Top 5 Most Talented Cricketers of All Time?

[Gowza]

Who do you think are the most talented ever to play the game? Let’s not mistake results for talent, I’m asking who was the most talented not who achieved the most.

1 Don Bradman
2 Keith Miller
3 Mike Procter
4 Garry Sobers
5 AB De Villiers/Wasim Akram

Tougher than I thought tbh, honourable mentions are viv Richards, Barry Richards, Warne, murali, Malcolm Marshall, kallis.

I’m sure there are plenty more, let the discussion begin, show us your top talents and reasons why.

[aklemalp]

I'm basing mine on players who I have seen played; not the dinosaurs from yesteryear.

So, I may have to categorize the players based on their respective disciplines...

Batsmen:
1. Carl Hooper- I have had the privilege to watch him play when I was a kid. Regional first-class games were always held at my home ground- which was also a regular home ground for our national team. The man made batting look easy, every time he enters the middle to bat. One of his favorite shots to play was the late-cut; he does have a very late cut.

2. Ramnaresh Sarwan- immense talent. Great hand-eye coordination. A cover drive to fall in love with.

3. Shivnarine Chanderpaul- speaking of hand-eye coordinate, Shiv is a beast when it comes to that. This guy can literally bat for days.

As a school kid, I would often hang around the player's pavilion area just to get a glimpse of these guys, and I did manage to get all of their autographs; that was way back in the early 2000s.

4. Brian Charles Lara- genius.

5. Kumar Sangakarra- with bat in hand, Sanga was a poet. Talent personified. A perfectionist.

Bowlers:
1. Wasim Akram- he can make the ball talk. Sweat on one side of the old ball resulted in a craft that became synonymous with his name: reverse swing.

2. Chaminda Vaas- line em up and deceive the right-handed batsmen with the one that straightens...a LBW bowler he is. Equally effective against the tough lefties.

3. Curtly Ambrose- tall, fast, accurate. Sir Curtly was always a joy to watch. He performed at both home and away. A bowler for every condition. Not to mention those cartwheeling stumps, and the obligatory send-off.

4. Glenn McGrath- once again, good line and length bowling is a skill that is simple in theory, but a tad difficult to execute.

5. Shaun Pollock- economical, beating the outside edge of lefties. He was insane against them. Dibbly-dobbly.

Wicket-keepers:
Obviously, there were some super-talented keepers in the past 25-30 years...So here goes:

1. MS Dhoni- leaving out all his batting heroics, he is a top level keeper. Fast with stumpings; a keen eye out for batsman's feet straying out of the crease.

2. Mark Boucher- SA's perennial gloveman.

3. Prasanna Jayawardene- underrated, but a stoic behind the stumps.

4. Adam Gilchrist- because he's Gilly

5. Andy Flower

Sanga makes this list easily.

[aklemalp]

I'm sure that others have their opinions of who their most talented players are...

Come on guys, chime in!

[tiger1000]

It's common most people confuse finished product to actual talent Most talented? Easy

Garfield sobers, used to party all night then come and destroy the opponent, whether it was with his explosive batting, or spin or swing

Lara

Murali

Carl hooper is a great shout, very lazy

Abd should have been on par with any batsman in history, bradman, Lara, Tendulkar ponting, he should have been there, he wasn't, in tests anyway

Gayle

Mahela, he was always meant to be more gifted than his peers in Sri Lanka

[Yankees]

1. J. Kallis
2. Sobers
3. Botham
4. S. Pollock
5. Shakib/Imran Khan/Flintoff (he even had a boxing career)

Why these guys? Because some guys can bat, and some guys can bowl, but it takes serious TALENT to be able to do both on an international level. Each of these guys would get on most team based on their batting or bowling alone. That's talent.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by tiger1000
It's common most people confuse finished product to actual talent Most talented? Easy

Garfield sobers, used to party all night then come and destroy the opponent, whether it was with his explosive batting, or spin or swing

Lara

Murali

Carl hooper is a great shout, very lazy

Abd should have been on par with any batsman in history, bradman, Lara, Tendulkar ponting, he should have been there, he wasn't, in tests anyway

Gayle

Mahela, he was always meant to be more gifted than his peers in Sri Lanka

Keith miller and beefy did the same, an allrounder thing perhaps...

Also you mention Mahela, what are your thoughts on sanga?

[Rinathq]

my top 5 would be,

Bradman
Warne
Sobbers
Sanga
Lara

[Night_wolf]

OK based on pure talent in my view top 5 players. I am only ranking the ones I saw play

1. Wasim
2. Waqar
3. Lara
4. Sachin
5. Gilly

[tiger1000]

Originally Posted by Gowza
Keith miller and beefy did the same, an allrounder thing perhaps...

Also you mention Mahela, what are your thoughts on sanga?

They did, but didn't have the talent of sobers, no where near

Sangakara was the better player in the end, but Mahela was the more talented one, Sangakara said as much, from age groups jayawardena was well known throughout Sri Lankan cricket

[tiger1000]

Originally Posted by Yankees
1. J. Kallis
2. Sobers
3. Botham
4. S. Pollock
5. Shakib/Imran Khan/Flintoff (he even had a boxing career)

Why these guys? Because some guys can bat, and some guys can bowl, but it takes serious TALENT to be able to do both on an international level. Each of these guys would get on most team based on their batting or bowling alone. That's talent.

Pollock, Botham and Flintoff, wouldn't get in as batsmen

[Gowza]

It depends in which botham you are talking about and also the standard you are expecting. Pretty sure for a certain period of time beefy was one of the top 5 bats in the world but if you're talking about an all time national xi then I agree, he couldn't make it on just batting and he couldn't make it on just bowling either (at least not if you take his entire career into consideration - at the beginning he certainly could've made a team as a pure bowler).

As far as sobers having more talent than beefy and Miller, well yes certainly more than beefy but I think Miller V Sobers is closer, both exceptionally talented batsmen but sobers showed it more at the highest level and probably had a slightly higher ceiling than Miller as a bat but as bowlers sobers strength was his versatility, I've no doubt Miller had more pace bowling talent than sobers had. Not saying sobers didn't have a lot of talent as a pacer but I just think Miller had more, Miller did also bowl some offices but didn't bowl spin anywhere near as often as sobers.

Mahela V Sanga, from what I saw sanga had more talent and their records show that as well.

Forgot Gilly, an underrated player imo, very much a top tier keeper imo and combine it with his batting then he was a talent rarely seen.

[tiger1000]

Originally Posted by Gowza
It depends in which botham you are talking about and also the standard you are expecting. Pretty sure for a certain period of time beefy was one of the top 5 bats in the world but if you're talking about an all time national xi then I agree, he couldn't make it on just batting and he couldn't make it on just bowling either (at least not if you take his entire career into consideration - at the beginning he certainly could've made a team as a pure bowler).

As far as sobers having more talent than beefy and Miller, well yes certainly more than beefy but I think Miller V Sobers is closer, both exceptionally talented batsmen but sobers showed it more at the highest level and probably had a slightly higher ceiling than Miller as a bat but as bowlers sobers strength was his versatility, I've no doubt Miller had more pace bowling talent than sobers had. Not saying sobers didn't have a lot of talent as a pacer but I just think Miller had more, Miller did also bowl some offices but didn't bowl spin anywhere near as often as sobers.

Mahela V Sanga, from what I saw sanga had more talent and their records show that as well.

Forgot Gilly, an underrated player imo, very much a top tier keeper imo and combine it with his batting then he was a talent rarely seen.

The standard am expecting is not all time, am expecting international standard, and you can't take just 2/3 years of prime, it has to be at least a good chunk of their careers

Botham simply wouldn't get into many teams averaging in his low 30's, even in his prime and taking away everything after mid 80's he averaged 34/35, that's not good enough for most test teams as a batsman today

As a bowler he could make it in that period as a bowler in most teams in my opinion

Miller from footage I've seen, was not the same level as sobers as a batsman

Sangakara record shows his superior hard work and dedication, he kept improving, Mahela half the time turned up asleep to games when he didn't need to perform, he was a great big game player, a players record certainly doesn't show who had more talent, it shows who was the better player, talent is just a small part to it

Gilchrist is also super talented as a batsman, not so much as a keeper, he practiced batting very little, it was his keeping he gave most of his attention on training, even then as a keeper, he wasn't top tier, he was excellent but not top tier, as a batsman keeper, there is no better.

[aklemalp]

Originally Posted by tiger1000
Carl hooper is a great shout, very lazy

This is what makes him special

[R0ssei]

How do you recognize talent without watching the players play? Or, did you really see Bradman or Sobers play? (just highlights then?)

I started watching from 90's, so can only mention players from that period till now:

1. Brian Lara (class, timing, power, finding gaps ALL TIME, patience, last man standing...)
2. Wasim Akram (pace with swing, swing both ways, late swing, reverse swing, bouncers - he couldn't even fit a slower ball or knuckle ball in a 6-ball over if he were playing T20 now)
3. Shane Warne (master of leg-spin, just takes few steps and spins 2.5 feet any day any pitch - still don't know how)
4. Kumar Sangakkara (elegant, sweet timer, reads the bowlers very well + a damn good keeper = requires lot of energy in the field to keep whole day and then bat for another full day)
5. Saeed Anwar (exquisite timer of the ball - the best I've ever seen, the guy would half-punch/half-defend a ball and it would race to the boundary)

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by Night_wolf
OK based on pure talent in my view top 5 players. I am only ranking the ones I saw play

1. Wasim
2. Waqar
3. Lara
4. Sachin
5. Gilly

Ah! No Ashfool!!?

[Night_wolf]

Originally Posted by kalpurush
Ah! No Ashfool!!?

no unfortunately we are raking based on cricketing talent not talent for being the best crook

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by tiger1000
The standard am expecting is not all time, am expecting international standard, and you can't take just 2/3 years of prime, it has to be at least a good chunk of their careers

Botham simply wouldn't get into many teams averaging in his low 30's, even in his prime and taking away everything after mid 80's he averaged 34/35, that's not good enough for most test teams as a batsman today

As a bowler he could make it in that period as a bowler in most teams in my opinion

Miller from footage I've seen, was not the same level as sobers as a batsman

Sangakara record shows his superior hard work and dedication, he kept improving, Mahela half the time turned up asleep to games when he didn't need to perform, he was a great big game player, a players record certainly doesn't show who had more talent, it shows who was the better player, talent is just a small part to it

Gilchrist is also super talented as a batsman, not so much as a keeper, he practiced batting very little, it was his keeping he gave most of his attention on training, even then as a keeper, he wasn't top tier, he was excellent but not top tier, as a batsman keeper, there is no better.

The difficult thing about botham is his averages don’t look exceptional but his strike rates are pretty good, amount of 5fers/centuries etc he got, match winning or changing knocks or bowling spells.

If bothams career ended after 5 years he’d no doubt unanimously be called an ATG and his amount of 5fers and centuries wouldn’t be much different to his ending numbers and his averages wouldn’t be either, think after about 50 tests he averaged about 36-38 with bat and about 26 with ball. After that he barely did anything, has some good performances here and there like the 80 and 8fer against WI but it was few and far between.

I’m not saying the above to disregard the poor latter half of his career, it was quite poor but it’s just insane that he achieved so many hauls and centuries in such a short time, he’s got more 5fers than some ATG, in fewer tests and a poor backend of his career.

Yes he was inconsistent hence his not so good averages but the hauls and centuries clearly show his match winning ability was just as good as any ATG and there aren’t many that have these numbers who aren’t ATG level because the ones that do usually have the averages as well.

[Fazal]

Without Ashraful, kisher top 5?

Ei top five amra mani naa.

[kalpurush]

Originally Posted by Fazal
Without Ashraful, kisher top 5?

Ei top five amra mani naa.

ফজল মামু এগিয়ে চল...আমরা আছি তোমার সাথে...

[R0ssei]

Top 5 Talents from Bangladeshi Talentpool:

1. Md. Ashraful
2. Shakib Al Hasan
3. Aminul Islam Bulbul
4. Md. Rafique
5. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza

General talent category: Tamim, Fizz, Opi, Aftab, Rajin, Soumya, Taskin

[bujhee kom]

Kapil Dev
Michael Holding
Alan Taylor
Jeff Dujon
Alvin Kalicharan

[tiger1000]

Originally Posted by Gowza
The difficult thing about botham is his averages don’t look exceptional but his strike rates are pretty good, amount of 5fers/centuries etc he got, match winning or changing knocks or bowling spells.

If bothams career ended after 5 years he’d no doubt unanimously be called an ATG and his amount of 5fers and centuries wouldn’t be much different to his ending numbers and his averages wouldn’t be either, think after about 50 tests he averaged about 36-38 with bat and about 26 with ball. After that he barely did anything, has some good performances here and there like the 80 and 8fer against WI but it was few and far between.

I’m not saying the above to disregard the poor latter half of his career, it was quite poor but it’s just insane that he achieved so many hauls and centuries in such a short time, he’s got more 5fers than some ATG, in fewer tests and a poor backend of his career.

Yes he was inconsistent hence his not so good averages but the hauls and centuries clearly show his match winning ability was just as good as any ATG and there aren’t many that have these numbers who aren’t ATG level because the ones that do usually have the averages as well.

He is an ATG as is pollock

And I don't know stats all that well, but he was exceptional in his first 5 years

But he was never good enough just to walk into most teams with just his bat

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by tiger1000
He is an ATG as is pollock

And I don't know stats all that well, but he was exceptional in his first 5 years

But he was never good enough just to walk into most teams with just his bat

See this is where it’s tough to rate botham, in his first 5/6 years he was a top 10 batsman for that period. From 01/01/1977-01/01/1984 he’s 2nd in the list for most centuries in that period, but his average was lower because he was less consistent but still scored tons.

I guess at the end of it it has to be held against him.

[bujhee kom]

Chetan Cjauhan
Chetan Sharma
Angshuman Gaikowad
Duleep Doshi
Modon Laal