Ashes Weekly: Who are the 100 greatest Ashes cricketers?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30It also coincides with The Guardian releasing its top 100 Ashes players of all time from when it began in the 1880s up to the present day. If it's anything like the top 100 footballers list the paper does each year, readers and listeners will not take it too seriously and lose their minds because WG Grace is ahead of Kevin Peterson. There is controversy in this list right at the top. This is The Guardian Ashes Weekly. Joining me on the panel today, our cricket columnist Emma John. Hi, Emma. Hi, hello. Our cricket correspondent Ali Martin. Hello, Max. Good to see you, mate. and guardian australia's jeff lemon hey jeff you're on this journey for the whole time with me thank you that's it limbering up getting ready for a long series stress fractures have cleared up and i'm good to go good stuff you'll find i just want to talk about 2005 you're of course welcome to steer me into the present day so look what we're going to do is bring you previews and recaps of all five tests we'll do a proper preview of the first tests a bit closer to the first test but just briefly ali i mentioned it in the intro we haven't won a test here since what january 2011 11.

1:29We've got hope this time, haven't we? There is a little bit of hope. Also, you've got to remember that that last Ashes series in Australia, Stuart Broad unilaterally avoided it. So, the record's not quite as bad when you factor that in. England will be coming out with a fresh game plan. They're going to be doing it differently. You know, whether the results are different as a result of that, who's to say? But, they're certainly coming out with a different approach, hyper-aggressive with the bat, and with a decent battery of fast bowlers if they can stay fit. So, it looks like a solid template for what should be a great series.

1:56Yeah, it's a big ear for that staying fit. I mean, I guess, Jeff, you know, the news out of the Australia camp is that your mob are all incredibly old. All of them, almost all of them over 30 years old. Can you imagine being over 30? I certainly can't. No, I mean, who can? I have to go a long way back to imagine being over 30. And it seems quite nice in retrospect, but I suppose, aside from Cameron Green, everybody is. But look, you live in Australia now, you know how that works. You watched Geelong win a premiership in 2022 with the oldest team that ever turned out in a grand final. Old blokes win stuff.

2:28That's the Dan Christian motto, and it may hold true here. Emma, what are the vibes telling you ahead of this one? I am keeping my hopes up because I'm heading out for the Adelaide test, and so I could really do with it not being 2-0 down, or sorry, 2-0 up for Jeff's man by the time I get out there, because I've actually had a pretty bad run with going to see England in Australia. Yeah, some of my worst - What's your record? Have you got any wins? I've got no wins so far. No wins, good stuff. Okay. I'm completely scratched. And some of my worst cricket watching moments, I mean, I've genuinely shed tears at the Wacker sitting under a tree at the end of a terrible defeat.

3:09So I'm just hoping for a happier time. I've shed tears at the Wacker just being at the Wacker when it's like 44 degrees and you're trying to work from a tent with no fans and the TVs don't work and everyone's laptops are overheating. It was not always the most pleasant place to be. Yeah, I think I'm 0 from 2. I was at the WACA when Gilchrist scored that century in about 8 balls. And then I was at the MCG when Scott Boland got about 25 wickets in 4 minutes, the last time that England lost. So look, maybe this will be different. Let's talk about the top 100, which you can see the whole list on theguardian.com.

3:42Ali, I did want you to do a full countdown, like Bruno Brooks on top of the Pops. But actually, reading out 100 names would take about 10 minutes. Ali, how do you go about putting this list together? How did I go about it? No, Max. Yeah, yeah. This is very much. You're not responsible for this. No, no. So this is a desk production. This was commissioned by Steve McMillan, our sports features editor, with a decent split of English and Australian. And yeah, each person was asked to submit their top 50. And using that, with 50 points for your first vote and one point for your 50th vote, all the votes were put together.

4:16And we crunched the numbers in the office, or other people did it. I didn't do it. and it produced what I think is a pretty interesting list and a pretty fascinating top result, I'd say. Yeah, we'll get to that. Obviously, people can look at the website, so it's not really a spoiler, but nice to add to the tension for this. Sometimes, Emma, when I do the top 50 footballers, I get them and I go, okay, I've done that. And obviously, you're doing a million things, and I realise I've left Lionel Messi out. So I don't know. You can be honest. When you got to your list, you were like, oh, no, there's no both of them in there or something like that.

4:49Well, me, yes. I mean, I did have to have a couple of goes. I think for me, the hardest thing is the relative merits of, you know, the greats of the past who none of us have seen. And you're just having to go on the things you've read. Maybe, you know, if you're really lucky, you've managed to see a little bit of footage of, you know, somebody batting in some sort of cine reel from 100 years ago. But really, you're just going on stories, what you've read. You know that the statistics don't all correlate to each other. You know, pre-war cricket, very different to post-war cricket. So it's a fun exercise.

5:27Let's put it that way. Geoff, no Darren Gough, no David Warner, no Merv Hughes. No Merv Hughes. I mean, on Mustache alone, that's a disgrace, surely. Kind of on a vibes basis, I suppose. I did my 50 partly on vibes. It was looking at the list and thinking who, like which names stir something in me, which might be recognition. and they were like I really wanted to vote for George Bonner which I didn't end up doing in the end because he played in the 1880s and was just famous for being huge and handsome and smacking the ball a really long way his numbers are shit house but he looked great like he's a good story and in the end I couldn't justify it but there are quite a few votes where it was that I had where it was more based on what do I like about this player's story more than just what were their numbers because the numbers don't stack up across areas sure it's David Boone in yes David Boone's there.

6:17He's a bit, but he was, he's important because he was, he was sort of with Steve Waugh, the face of the renewal in 1989. He's when Australian cricket goes from that decade of being pretty bad to turning it around and then surges on from there. And he takes the catch, the hat trick catch for Shane Warne at the MCG. So almost on that alone, you've got to give Booney a spot. Sure. And you know, however many cans of VB that he would crush on a 24 hour flight, etc and you it's interesting emma you sort of mentioned those those players from the part and you know there are names that listeners will probably sort of know but not really know you know i i sort of heard the name tip foster but i couldn't tell you anything about tip foster or you know i thought johnny briggs who's holding up the whole thing up at 100 was a you know went from child tv stardom in the you know the north and the uk and the 80s for propping up this chart so like of those era cricketers?

7:11You know, tell us a bit. Well, I mean, I think the most important one is probably Jack Hobbs, right? I mean, Jack Hobbs sits at seven. Sorry, I say the most important one. I mean, I'm just like, I'm going from an England point of view. I really apologise. Of course, of course. I've entirely just, but I also sort of thought we might be kind of like, not just talking about the top couple for a while. So if I'm just thinking about things, people who are more important to me, You know, Jack Hobbs comes in at seven. He's an important person to talk about because he scored the most English runs in the Ashes.

7:493 ,636, 54.26. But what's really incredible about his Ashes career is that the majority of those runs were scored in Australia. 2 ,493 of them. So he's, and he's another person with just, you know, he's got a great Ashes story in the sense that, you know, he scores 83 on Ashes debut on his first tour in 1908, 09. And he doesn't do any better than that. Then he has a great series in 1911, 12. And then obviously he goes off to the First World War. And he's, he's a... Always gets in the way, doesn't it? Really gets in the way. Really messes up people's stats. so he goes off to become an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps which you know he's then in the RAF but by 1918 he's like serving in France with his squadron it but he comes the amazing thing about Hobbes' story is he comes back from this experience and even better batter like there aren't you know there's so many stories we know about about players who you know the war or either of the two world wars, you know, really kind of did for them in some way.

9:00And they came back physically or impaired or, you know, just had taken, really taken out of them. He comes back and he's even better. And he's better in an England team that is not winning. And he's scoring, along with his opening partner, Herbert Sutcliffe, he's scoring the majority of their runs. So he's just this really fantastic character. And can I just tell one more thing that I love about Jack Hobbs sorry while I'm off on a Sir Jack Hobbs rant is that he was just supposed to be this really kind of easy going lovely guy as well and that showed in his batting Ali who from yesteryear sort of you know can you just do what Emma did for another cricketer is what I'm trying to say well also I just want to interject I mean yes Jack Hobbs did pause his career for World War One but Ian Bothan took time out of the game to appear in pantomime so who did he play Who did Beefy play?

9:57Widow Twanky? It's got to be, isn't it? It's got to be Widow Twanky. Do you know what? I mean, he's low on our list, but he is in the top 100. I'm going to go for Gilbert Jessup and the Croucher. Basically because of, well, the England record that the Baz Ballers have been trying to break pretty much for the last four years, the 76-ball Test 100, which is England's fastest in Test cricket. And that's kind of hung over. There is obviously a bit of debate as to whether the accuracy of that. Simon Wilde has put together an excellent book, which I'll be who's out at the moment, which delves into that.

10:30He has the number around about 72, 73 balls, I think, from memory. But it's just one of those sort of, you know, great origin stories. And as I say, it's a record that still sits there to this day. And sort of when did he get this? Where was he? Well, this is in the golden age, Max. You must know. Well, I know. Some listeners may not know. I mean, his test career was kind of turn of the century, i.e. 1899 to 1909. How about you, Jeff? I was more interested with who didn't make it, because there tends to be a degree of recency bias with this sort of thing, or celebrity bias, I suppose. Although I was a bit surprised that Ian Bell missed out.

11:10Dominant in 2013 made 300s that series, was the only one who wasn't spooked by Mitchell Johnson in 1314, the way that I remember it. But you go back to some of the early days, there's some players who could have made it. I suppose Billy Midwinter took the first five-wicket haul in Test cricket, but it wasn't an Ashes series technically because Australia and England weren't playing the Ashes yet. Ranjit Sinji, 175 at the SCG. That was the biggest score for England, I think, until Tip Foster, actually. Max, you'll be interested to know. Good old Tip. 287 at the SCG. I think Tip Foster had the highest score for a visiting player to Australia for like 90 years until Ross Taylor came along.

11:50Maybe it was a century, just over a century. It was an extraordinarily long-standing record. But the ones who really made me stop and go, what's going on here? George Giffen missed out. He played 11 Ashes series, took over 100 wickets, made over 1 ,000 runs, which is pretty good going in those days. Arthur Maley, nine for 121, is still on the wall at the Percy Beams bar at the MCG for the best figures by an Australian bowler at the MCG. He's not in there, which is, you know, borderline outrageous. Doug Walters, ton on debut in an Ashes Test, ton in his second test in an Ashes Test, century in a session in an Ashes Test, still didn't make the list.

12:27What's going on with that one? And last, like, the most egregious one of all, Jack Blackham, played 17 different series against England. 11 of them were Ashes series. He played in the first ever test match. He played in the 1879 Riot match in Sydney. He played in the birth of the Ashes match in 1882. And he captained Australia in what was technically their first Ashes series win. They'd won a pre-Ashes series, but their first Ashes win. After losing seven series in a row to England, he captained that win. Played for a million years. Still didn't make the list. I'm outraged on behalf of Jack Blackham.

13:03Okay. Emma, can I ask a question about WG Grace? Because obviously a lot of old cricket is just pictures of WG Grace. He's in at 31. Is that where he should be? Is he in the right spot? It's because his Ashes record, and I should have it up in front of me and I don't, but it's because his Ashes record isn't as great as his oval record. He's a flat-trade bully. Is that what you're saying? Well, I mean, he is obviously this immense figure, literally. and um and so we you know a lot of his his the big numbers and the big stats are all are all kind of first class runs just sheer weight of numbers of uh of of centuries and first class you know appearances um but his his ashes career uh wasn't as extensive and um oh jeff will jeff will remind me what happened when he when he went and captained in australia because that was an interesting story wasn't it well he was he did captain one tour but he wasn't available for some others and so and it was one of those long meandering uh sort of australian tours but yeah it wasn't an era when when batters return huge bulk runs a lot of the time and so he's his overall record's relatively modest grace he's what a thousand ish runs all up but he played a lot of test matches so he got them at a modest sort of average but he's significant you know The birth of the Asher story doesn't happen without him.

14:31He's the one whose dodgy play in that test at the Oval pisses off Fred Spofford so much that he comes out and bowls out England for 67, is it, off the top of my head? What did he do specifically? He ran out a player who was gardening, who had stepped down to pat down some divots, and Grace sauntered in and knocked the ball, you know, sneaky style and knocked the ball off. Right, sort of besto. No, very much not besto because the ball was dead. as opposed to the ball being alive when the wicketkeeper throws it immediately upon receiving it. So the laws are very, very clear on that point. Right, I see.

15:07You seem a little bit defensive about that bit. Ali, can we talk about England 2005? Mainly for me, but I suspect there are other sort of middle-aged people going this was just such a similar – until you look at the Ashes results and you realise just how long it had been since we'd won an Ashes. You're sort of a whole childhood, right, of just never winning an Ashes for people like me. And then suddenly this thing happens in 05, you know, Edgebaston happens, that incredible last day. You've got Strauss at 68, Vaughn at 40, Peterson 34, Flintoff 22. How are they not all in? Where's Geraint Jones?

15:40What's going on? Where's Simon Jones? Well, I mean, I can reveal that there is one uncapped player who did get one single vote as the 50th player on one of the judges' lists, and that is Gary Pratt. Yes! But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get him into the top 100, unfortunately. But there was a vote for Gary Pratt. I don't know who it was by. It was all anonymous voting. But yeah, I did love that. You're right. Just on that point about, because we've been sort of talking about recency bias. So built into the kind of the judges' modeling, we broke down the Ashes into five distinct eras. And every judge had to include a minimum of five players from each of those eras.

16:23So there was a kind of slight inbuilt, it's only 15 out of your 50 that you submit, but it was a slight inbuilt failsafe to defend against recency bias. But it's funny though, I mean, I looked down the list and I wonder if sort of recency bias can also work the other way. I wonder if we don't perhaps put modern feats up there as much because we're a bit sort of wary of putting them on the same pedestal as some of the greats. And I kind of, I mean, you mentioned, you're still talking about Flintoff, who's, you know, he's right up there. I've got to now go straight. He's 22. He's one ahead of David Gower.

16:58So he's 22. And if you take Flintoff's Ashes career in isolation, it's very fleeting. You know, it's 2005. It's a doomed Ashes series under his captaincy. And then it's kind of a shadow of the man just about holding his body together for a bit of an encore in the 2009 Ashes. But what Flintsoff did in that 2005 series, you know, as man of the series, ending a 16-year wait, I mean, it's such an iconic moment. And I think that's one of the beauties of this kind of voting system and kind of the talking points. You can have great Ashes careers or you can have individual moments. I mean, I also think we've under clubbed massively on Mitchell Johnson here because as much as his returns were lurching at times and he didn't have the best of time in England, albeit he did have his moments in England.

17:47In 13-14, he didn't just sort of take 37 wickets. He didn't just finesse those seven wickets. He blew England away. He destroyed arguably the best England team of the generation. They'd won the Ashes away. They'd won in India. They were there to sort of – they'd won that summer in England 3-0. they were there to complete the legacy and Mitchell Johnson just a one-man wrecking ball bit of help from Rowan Harris but a one Brad Hadden but but ultimately a one-man wrecking ball and so you know he's sort of somewhere in the thirties and I you know I just wonder whether I'm trying to think it back to my own fighting slip now whether I put him higher but it's I don't know it's the beauty of this but yeah I mean sorry going back to 2005 because that's what you want to talk about Max 2005 yeah and and also you know you've only got to look sort of in our top 10 and I would say that you know with Glenn McGrath in that top 10 is that probably the greatest impact Glenn McGrath had was not playing in the in the two games that England won in that summer you know as in sorry not his greatest impact his greatest impact is one of the greatest bowlers of all time but the biggest point of influence the point you'll come to when you wrap up his career is that is the bit where he wasn't there exactly yeah exactly and that and that and that is in England England seized seized their chance that summer um Jeff you wanted to that you've got a hot take on Joe Root?

19:02Well, just that I wouldn't have had him in there. Because, yeah, he's made a lot of runs, but he's never... He's at 46. He's at 47. Yeah, he's way too high. There are a few players like this. I mean, someone like the kind of Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer sort of type players where I go, okay, they're okay. Mike Hussey, you know, they played in some Ashes series. They had a decent record, but their stories aren't as interesting. Joe Root, I think, was influential on one Ashes series that he's played, and that was 2015. He made 100 at Cardiff in the first test, and that set up England to win the test.

19:34And then, yeah, he made another 100 later in the series, but that's when Australia were already broken. The half century at Edgbaston was probably more important. So there are a couple of tests in that series where he's significant. He hasn't played a significant hand in England getting a result in any other series that he's played. So I look at, if I'm weighing up something like that, I'm thinking, yeah, there's a lot of runs because he's played a lot of test matches, but almost none of them were influential test matches. Whereas, like Ali's point to Mitchell Johnson, or you can look at players from earlier eras who might have only played in one or two series, but they might have been, like, had such an impact on those that they were the player.

20:11You know, a player like Frank Tyson didn't play a lot of Ashes cricket but was the decisive person when he did play Ashes cricket. Joe Root's never been the decisive player in an Ashes series, really. That 2015 is the one time. Yeah, and he's above Warwick Armstrong, isn't he? And Warwick Armstrong is, you know, like isn't he one of the most successful Australian captains of all time? And he was the first Australian captain to whitewash England and he had this run of eight successive victories. And he invented new ball bowling. He invented two fast bowlers opening the bowling. That didn't happen until Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald got together in Armstrong's team and he said, well, instead of opening with a slow left armour at one end like we've been doing for 40 years, what if we just blow teams away?

20:59And he did that at Trent Bridge in 1921. He sicked his fast bowlers on England and they tore up England and that was essentially it. Cricket changed at that point. You look at someone who's had that influence versus, oh, this guy's got a nice set of numbers. Yes, Ali? I was just going to go back to that point about Vaughan and Strauss. And yeah, I mean, Vaughan's at 40 and Strauss's at 68. and I just wonder I think the judging panel would possibly under clubbed on wicket keepers a little bit Adam Gilchrist is at 21 and but he's there for runs he's not there for keeping yeah of course of course which is what I mean so he's there for his runs and even that kind of even that can feel a bit skinny because of sort of the game changing effect he had in that position at number seven but and Mike Gruley is in this top 100 but I do wonder whether captaincy hasn't been factored in as much in certain cases I mean Vaughan at 40 he's a man of the series in 2002-03, just as a batsman alone, you know, scores over 600 runs.

21:54I was on that tour as a punter and that was, you know, the one highlight of it. But that, you know, as the circuit breaker in 2005, the captain that ends 16 years of dominance against a great Australian side, I just wonder whether that deserves a few more ticks upwards. And Strauss at 68, I mean, he's got two centuries in the 2005 ashes. He wins it as captain in 2009 and is player of the series in that series and then he leads England to a historic win in 2010-11, scoring a century in that series as well. And he's at 68. So, you know, it just goes to show. It's a bit of fun, but it has very honest interest results.

22:31I want to agree with you on the wicket keepers, because Alan Knott is... There's no Jack Russell. Come on. Well, there's no Jack Russell. Any list where you can have Jack Russell and you don't have Jack Russell is a disgrace, and I am cancelling my subscription. Carry on. But also, you know, Alan Knott doesn't even make the top 50. and I think for a lot of England fans who might be a little bit older than me, Alan Knott is like your first choice, Ash's wicketkeeper. So that's quite extraordinary and it makes it more difficult to pick an 11, doesn't it? Sure. If you've not got your wicketkeepers and your captains properly represented.

23:12And there are some great players who, you know, Don Talon, Les Ames, players like that. Bert Oldfield gets in probably just because he got hit in the head by Harold Larwood and that's why he's remembered as the source of the near riot at Adelaide in the Bodyline series. But he's there for that more than for the incredible bravery of a really long career of an injured World War I vet who came back and played for so many years for Australia. I would have put Steve Waugh higher than Glenn McGrath for similar reasons to those that we've just been discussing, that I just think Steve Waugh, you know, not just the captaincy, but sort of just his being, you know, to me he's a, I think they're both wonderful.

23:53And in fact, you know, I think I definitely had both of them in my top six, but probably the other way around. And, you know, Steve Waugh, just what Jeff was saying earlier, he is the, he's at the heart of this turnaround of Australian cricket. He kind of inspires it. I think there's a kind of 170 that he scores. At Leeds, yeah. At Leeds. 177 not out and then he backs it up at Lord's with 152 not out and that's consecutive tests to start that series. And then that's, you know, that's what, it's one of the things that gets them on this train and this unstoppable train. And I actually was thinking about it and I was thinking even before War was captain, you know, he was still symbolised so much more to me of what was impossible to defeat about the Australian team.

24:43than, say, Mark Taylor, when Mark Taylor was captured. You know, I still would have thought of war as kind of this kind of like adamantine heart in that team. And yeah, I mean, I guess maybe this is just my trauma speaking. We talk about recency bias, but I wonder if there's a little bit of underlying PTSD that is why there are so many Australian sort of 90s figures quite high up on this list. Yeah, well, if this podcast can also count as therapy, free therapy, it's no bad thing and i've got to get to end part one because emma you've already really given away four of the top 10 so if we carry on going before part two the incredible announcement of the top 10 despite the fact people can see it on the website already uh we'll lose all that jeopardy so that'll come up in just a second

25:35well it's part two of the guardian ashes weekly so let's get down to the top 10 do we want to do a list 10 to 1 just a little bit on everyone why not um 10 so look emma you'd mentioned herbert suckliffe you know sort of jack hobbs mate like is it it's sort of what's a great double act where one half just doesn't really get the justice that they deserve you know morcombe and wise or you know if you know and or deck out of ann and deck or whatever you know like like is that what suckliffe's role is in all of this i think i mean suckliffe scored a lot of runs alongside hobbs in that era and when and it was really interesting you know if hobbs wasn't scoring a century then Sutcliffe does and so yeah I mean he but I think it's the sheer weight of weight of numbers that does for Hobbs and Hobbs sort of ends up dubbed the master right because he can do anything at any time but Sutcliffe he may have made it look more painstaking but he's not riding anybody's coattails I'd say.

26:29Okay at nine Alan Border. Jeff over to you. Well just the heartbeat you know you You talk about Steve Waugh becoming the face of Australian cricket supremacy for a time being. It's all on the foundations that AB sets up. He's the one who sticks it out when Australian cricket's really struggling. He's the one who doesn't take the money to go off and play elsewhere and go on rebel tours and all of the rest of it. He's the one who goes, I'm going to make this team into something. And by sheer bloody mindedness, he eventually manages to do that. So I don't think there's anyone more respected in Australian cricket history.

27:09I think if you pulled up, if you tried to do a list of the best Australian captains, I reckon he would come out on top because it wasn't that he was the most talented player, but he was the most bloody minded and he played forever and ever. and nothing would ever make him any less intense in trying to get Australia to a win, taking the barrages of fast bowling through that era when it was so brutal and difficult and eventually being there towards the end of his era when that Australian team had turned the corner. And also, Geoff, he just looks so Australian. That makes sense. And he's also weirdly nice.

27:48He's sort of terrifying on the field with the storming around and the glaring and the moustache and then having dealt with him a bit in his almost retirement life, doing commentary and so on, he's just really pleasant to everyone. So it's really unnerving when nice, sweet, kind Alan Borda comes in and asks if you wouldn't mind passing him that plate of biscuits, that would be terrific. Thanks very much, mate, sort of thing. Steve Smith's at eight, Ali. There is something extraordinary about Steve Smith, isn't there? That sort of un-get-out-a-ball cricketer. Yeah, it's phenomenal to watch. It's sort of like Neo in the Matrix kind of stuff when he's on Sog.

28:24It's all the sort of technical brilliance, but in its own homespun way. This isn't sort of the classic coaching manual. This is a guy who has worked out the game for himself, and he hasn't just worked it out. He's pretty much completed it. Personal Asher's memories are pretty much the 2017-18 series in Australia, which England just could not get him out. It was just a relentless, remorseless grind. There were some pretty flat pitches. England had a pretty sort of fast medium kind of attack, but he absolutely gorged himself. The sort of levels of hunger that he displayed, even when it was done, is incredible, really.