The World's 50 Greatest Cricketers

[mcgillianaire]

You have less than 24hrs to post a comment with who you think Shane Warne will pick in his Top 10. Here's 20-11.

Comments

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ponting, McGrath, Lara, Murali. I honestly don't know who else he may pick. Laxman hasn't really blossomed overall, but against Australia and particularly Warnie, he's done magnificently so he may pick him. I doubt he'll pick any among Gibbs, Smith or Ntini from South Africa. Vettori possibly? All this assumes he maintains the general trend of picking guys he played against. Mark Taylor? Surely not. If he doesn't pick Bradman for Number 1, I think he'll pick SRT. I remember when he retired he explained why he gave him the edge over Lara, even though the Windian had more flair and was more dangerous on his day. Regardless of where SRT ends up I'm sure he'll mention something about how impressed he is with the way he handles the pressure/burden of 1 billion supporters. It'll be great if he stun everybody and picks cricketers who retired decades ago in the final list with the exception of Lara, SRT, Pigeon and Punter.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

1. Tendulkar
2. Lara
3. Murali (though I will laugh a lot if he excludes him... I know he probably doesn't throw it more than many other bowlers, but I still get a thrill out of big names criticising him.)
4. Wasim Akram
5. Laxman
6. Ambrose
7. McGrath
8. Ponting
9. Border (Warne will be a huge hypocrite if he does pick Border, but I'm expecting he'll be a hypocrite.)
10. Healy (It's ridiculous to have him higher than Gilchrist, but I think Warne hinted at this selection when he said that Gilchrist was "still a batsman-keeper rather than the other way round". And Warne will be biased towards his favourite pure wicket-keeper.)

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

If he doesn't pick Bradman for Number 1
It is very, very, very obvious that he's only picking players that he played with/against.

[(Anonymous)]

Warne (I really hope he picks himself)
Lara
McGrath
Tendulkar
Ponting
Healy
Border
Taylor
Ambrose
Dean Jones
(Gillespie at 10 if warne isn't allowed to pick himself)

It's such an idiosyncratic list that it's hard to to tell who might be on it. When Warne retired, his favourite memories were early in his career so he might still think some mid 90s players are the best.

--- A viewer via Pappuhbarry's friends list.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Did he play with/against Bruce Reid?

I also meant to also include Akram in my comment, but that should've been obvious.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Ambrose! Good call. You also think he will pick Laxman... interesting. Forgot about Border and Healy. Curious why he'd be a hypocrite to pick Border?

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

This is true! It'll be really interesting to see if he does go down that route. Dean Jones... interesting choice! I wondered about Taylor considering he wasn't anywhere else in the 50.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

Did he play with/against Bruce Reid?
In Warne's debut Test. I'm not sure if they met at domestic level.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

He put Waugh down at 26 because he was a "match-saver rather than a match-winner". Border saved us time and time and time again during the 1980's. You don't remember Border for his match-winning innings.

Of course, I think Border was better than Waugh anyway, but of players who played with or against Warne, it'd be ridiculous to have Border in the top ten and Waugh at 26.

I also think he'll pick Border because Border was the selector who didn't want to drop him in the West Indies in 1999.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

So this rather surprised me- no fewer than seven of the ten largest ODI partnerships in history have been by India.

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

I didn't know it was that high, but I knew it was high (ie, at least five). I've seen it cited as a reason why India's the greatest team in the world or something.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Having watched all but 1* of those 7 partnerships LIVE it doesn't surprise me. I have often reminded people about the fact that the current record for the 2nd wicket partnership broke the record of the 2nd highest partnership of all-time. Also, given the batsmen involved in most of those partnerships, and their overall records in ODIs (particularly SRT & Ganguly) it isn't that surprising. Just goes to show, records of extreme performances don't reflect the full story.

(* I didn't watch the highest partnership of all-time because I was in school and it pisses me off even today because SRT scored his highest score of 186! It was a prolific period for him as he had scored his then highest Test-score and first Test double century just 10 days earlier. At least I've seen lots of highlights and other capsules of the innings in general since then.)

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Actually, I must confess that I didn't watch the whole of the 275 partnership between Azhar & Jadeja LIVE. I did watch it till about 3/47 or 3/50 and remember telling my dad several times during the course of the time I couldn't watch the rest of the innings that Azhar looked in the mood to score a big one. There was something mysterious about the way Azhar played. On some days you could just tell by the way he played that first ball, or the first few balls, whether he was going to dig in and play a brilliant knock, or simply not trouble the scorers much. On that gorgeous Thursday morning, Azhar was in his element, as wickets tumbled around. He was in a scathing mood and I was really pissed off for having to miss it; my family and I had to go for this religious thing that happens only once a year. On a side note I remember my dad and I having a chuckle about how one of the priests who had brought some stuff for the puja had carried it in a Bacardi or Smirnoff box, I forget which. Anyways, by the time we got home, I gave my dad the "I told you so" treatment and proceeded to watch India polish off the Zimbabwean tail. After seeing the highlights and despite the opposition, I rate it as one of Azhar's finest knocks, especially considering the context in which it was played.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

It is indeed a good reason why India is the greatest team in the world.