middleMore than 800 men took part in the Ashes Test. Britain picked up most of them in the summer of 1989. But the process of selecting the Guardian’s Ashes Top 100 involved something more scientific than the infamous shemozzle.
let’s do it start In small print. We asked 51 judges to select the top 50 male Ashes cricketers and calculated the top 100 scores from them. 1st place gets 50 points, 2nd place gets 49 points, etc. The voting rules were simple. Players were only judged on their performance in Ashes cricket, but judges were free to interpret it any way they wanted. (Yes, someone voted for Gary Pratt.) The judges had to select at least 15 players from each country and at least five players from each of the five eras. During the war years; From World War II to 1974; From 1975 to 1999; And since 2000.
When all the votes were counted and re-counted, the blonde bully was at the top of the pile, smiling knowingly. Just like he did when he got the highest score. Shane Warne amassed 2,503 voting points, 121 ahead of Donald Bradman, while Ian Botham, the Scottish version of Australian cricket, and Glenn McGrath, another player, passed 2,000 points. Some gaps were larger than others. There were only nine points between fifth and seventh, including Dennis Lillee, Steve Waugh and Jack Hobbs. It was smaller than the gap between numbers 85 and 86.
You can see the full voting breakdown here.
None of the judges chose a final top five. their Here are the top 5, not in the wrong order. The pair became closer. Edgbaston 2005 is getting closer. One judge ranked the top five in the correct order. However, Douglas Jardine made it to the top six after coming in third place.
Only 14 of the 51 judges voted Warne first. But since no one had him in the top three, he accumulated poll points like he was the soul of England’s batsmen. Thirty-three judges chose Bradman as their top pick, but the relative indifference of some judges cost him.
Warne and Bradman headline a list dominated by Australia, at least at the top. The overall split is 50:50 (it cannot be made up, and if you look at the numerous voting spreadsheets on the cricket desk you will see that this is not the case). But Australia’s post-war hegemony is reflected where it really matters. Seven of the top 10 have 14 of the top 25.
Four of the top nine teams were part of the Australian teams that swept across England in the 1990s, but there was a noticeable lack of recency bias overall. The two most recent eras have produced the fewest players, with the largest being those who played their first Ashes Test between 1946 and 1975. The modern era (21st century Ashes debutants) has provided only four of the top 25 – Steve Smith, Stuart Broad, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Flintoff. Ashes legends can be born instantly, but they take time to grow. That way it will last forever. A heartbreaking reflection of this is that 58 out of every 100 of us are no longer with us.
The top five are bowler-heavy but do little to displace the batsmen, from No. 6 Steve Waugh to No. 14 Ricky Ponting. The old phrase “the weight of the run” had a slightly different meaning in our poll. According to the traditional balance of a cricket team (five batsmen, one all-rounder, one goalkeeper and four bowlers), batsmen were slightly overrepresented.
In general, our panel valued longevity over the explosive impact of fast bowlers such as Jeff Thomson, Mitchell Johnson, John Snow and Frank Tyson. They’re all not in the top 20, which is full of ruthless scorers. The presence of Steves, Waugh and Smith, Allan Border and Ponting and the number of English referees of a certain age suggest that Stockholm Syndrome is an ongoing phenomenon in English cricket.
There are 15 all-rounders in the top 100, nine of whom are British. This is one of the few areas where Britain’s recent hegemony is undeniable. England have the big three of Botham, Flintoff and Ben Stokes, but Australia’s most recent all-rounders are Richie Benaud and Alan Davidson. Both played their last Ashes Test in Sydney in 1963. This did not cause much harm to Australia.
The popularity of the classic, superheroic all-rounder means there is a dearth of the more familiar 21st century all-rounder, the goalkeeper batsman. Adam Gilchrist, who changed cricket forever with seven stunning counter-hits, was placed at number 21. He is the only goalkeeper ranked in the top 50. England’s highest score was 53, courtesy of velvet-gloved genius Alan Knott.
Knott made the England Ashes XI despite not being ranked in the top 50. The combined team currently only has one player, Steve Smith, but the recently retired Stuart Broad is also among them. Good luck to Broad, Dennis Lillee and Glenn McGrath with the news that one of them will be making the first change. The competition is so fierce that the two past Compton/Miller Medal winners (Travis Head in 2021-22 and Chris Woakes in 2023) did not make the top 100.
The list includes six men who will take part in this winter’s Ashes, fitness permitting: Smith, Stokes, Pat Cummins, Joe Root, Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Starc. When we poll the judges again in January, there’s sure to be a new name or two on the list.
Ash XI
To simplify selection and make the team as realistic as possible, we chose a team with traditional balance and selected the highest-ranked players in six categories: two openers, three middle batsmen, an all-rounder, a wicketkeeper, a spinner and three quick bowlers. This means Stuart Broad (#15) is ahead of Keith Miller (#13) in the all-time XI. Because, despite being a fast bowler, Miller is classified as an all-rounder. It was Miller or Botham and Beefy won.
Combined XI Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe, Don Bradman, Steve Smith, Steve Waugh, Ian Botham, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Shane Warne, Stuart Broad, Dennis Lillee, Glenn McGrath.
England XI Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe, Wally Hammond, Ken Barrington, David Gower, Ian Botham, Alan Knott (wk), Harold Larwood, Stuart Broad, Jim Laker, Bob Willis.
Australia XI Victor Trumper, Arthur Morris, Don Bradman, Steve Smith, Steve Waugh, Keith Miller, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Shane Warne, Dennis Lillee, Fred Spofforth, Glenn McGrath.