With the past generation of Warne,Murali, Hayden and Ponting behind us, you do you think is going to be known as one of the test greats? A great in my books is someone who will be remembered in 30-40 years like Botham, Hadlee, Bradman and their stats are unnatural.
My greats of this generation are:
Jacques Kallis
Dale Steyn
Sachin Tendulkar
Kevin Pieterson
Mahlea Jayawrdene
Kumar Sangakkara
People who are close:
Alistair Cook
Hashim Amla
Graeme Smith
Michael Clarke
Shivarine Chanderpaul
Who are your current greats of this generation?
I was looking through your list and I'd say Jayawardene, Sangakkara, Kallis and Tendulkar are part of the Warne/Murali generation, it's just that they haven't retired yet lol so I won't have them in my own list.
Steyn is an obvious choice, standing head and shoulders above almost every other bowler of his generation, including the much loved Jimmy, Ajmal and Swann, the only true stand outs imo after the Akram/Warne/Murali/McGrath generation.
Smith imo is the best opener to have debuted in the last decade and easily one of the best captains, considering he took over at only 21 at a time when SA were in a pretty tough place. Cook has been another terrific opener verging on great, with the likes of Amla, De Villiers, Chanderpaul, bring up the rear in the batting charge.
Over the last half a decade or so, I think KP has proved his worth as a true great and Muhammad Yousuf, not sure which generation he would represent, I think he straddles the gap between the era of the trinity and the modern day and is not only a truly great batsman but criminally underrated when it comes to these discussions.
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to be honest, I regret replying earlier because it gives the impression I care about yet another 'lets rate people arbitrarily' thread
I think there is a lot of fun to be had rating people but we've done it so much on here it's probably worth getting into a serious discussion about what we mean when we're rating them.
Great point.
For me personally, rating the player depends on what era they played in. If they played in the pre-ODI era then they should only be rated/ranked based on their prowess in the test arena. Their stats, the importance of their role to the team, their impact on the game, comparison to contemporaries and impact in history.
For someone over the last 40 years or so, with the introduction of ODI cricket, especially those having played in the last 20 years, they have to have performed well in both formats. I emphasise this point because many people are still ranking certain players as exceptional or great based soley on text cricket and acting as if ODIs don't exist or don't have important.
A prime example being Dale Steyn, he is a great bowler in his generation but compares poorly to great bowlers of the past, the Akrams and the Younis' and the McGraths because Steyn is at best average in the shorter format, while he is exceptional in the 5 day game. That reveals a certain short coming that past greats never had.
