Cricket's top 100 in profile (16 December 1998)

16 December 1998

Cricket's top 100 in profile

E W Swanton

E W Swanton finds not everything is quite in order in this book of leading players

JOHN WOODCOCK, the former editor of Wisden and cricket correspondent emeritus of The Times, accepted last year the daunting job of choosing, in order of merit, The Hundred Greatest Cricketers. McMillan have published his work under this title (price £16.99) with a foreword of characteristic acumen by Michael Brearley to accompany the author's introduction.

Much of the fascination of the idea, aside from the quality of the profiles of each cricketer, lies in the order as well as the identity of Mr Woodcock's choices. One looks therefore for a contents page setting out the names from the first to the 100th. But, believe it or not, there is no contents page, and to discover the names and the order of their placing one has to turn to the back of the book where in the last 20-odd pages the statistics are listed by Robert Brooke. There, by the way, the 12 knighthoods are ignored, likewise the baronetcy of No 48, Lord Cowdrey.

The format consists of photographs on one page with succinct sketches of around 250 words on the facing page. Many of the pictures however overflow; so one occasionally sees half a wicketkeeper framed behind a batsman, half an umpire alongside a bowler. Coffee-table size would have worked well.

Woodcock's first half-dozen are W G Grace, Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Alfred Mynn, Sir Jack Hobbs and S F Barnes. In Australia critics have been upset by the relegation of their prime icon to No 2. But they would be, wouldn't they?

As every serious historian knows, the foundations of the game were perfected around W G: "For nearly 40 years he bestrode the sporting world, his face [looking serenely out from the jacket] as well known as any on this earth."

As Bradman was peerless with the bat so was Sobers in all-round virtuosity. A reporter of innumerable Test tours, the author's affection for many of his choices is evident. Sobers was "a supreme all-rounder and delightfully modest". Ken Barrington (No 57) as coach to the England side "was a father to some, a brother to others and a friend to them all".

As to the all-rounders, Hammond, classed as such, gets in at No 7, Botham at 9, Woolley at 12, while Imran Khan, Miller and Benaud are bunched between 16 and 18. Among bowlers, Warne, Lillee and Bedser rank with the incomparable Barnes among the first 20. Hobbs, The Master, is followed by Viv Richards, Compton, Hutton, Trumper, Barry Richards, George Headley, Gavaskar, Dexter and, at No 25, Tendulkar.

The breakdown of the remainder can likewise only be made with the utmost trouble from the rear synopsis. What the reader wants, of course, is, with his or her own heroes in mind, to be introduced to the favoured 100 en masse and to agree or disagree with umpire Woodcock's verdicts.

Supposing the book's publishers can pull their socks up, the theme and the author's brave handling of it deserve, in due course, a worthy reprint. Meanwhile the book should be on every cricket lovers' Christmas present list.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)