armers, though, were all superlative.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
I can see Matt's point here - I think an example might be if someone considers Bradman to be the "best" cricketer of all time, due to him simply playing the game of cricket better than anyone before or since. But that same person might consider Grace the "greatest" cricketer of all, given his influence on and legacy to the sport overall, combined with his playing prowess.
Just an example obviously, but I can see the thinking.
Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
The "best" batsman I've ever seen is Viv Richards but he's not the "greatest" in terms of achivement.
GilchristFtw
Cricket Spectator
I Think That Shane Warne Is Second To Bradman. Although I Did Vote For Gilchrist.He Was My Favourite Player Thats Why I Voted For Him
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
You make it sound like The Very Long Subtitle Of An American Self-Help Book...
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Well, see, I'd put it a different way - to me, Grace is the best and greatest cricketer of all-time. However, Bradman might possibly be the better batsman. Or he might not.
I've said it before, but I'm always highly reluctant to compare them as pure batsmen. The game they played just wasn't, quite, the same one. That Grace would have been a fantastic batsman had he played the game Bradman - and we today - play I don't doubt for a second. Just how fantastic, though, we'll never really know IMO.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
I'd wholeheartedly agree that Grace would have been an all time great Test player had he come along later - though of course this would have in turn diminished his influence and importance to the development of the game. Personally I'm happy to have had him where he was to drive the progress and popularity of cricket the way he did.
I simply can't believe that he - or anyone else - would ever have averaged 99.94 in any era of international cricket. But that's a discussion for another time.