Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Top 40 hit parade

Two stories of note in the press today, firstly, Dileep Premachandran's excellent piece on India's new generation of batsmen in the Guardian, and All Out Cricket magazine's list of 'The 40 Best Players In The World Now'.

'If you don't agree with us,' AOC writes, 'then you're just plain wrong'. Here's the list:

40. Jesse Ryder
39. Ishant Sharma
38. Brendan McCullum
37. Zaheer Khan
36. Ross Taylor
35. James Anderson
34. Shakib-Al-Hasan
33. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
32. Umar Gul
31. Chris Gayle
30. Younis Khan
29. Daniel Vettori
28. Ajantha Mendis
27. Dwayne Bravo
26. Mike Hussey
25. Mahela Jayawardene
24. Andrew Flintoff
23. Gautam Gambhir
22. Brett Lee
21. Yuvraj Singh
20. JP Duminy
19. Shahid Afridi
18. Harbhajan Singh
17. Tillakaratne Dilshan
16. Shane Watson
15. Stuart Broad
14. Muttiah Muralitharan
13. Jacques Kallis
12. Virender Sehwag
11. Andrew Strauss
10. Mitchell Johnson
9. AB De Villiers
8. Kevin Pietersen
7. Sachin Tendulkar
6. Dale Steyn
5. Kumar Sangakkara
4. MS Dhoni
3. Michael Clarke
2. Ricky Ponting
1. Graeme Smith

Wot, no Ian Bell? 

NB: A prediction on the major points of contention: Hussey above 25 people. Mitchell Johnson above Andrew Strauss. Shane Watson above Dilshan, Gambhir and Gayle. 

Criminally overlooked player: Thilan Samaraweera
at

7 comments:

  1. Alex2 December 2009 at 16:21

    No Sarwan? Gayle ahead of Chanderpaul? Clearly it's not a list built around test match cricket. Which is fine. But...

    And anyway, how useful is any list that contains 40% of the chaps playing international cricket right now?

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  2. Anonymous2 December 2009 at 23:36

    Stuart Broad is ranked higher in this that Flintoff and James Anderson. The lad's good, but not that good.

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  3. Anonymous3 December 2009 at 02:54

    How can Stuart Broad be so high up?

    And Greame is the best in the world?

    This list is flawed in so many ways.

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  4. Tim3 December 2009 at 06:32

    Virender Sehwag had just finished stating his case for a higher position.

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  5. Anonymous3 December 2009 at 07:25

    Shane Watson 16th???? come on!!! Too high

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  6. Anonymous3 December 2009 at 07:26

    And Shane Bond is a MUCH better bowler than Ishant Sharma...even though he has missed much of last 2 years.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mark3 December 2009 at 23:22

    "Monty, we hardly knew ye!"

    ReplyDelete