John Woodcock's 100 best cricketers of all time.

[Harsh Thakor]

I think John Woodcock was one of cricket's greatest writers and analysts .I couldn't resist posting his list and my views briefly.It is fascinating that W.G Grace is placed at no 1 ahead of Bradman and Sobers.Ian Botham is placed above Imran Khan which is debatable as well as Barry Richards above Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding above Malcolm Marshall.To me their is an element of English bias with Dexter,May and Cowdrey all rtaed above Rohan Kanhai as well as Javed Miandad and Alan Border.However I complement his choice of Rohan Kanhai ,Ian Chappell,Hanif Mohammad and Vinoo Mankad who Cristopher Martin Jenkins evaded in his top 100 list.Fairly Rohan Kanhai was rated above Gooch and Gower . True,it was written in 1997 when Mcgrath ,Lara,Tendulkar,Kallis ,InzamamUl Haq and Ponting had hardly completed their careers but still it has great significance. Personally I agree with W.G.Grace at the top because of his total domination and impact-the equivalent of an invincible emperor.It is difficult imagining any cricketer matching W.G's feats.However Gary Sobers would atleast come 2nd.I reccomend raeders to raed his book where he superbly describes the likes of Viv Richards,Grace,Hammond ,Kanhai Gower,Gooch ,Botham,etc.Personally,I rate it above Cristopher Martin Jenkin's work,marginally.(sorry,i could be wrong) In the early summer of 1997, The Times published a series of articles naming the 100 Greatest Cricketers of all time. It ran over a period of five weeks, listing the players in ascending order, and reached a climax on the Saturday of the Old Trafford Test, when the paper named W. G. Grace rather than Sir Donald Bradman as the greatest of all. Many Australians present expressed surprise and annoyance, and Shane Warne (No. 13) and Steve Waugh (95) promptly destroyed England on the field. The list was compiled by John Woodcock, the paper's cricket correspondent for 34 years, the former editor ofWisden and the man believed to have seen more Test cricket than anyone else in history. None the less, even Woodcock did not see Grace play, still less Alfred Mynn of Kent (died 1861, No. 4 on the list) or Billy Beldham and John Small of Hambledon (Nos. 39 and 61). No one, least of all Woodcock, pretended the list was definitive: "Inevitably invidious and essentially provocative," he said. It was, however, a very well-informed basis for many splendid arguments. 1. W. G. Grace 2. D. G. Bradman 3. G. S. Sobers 4. A. Mynn 5. J. B. Hobbs 6. S. F. Barnes 7. W. R. Hammond 8. I. V. A. Richards 9. I. T. Botham 10. D. C. S. Compton 11. L. Hutton 12. F. E. Woolley 13. S. K. Warne 14. V. T. Trumper 15. B. A. Richards 16. Imran Khan 17. K. R. Miller 18. R. Benaud 19. D. K. Lillee 20. A. V. Bedser 21. G. A. Headley 22. R. R. Lindwall 23. S. M. Gavaskar 24. E. R. Dexter 25. S. R. Tendulkar 26. W. J. O'Reilly 27. E. D. Weekes 28. B. C. Lara 29. R. J. Hadlee 30. R. G. Pollock 31. A. Shrewsbury 32. F. R. Spofforth 33. P. B. H. May 34. W. Rhodes 35. K. S. Ranjitsinhji 36. F. M. M. Worrell 37. A. R. Border 38. C. L. Walcott 39. W. Beldham 40. G. A. Lohmann 41. G. H. Hirst 42. H. Sutcliffe 43. M. J. Procter 44. G. S. Chappell 45. F. S. Trueman 46. H. J. Tayfield 47. T. Richardson 48. M. C. Cowdrey 49. Kapil Dev 50. B. S. Bedi 51. R. N. Harvey 52. R. B. Kanhai 53. G. A. Gooch 54. C. B. Fry 55. A. P. E. Knott 56. A. K. Davidson 57. K. F. Barrington 58. Javed Miandad 59. I. M. Chappell 60. Wasim Akram 61. J. Small 62. G. Boycott 63. A. G. Steel 64. T. G. Evans 65. M. A. Holding 66. L. N. Constantine 67. C. H. Lloyd 68. C. V. Grimmett 69. M. D. Marshall 70. J. C. Laker 71. Waqar Younis 72. D. I. Gower 73. C. T. B. Turner 74. A. C. MacLaren 75. G. L. Jessop 76. A. Shaw 77. J. B. Statham 78. V. A. P. van der Bijl 79. C. G. MacArtney 80. R. B. Simpson 81. C. E. L. Ambrose 82. Fazal Mahmood 83. W. H. Ponsford 84. Hanif Mohammad 85. F. S. Jackson 86. R. G. D. Willis 87. W. W. Armstrong 88. D. L. Underwood 89. S. Ramadhin 90. L. R. Gibbs 91. W. W. Hall 92. V. Mankad 93. H. Larwood 94. J. M. Gregory 95. S. R. Waugh 96. H. W. Taylor 97. A. A. Donald 98. S. J. McCabe 99. P. A. De Silva 100. J. R. Reid