Sachin Tendulkar topped Shane Warne’s countdown of greatest cricketers edging out Brian Lara, who was placed second. Curtly Ambrose, Allan Border and Glenn McGrath rounded out the top five in Warne’s Times column.
Warne rated Tendulkar ahead of Lara on account of his mental toughness and hailed him as a “great player and a great man”. He wrote, “Outside grounds [in India], people wait until he [Tendulkar] goes in before paying to enter. They seem to want a wicket to fall even though it is their own side that will suffer ... He [Tendulkar] grew up under incredible weight of expectation and never buckled once - not under poor umpiring decisions or anything else.”
Warne and Tendulkar clashed several times on the field, but their most famous battles were on Australia’s tour to India in 1997-98.
Five Australians were placed in the top ten, including three of Warne’s captains - Border, Ricky Ponting and Mark Taylor. Ian Healy, tenth on the list, was described as the best wicketkeeper he’d ever seen.
Muttiah Muralitharan, who needs nine more wickets to go past Warne’s record haul of Test victims, was the highest rated spinner - at seven.
“He has helped to turn Sri Lanka into a formidable side at home. It is also worth remembering the work he did in the aftermath of the tsunami when he gave so much hope to people in despair.”
Former Sri Lanka batsman Aravinda de Silva was rated 19 in Warne’s list. “At team meetings we would spend more time talking about Aravinda than the rest of the Sri Lanka batsmen — but our plans rarely came off. He was sheer class, a lovely strokemaker and his hundred in the 1996 World Cup final ranks among the best one-day innings.
His off spin was also underrated, especially in his home country,” Warne wrote.
Opener Sanath Jayasuiya is the other Sri Lankan in Warne’s list. He is rated at 38 and Warne describes him as “one of the greatest one-day players in the game, whose aggression in the opening overs of matches during the 1996 World Cup represented a serious development. For a small man, he is very powerful and his left-arm spin is underestimated. He has been a good foil for Muttiah Muralitharan.”
Wasim Akram, who was sixth, was Pakistan’s only representative in the top ten. Warne’s complete list (of 53 cricketers) was dominated by Australia, with 20 players, though none were named among the top three.
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