Lateef Jafri:100 greatest cricketers; some omissions (11 Aug 1997)

11 August 1997

100 greatest cricketers; some omissions

By Lateef Jafri

JOHN Woodcock, veteran journalist and former cricket correspondent The Times, London, has come out with a list of all-time greatest cricketers, totalling 100, in a series of articles in the Saturday magazine of the prestigious paper.

Now that Sir Neville Cardus, R.C. Robertson- Glasgow, the historian H.S Altham and John Arlott have passed away and the Australians Jack Fingleton, Ray Robinson, Arthur Mailey and Johnny Moyes and the reputed West Indian C.L.R. James too have died, Jim Swanton, formerly of the Daily Telegraph (London), and Woodcock should be considered as the doyen of cricket writers. Woodcock, a former editor of the most authentic chronicler of the game, the Wisden Cricketers' almanack, is fully competent to give his rating of batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders from the days the Test match era heralded on March 15, 1877, at Melbourne or even before. However, since every writer has a right to be opinionated his assemblage has some glaring omissions, certainly not slips since deliberately done in a computerised system.

The Pakistani fans of the game are angrily pointing out the exclusion of Zaheer Abbas whose mastery over all sorts of bowling during his playing days was remarkable. There was grandeur in his strokeplay. Not that the statistics do not support his qualification to take a place in company of the elitist group of contemporary cricketers. His glorious 274 against England in 1971 at Birmingham won him the appreciation of the English critics and the affection of the connoisseurs. He scattered the English attack to the winds with a touch and mode that was entirely his own. He got a pride of place as Wisden's five cricketers of the year in 1972.

In first class cricket, in the English county championship he thrice scored a double hundred and a hundred in 1976 and 1977, playing for Gloucestershire, the team of Dr W.G. Grace and Walter Hammond. He stands above all luminaries in scoring two separate hundreds infirst class matches eight times. His exclusion from Woodcock's list cannot but be regretted and one hopes he makes an early amendment.

Similarly the passing over of the magician spinner Abdul Qadir is surprising. His Test career spanned over 13 years and in more series than one against all cricket-playing countries, except the latterly-admitted ICC member Zimbabwe and South Africa, having joined the main cricketing nations quite late, Qadir's guile and wile harassed the batsmen of the highest order. His disguised action, with flight and curve, was a delight to the spectators enjoying the game from the galleries. He resembled Vinoo Mankad, Subhas Gupte, Amir Elahi and the now almost forgotten Australian Jack Iverson while moving to deceive the batsmen with his crafty and almost unplayable googly. Even Shane Warne, the Australian mesmeriser, has time and again paid tributes to the skill of Qadir. It is yet to be explained why he has been left out.

No doubt there are other border-line cases of exclusions like those of Majid Khan, Mohammad Nisar, one of the soundest openers of the subcontinent, Vijay Merchant, and the inimitable stylist, Mushtaq Ali, a hero of cricket fans at all venues in India and England. When he was dropped for the second unofficial Test against the Australian Services XI at Calcutta in 1945 the fans mobbed Prince Duleepsinhji, a famed cricketer himself and a thorough gentleman, and angrily shouted, "No Mushtaq, no Test." The crowds threatened violence. The chairman of the selectors, Duleep, had but to accede to their demand. There is no instance of the fans' love for a cricketer in the game's history. There were more delectable strokes in his batsmanship than the aggressive variety of some of the swash-bucklers. He has been called "the Errol Flynn of cricket" by a gifted Australian all-rounder of yore, Keith Miller. He falls in the category of some of the finest stylists of cricket, Spooner, Palairet and Compton of England, Alan Kippax and Archie Jackson of Australia, if Victor Trumper has to be put in a class of his own, being more dashing, energetic and vehement. However, for pure graceful cricket Mushtaq Ali deserved a place. He is still erect and fit, though approaching 83.

Dr W.G. Grace, who gave refinement to the batsmanship after the early Hambeldon era, heads Woodcock's rating followed by Sir Donald Bradman. One finds that Arthur Shrewsbury, one of the most organised of England openers, has been put at No 31. He belonged to the Golden Age of cricket. Interestingly Dr Grace, when asked about his world XI, only said, "Give me Arthur." It was a rare tribute to one of the most technically sound batsmen.

Victor Trumper, the brilliant Australian stroke-player, died in June 1915 when he was only 38 and at the apogee of his batting form. No bowler could keep him quiet. He could cut to the smithereens any sort of bowling. Even on sticky dog he exhibited his nimbleness of feet and wrists and could go on making runs in an unruffled and quick way. In a crucial Test for England at Manchester in 1902 the whole strategy of MacLaren, the English captain, rested on getting Trumper out in a jiffy. There was a strong armoury of attack with MacLaren viz Lockwood, Rhodes, Fred Tate, Braund and Stanley Jackson. Perhaps MacLaren can be successful, thought the Lancashire supporters of England. Trumper opened the Australian innings, took up the English challenge with such swiftness and dash that he hit the first century before lunch in a Test match. He pricked the bubble of Maclaren's scheme with delightful strokes all over the field that amazed the onlookers. There was versality of shotplay in him. England lost the match by three runs.

Why has Sanath Jayasuriya, the consistent Sri Lankan stroke-maker who almost overhauled Lara's record in the recent Test against India, been kept out of the world rating by Woodcock, ask the followers of the game? Other notable omissions by Woodcock are the West Indian opening pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, Joel Garner, the tall former West Indian pacer, and the noted Australian fast bowler Jeff Thomson who had formed a destructive combination of fast bowling with Dennis Lillee. Fortunately the latter is listed at No 19, above Sir Alec Bedser, Ray Lindwall, George Lohmann. Fred Trueman and Sir Richard Hadlee. An additional (or separate) list to accommodate some other eminent cricketing personalities to make up the lapses is needed - maybe by some other veteran cricket scribe.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)