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Here are a list of some of the greatest players to grace the game of cricket. The players selected have been chosen by their quality and records.
The Following Cricketers are the Best of the Modern Era:- GREATEST CRICKETERS: 01) Shane Warne 02) Sachin Tendulkar 03) Muttiah Muralitharan 04) Brian Lara 05) Wasim Akram 06) Glenn McGrath 07) Ricky Ponting 08) Jacques Kallis 09) Curtly Ambrose 10) Waqar Younis 11) Adam Gilchrist 12) Courtney Walsh 13) Steve Waugh 14) Inzamam-ul-Haq 15) Rahul Dravid 16) Sourav Ganguly 17) Mohammad Yousuf 18) Allan Donald 19) Andy Flower 20) Shaun Pollock 21) Matthew Hayden 22) Aravinda de Silva 23) Anil Kumble 24) Sanath Jayasuriya 25) Michael Bevan
Notable Exclusions:-
01) Chaminda Vaas 02) Chris Cairns 03) Gary Kirsten 04) Mohammed Azharuddin 05) Saeed Anwar 06) Stephen Fleming 07) Nathan Astle 08) Jonty Rhodes 09) Alec Stewart 10) Marvan Atapattu 11) Mark Waugh
GREATEST CRICKETERS (individually):
Greatest Batsman: Sachin Tendulkar
Greatest ODI Batsman: Sachin Tendulkar
Greatest Test Batsman: Brian Lara
Greatest Bowler: Muttiah Muralitharan
Greatest ODI Bowler: Wasim Akram
Greatest Test Bowler: Shane Warne n Muttiah Muralidaran
Greatest Fielder: Jonty Rhodes
Greatest All-Rounder: Jacques Kallis
Greatest ODI Captain: Ricky Ponting
Greatest Test Captain: Steve Waugh
Greatest ODI Batting Pair: Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly
Greatest Test Batting Pair: Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting
Greatest ODI Bowling Pair: Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis
Greatest Test Bowling Pair: Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh/Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne
GREATEST CRICKETERS BY TEAM:
Australia: Shane Warne
Bangladesh: Mohammed Rafique
England: Alec Stewart
India: Sachin Tendulkar
New Zealand: Stephen Fleming
Pakistan: Wasim Akram
South Africa: Jacques Kallis
Sri Lanka: Muttiah Muralidaran
West Indies: Brian Lara
Zimbabwe: Andy Flower
If you are not happy with the selection of the cricketers then feel free to express your opinion by leaving a comment on this post/article.
Players in Quest of Achieving Greatness: 01) Michael Clarke 02) Mike Hussey 03) Virender Sehwag 04) Shivnarine Chanderpaul 05) Graeme Smith 06) Brett Lee 07) Kumar Sangakkara 08) Kevin Pietersen 09) Andrew Flintoff 10) Chris Gayle 11) Andrew Symonds 12) Makhaya Ntini 13) Ramnaresh Sarwan 14) Mahela Jayawardene 15) Herschelle Gibbs
Shivnarine 'Shiv' Chanderpaul (born 16 August 1974 in Unity Village, Demerara-Mahaica, Guyana) is a cricketer, and former captain of the West Indies cricket team. He is the first Indo-Caribbean in the West Indies team to play 100 Tests for the West Indies and has captained them in 14 Tests and 16 One Day Internationals. Chanderpaul is currently ranked as the number one batsman in the world in the current ICC test rankings. Career: A West Indian cricketer of East Indian origin, the left-handed Chanderpaul is known for his doggedness and ability to stick on the wicket for long hours. He is infamous in the cricketing world for his very unorthodox front-on batting stance, although he shifts his body into a more conventional position when he plays the ball, thus making him a prolific scorer on both sides of the wicket. His stance allows him to get most of his runs behind the wicket. Chanderpaul is renowned for playing left arm spin bowlers by getting his pad outside the line of off-stump, and hiding his bat behind the pad, in imitation of a shot, but without the risk of edging the ball.
Chanderpaul's first notable impact on Test cricket was as being the last batting partner of Brian Lara when Lara broke Gary Sobers' record of 365 not out in the fifth and final Test against England in 1993-94. Lara went on to make 375 before he was caught off Andrew Caddick's bowling, sharing a 219-run stand with Chanderpaul, who was left not out on 75.
Chanderpaul made his first Test century in his 19th Test match - after having scored 15 half-centuries in the preceding 18 matches. In the third of a five-Test series against India in 1996-97, he made 137* at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados. He also featured with his Guyanese counterpart, and current West Indian vice captain Ramnaresh Sarwan, making 104 in chasing a world record 418 to win in the fourth innings of the final Test match versus Australia in 2002-03.
Chanderpaul's best first class score is 303* versus Jamaica for Guyana, and, despite his reputation as a dogged batsman, he has also made the fourth fastest century in Test cricket, scoring three figures in just 67 balls at the GCC Ground Bourda, Guyana, also in the 2002-03 series against Australia.
He was named captain of the West Indies in the first Test versus South Africa in March 2005 in Guyana, after seven senior players including captain Brian Lara were dropped in a sponsorship row. He emulated Graham Dowling to become only the second player to make a double century on debut as a Test captain, scoring an unbeaten 200 and making a sporting declaration in the first Test. It was announced that Lara would return to the team for the second Test, but Chanderpaul would retain the captaincy for the rest of the series. He was named to the squad of 20 for the World XI to face Australia in the Super Test in October 2005, but when the squad was cut to 14 names in August his name was not mentioned.
Chanderpaul remains one of the most recognisable faces in all of the West Indies, particularly his native Guyana, and he has come a long way from his first 50 in his first Test versus England in 1993-94 at Bourda to his current status as a former captain.
In April 2006, Chanderpaul resigned as West Indies captain in order to concentrate on his batting. He captained a weak West Indies team, and his record was not a successful one. In fourteen Tests he won one and lost ten with three draws. In sixteen One-Day Internationals, he won two and lost fourteen. Later in the month the captaincy was restored to veteran batsman Brian Lara.
Chanderpaul has recently reached the milestone of 100 Test caps, the 8th West Indian to do so and the first of East Indian descent.At the conclusion of the 2008 Australian tour of the West Indies, Chanderpaul will appear in the All Star line up for the 2008 Hong Kong Sixes on November 8th,2008. The Hong Kong Sixes was formed in 1992, and has become an annual fixture, attracting greats such as Brian Charles Lara, , Sachin Tendulkar, Steve and Mark Waugh, Sir Viv Richards, Andrew Flintoff, Adam Gilchrist and Wasim Akram and now Shivnarine Chanderpaul adding his name to the fixtures.
Trivia: Some of his quirkier traits include having "baseball-style" tape under his eyes, which he started wearing after a successful run scoring spree in the United States,[citation needed] and using a bail from the stumps to "mark his guard". He is known for immense concentration at the crease which he can maintain for extended periods of time, drawing comparisons to batting greats such as Lara and Bradman. Chanderpaul is one of the few players to have gone 1000 minutes in Test cricket without conceding his wicket. He has done this four times, and is the only player to have done so more than once. However despite his extended stays at the wicket, he also has the ability to 'shift gears' particularly in the one day game where he has scored some of the fastest centuries to date. He also bats very well with the tail, often refusing to remain not out at the end of the innings trying to add as many runs as possible without exposing the tail to the strike. Links to more information on Shivnarine Chanderpaul:
Born in a family that had the same number of children as a fielded cricket team (11), it wasn’t very long until Brian Charles Lara took to the bat and was bitten by cricketing game bug. Right from the onset it was evident he was a very talented sportsman, apart from the game of cricket he also played for Trinidad’s junior soccer and table tennis teams. At 6 years of age he was introduced to the finer techniques of the game when his father and one of his older sisters enrolled him at the Harvard Coaching Clinic and it was perhaps attending these classes that helped his passion for the game grow which made him choose cricket as his main and primary focus.
His great cricketing career really started to grow when at the tender age of 14 he made a positively astonishing 745 runs at an average of 126.16 in the schoolboy’s league (for Fatima College). This brilliant and Don Bradman-esqe like performance from the youngster earned him a call-up to the Trinidad National U16 team. The following year he stepped up and was selected in the Trinidad side to play in the West Indian U19 tournament and through his successes there he gained selection for the West Indies U19 side, which was very well earned. The year of 1987 was a season where he achieved yet another great milestone, by getting 498 runs and beating the record of 480 by fellow West Indian Carl Hooper in the West Indies Youth Championships. He also was captain for the Trinidad and Tobago side during this tournament which ultimately won this tournament due to his heroic innings of 116. His long-awaited Senior First-Class debut was made in January of 1988 when he played for Trinidad and Tobago in the Red Stripe Cup against Leeward Islands. His following match against a Barbados side was where he made a very credible 92 against a legendary bowling attack of Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall. In the same year he was the head-honcho of the West Indies side that participated in the Bicentennial Youth World Cup in Australia where his side carved a road to the semi-finals, and later that season he captained the West Indies U23 XI against a touring Indian team, where his remarkable innings of 182 enhanced his growing reputation even more.
Eventually his superb performances earned him a call-up to the senior West Indies side but due to the death of his father he put that stage of his cricketing career temporarily on hold, as one can imagine losing one of their parents’ can be devastating and is an unfortunate occasion where the game of cricket has to temporarily take a back seat. 1989 was when he began his resurgence when he captained a West Indies B team to Zimbabwe and scored an encouraging 145 during the tour to the Southern African country.
In 1990 Brian Lara was made Captain of the senior Trinidad and Tobago team at the tender age of 20, and he showed his class and maturity by leading the side to the one-day Geddes Grant Shield. This was another milestone as now he was the youngest ever captain for the side, which surely prepared him for his belated Test debut against Pakistan. On this occasion he scored 44 and 5 in his innings. His ODI debut however came a month prior against the same opposition and he scored 11 on this occasion. The 1992 World Cup in New Zealand/Australia saw him perform to an exceptional standard, averaging 47.57 during the tournament with a highest score of 88 retired hurt. In January of 1993 saw a performance by him that typified his reputation and class. In Australia he scored a maiden century (277) in his 5th ever test and this performance was one that would eventually lead a West Indies comeback in the series against the Australians to win the series 2-1.
Brian Lara’s career contained many highlights, including several major records. He holds both records for the highest innings score in Test and first-class, with scores of 400n.o (against a touring England side in 2004) and 501 for Warwickshire vs Durham in 1994, respectively. In the latter he hit 308 of those runs in boundaries (10 sixes and 62 fours). He is also the only man in history to reclaim a World Record innings score. In 1994 he scored a then world record 375 against England (in turn beating Sir Garfield Sobers record of 365) which he held for nearly 10 years until 2003 when Matthew Hayden scored a hard-hitting 380 against an inexperienced Zimbabwe side (he was eventually out to Trevor Gripper), and he reclaimed the record the following year with that brilliant innings of 400 n.o. He is the only batsman in international Test history to achieve the Holy Grail of test cricket (breaking the 400 mark). On 16th Dec 2006 he was the first player from the West Indies to achieve the milestone of 10,000 ODI runs. Sachin Tendulkar and himself are the only batsmen to score as many runs in both ODI and Test forms of cricket.
The dead-rubber game against England in the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies on April 21st was to be his swansong in ODI cricket. In his last innings he was involved in a bad mix-up at the crease with Marlon Samuels and was run out for 18, with England prevailing to win the match by one wicket. During the post-match interview he asked his fans “Did I entertain?” and the answer was a very loud “YES!” I’m sure he was humbled by this show of respect by his fans. He showed his respect and acknowledgement to his fans by doing a lap of honour around the ground, where he met some of those fans. It was said that this was going to be the last time he was going to have an active role in cricket however on 23rd July 2007 he signed with the Indian Cricket League to play for the Mumbai Champs, of whom he is currently the captain of.
To find out more statistics and highlights of his career click HERE
*Acknowledgements to Cricinfo.com, Google.com, Wikipedia.com.
Hi everyone, Due to his legendary status and all the amazing feats that he achieved in his career, my next player profile on Brian Lara (West Indies) will take longer than expected to do, however It will be done within the next three days, my other articles will still be done as planned.
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Its obvious that from this site that cricket is right up there for one of the passions in my life :) I got hooked it on it when I was knee-high to a grasshopper when in the early 1990's I watched my first test with my dad (New Zealand vs Pakistan), and I can remember at the time I was paying attention that Salim Malik was batting, and since that match I was instantly hooked :) The thrill of getting boundaries or getting wickets sends a huge sense of delight through me and the odd backyard game of cricket with some beers and something to eat on a brilliant summers day is really the life:) Not to mention the gorgous girls watching us play! Have broken many a window and lost many tennis balls and cricket balls and when we couldn't find them we stole spuds out of the vege garden and use them instead! They are brilliant for seaming and very unpredictable hahaha!
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Cheers, and long live Cricket, the brilliant game!
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