Compile a book claiming to contain "the greatest" of anything and you are bound to run into problems. Do it with cricket and you are asking for trouble--everyone will disagree with at least one of your entries and chide you for perceived omissions. But John Woodcock, Times writer and cricket correspondent for more than 50 years, is among the best qualified to undertake such a task. And an admirable job he made of it in The Times One Hundred Greatest Cricketers. Opening the innings with a name few would argue with--W G Grace--Woodcock goes through many other of the greatest names the sport has ever seen--Don Bradman, Garfield Sobers, Len Hutton, Shane Warne, Viv Richards, Ian Botham--and includes cricketing greats past and the present. In addition to a one-page potted history of the player's career, each entry has a black- and-white picture to accompany it. A statistical index (accurate until March/April 1998) completes the information, giving the kind of figures cricket fans love--batting averages, highest scores, number of wickets etc. An introduction explains the thinking behind the choices and a foreword by former England captain Mike Brearley is a perfect starting place. A great book for cricket fanatics, this will also appeal to the more casual fan. Accessible, well-written and interesting, it will certainly provoke debate, whether you agree with the entries or not. Synopsis Based on the author's personal selection of all-time great cricketers, serialized in "The Times Magazine", during the summer of 1997. This book includes an epilogue featuring expanded statistics about the 100 cricketers, split into domestic and international sections.
My Rating: 3/5
I used to be a big fan of cricket but recently have not watched it for some years. I still have two whole bookshelves full of cricket related books though with this one obviously being one of them.
This book was published in 1998 and so even the 'modern' players from this book were before my time but cricket is a game that is constantly throwing stats at you and so I found that I had actually heard of almost every player mentioned.
The only cricketers I found I had not heard of were the ones who mostly played county cricket as being Australian I had no way of hearing of them before.
I read this book more as a historical look at players of the past rather than an accurate list of the greatest cricket players ever (because that is subjective and everyone would have their own list) which is probably why I enjoyed it more than some other reviews I have read of this book.
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