The five best Australian batsmen since The Don

with a batting average of 50.73 and an amazing coversion rate once he got to fifty I am dumbfounded most of you dont rate Mathew Hayden in your top 5. He has the highest Australian indivdule test score of 380 and the second highest one day score of 181* which he made a broken toe! who cares how gracefull Mark Waugh was, grace accounts for naught if your inconsistant as an average of only 42 shows and wastefull if you consider his immense talent. Hayden was a colossus at the top of the order and treated opening bowlers with distain with his trademark walk down pitch, smash over head tactic. some of you say stats are misleading. if so how can you select Neil Harvey when you only have stats and testamony to go on as most of us never saw him bat. Stats prove everything as an average is a true indicator of consistancy based on runs. A highest score proves a batsmans ability to value his wicket and amass runs without being bested by the attack. Stats prove, without any of the heartwarming nostalgia of memories of bygone heros that the five best batsman are Chappell, Clarke, Ponting, Hussey, Steve Waugh, Hayden. ok I made mine six to include Haydos but stay true to my arguement about averages being true and reflective.

No list is complete without Alan Border. While the mentioned players are all great, they did not continually play a lone hand Border managed a 50 average through a period where if he failed to score runs Australia lost. Simple as that. Scoring runs without that pressure is difficult. All the runs scored with that knowledge in the back of your mind should count double!!!!

I love Mark Waugh, I'd pay double to watch him bat. But there's no way he was a better bat than Steve. Equating AB with Tugga is misleading. Steve had all the grit of AB, but could match the expansive strokeplay of his brother. From his beautiful 177* at Headingly in '89, to the heroic 120 in the '99 World Cup, to that 100 in a session in his last SCG test, Steve played some innings full of efficient and damaging stroke play. The fact that he could also dig in and play innings of immense grit displays a versatility unmatched by any man on your list. Mind you, I was born in 1980, so Steve was my hero from age 5-25. I admit I'm biased.

Kersi, I like your article but the title should be Top 5 most enjoyable batsman. If your talking about best then you can't ignore stats & it has to be Ponting, Border, G. Chappell, S. Waugh & I suppose Harvey (way before my generation).

Even though watching very stylish or exciting batsmen (such as Mark Waugh, Adam Gilchrist or Doug Walters) give us great enjoyment, Kersi's article was about the best. Off course statistics don't tell the whole story, but if you were to rate on stats alone you would have G Chappell, Ponting, S Waugh, Hayden & AB. If you were to consider the quality of the opposition & the match situations then I believe it would be hard to go past AB. Would Ponting, Hayden, Mark Waugh & Gilchrist have scored as many runs and in an attractive style against the WI teams of the late 70s through to late 90s? How would AB (& to a lesser extent S Waugh) have batted had he played in the Aussie teams of the late 90s/ 2000s? I suggest he would have been a whole lot more attractive to watch - whether he would average more or less though is anyone's guess - if he played with more freedom, he may average less, but if the bowling quality was lower, he may have averaged more. To me AB is a must for the top 5. Interesting to read one comment where it was said that Chappell was undisputably the best Aussie batsman. The commenter, like us all no doubt, thought that Bradman was so much better than anyone else that it wasn't even necessary to mention "besides Bradman" Has there even been any sport where one person was so much better than everyone else?

A friend of mine played Sydney 1st grade in the early 60s. Neil Harvey was still going around in grade, from memory for Northern Districts or perhaps Gordon. My friend fielded at first slip and was ideally placed to appreciate Harvey's skill. He said it was like taking a batting tutorial. Harv could still split a gap with beautiful precision.

Ponting, Chappel, Harvey - I agree these 3 would have to be in the next 5 with 2 more for mine being Dean Jones - who I think reinvented batting in the 80s especially in ODI but also for his effort scoring 200 in India and then being taken to hospital and ok its because he was my hero growing up. and for my 5th I always loved watching Justin Langer because he worked so hard and grew into such a great batsment just through pure commitment and hard work

However Trevor Chappell gave us that other memorable underarm event, that rubbed salt into a win against the kiwis that was always going to happen anyway. I still smile when I think of how much this annoyed our bros across the ditch :)

One other batsman who is probably not in the top 5, but who would certainly be in my top 15, was the under-rated Graham Yallop. He managed to score well while facing great adversity -- frequently from his own team "mates", who picked and chose when they would play and when they wouldn't -- thereby leaving Yallop in an unstable position. He was also thrown into the captaincy role without being a regular member of the Aussie XI. He scored a century every 5 tests, and as wikipedia noted: "Batting first wicket down, his Test average is 52.42, which beats legendary number threes such as Neil Harvey, Ian Chappell, David Boon and Ricky Ponting. In his final seven Tests, Yallop scored 655 runs at 72."

Very hard to quibble with your selection. Personally, I never enjoyed watching Steve Waugh bat or captain, and I think he was given many opportunities early in his test career that other players did not get. He was "anointed" and so stayed on when other players would have been dropped. Norm O'Neill and Doug Walters were an absolute joy to watch, and both scored on very bad pitches. Sometimes 30 runs can be as important as 100. Probably Neil Harvey and Mark Waugh had a slight edge over them, but you would not find too many bowlers who would like to bowl at any of them when they were on fire. Bobby Simpson has also been mentioned, and I would include him. He scored a ton of runs from a very young age to a relatively old age with a break between. He also had the Bradman ability to keep the score ticking over at a constant rate. Greg Chappell was imperious as a batsman, but a lot of bowlers would rather bowl to him than his brother Ian, believing it might just be possible to contain Greg. I would have loved to have seen Ian, Greg and Bobby Simpson bat against Warne and Muralitharan. All three were aggressive players who used their feet to play spin. I have always believed Warne and Muralitharan, great bowlers/throwers that they were, had a dream run against 2 generations of batsmen who never learned how to dance. Greg Chappell apparently loved to take apart new spin bowlers in the Shield competition. I think Murali and Warne would have got all three batsmen out, but their averages would have taken a severe battering -- especially against Ian Chappell, whose natural cantankerousness would have been evident when he saw a tubby young guy with bleached hair trying to bowl legspin at him.

Ponting is overrated as hell. Border and Waugh had to play against the greatest fast bowlers of all time. eg Ambrose, Marshall, Hadlee, Walsh, Imran. They still had high averages. Ponting played in an era when there were no good bowlers apart from Mgrath. So many times did Border and Waugh have to save australia and this was in a time when australia were the easybeats. They did it with style and class too. Now the time comes for Ponting to do the same thing, against bowlers who don't even compare to the greats - and he fails miserably. Never understood the admiration for Ponting. He inflated his batting average against the weakest bowling era of all time.

Ponting, Chappell, Border, S. Waugh and Harvey. Hayden at number 6. Why is this up for debate? Its black and white.

I agree with this top 5 except in place of Mark I'd have Steve, for the simple fact that I'd have him bat for my life! And I might add he is one of the toughest batsmen I've seen on par with AB. I'd assume this includes limited overs to a degree, if not I'd put Hayden ahead of Gilchrist. Simply for the fact I rate dominance at the top of the order more so than lower down the order. That's just what I believe. However how hard is it to chose a top 5 :)

Pre 1970 ... Morris, Harvey, O'Neill, Simpson, McDonald Post 1970 .... Ponting, Chappell G, Border, S Waugh, M Waugh

Technically McCabe was post Bradman having debuted after him. Hassett certainly also qualifies. And I think Simpson was easily a better batsman than Gilchrist.

I agree, Sledgeross, Hayden's 380 vs Zimbabwe on WACA does not deserve 10th ranking. By the panel of experts in the 2003-04 "Inside Edge", Taylor's 334* vs. Pakistan at Peshawar in 1998-99 is ranked as low as 29th. Bill Lawry's 130 vs. England in the 1961 Lord's Test is ranked 11th. Border's magnificent double of 98* and 100* vs. WI at Port-of-Spain in 1983-84 is ranked 14th. It's getting curious and curiouser! BTW, bandaged hero Rick McCosker's 25 vs. England in the Melbourne centenary Test of 1977 is ranked 50th. Wrote Greg Baum, "He looked like an Egyptian mummy and played the daddy of gutsy digs."

Bayman, You make valid points. We all DO get confused between style & substance. How pretty a player looks in his batting ought to be secondary to results. But we're all romantics at heart..... ! Another point, back in 1974/75 I was a wild eyed teenager glorying in the destruction of the poms by Lillee & Thomson. We goaded the English batsmen as cowards for backing away from the hostile fast bowling. The following season the Windies were also crushed, but by contrast they tried to hit their way out of trouble. But what were the batsmen supposed to do? What could they do? Helmets only came into vogue around 1976/77. Padding was rudimentary. It took a lot of guts to stand up to Lillee, Thomson, Roberts, Holding, Snow, Procter, Imran & Hadlee with no helmets & only rudimentary padding. Yep, stats are a guide only, & we should never take them for the gospel truth. Today's batsmen have over-inflated averages, just as the batsmen of a century ago have under-inflated averages. The batsmen of 100 year go had further difficulties to deal with. Apart from no helmets & even more rudimentary padding, they had to bat on poorly prepared wickets (by today's standards) as well as uncovered pitches. Batting on a sweating pitch after a shower of rain was unbelievably treacherous, with the ball showing no consistency in height or direction off the pitch. A great like Victor Trumper had a batting average of just 39, very ordinary by modern standards. But in truth, his average ought to be adjusted upwards around 48 or 49, which would be a more reliable indicator of his true ability. We should approach with caution the 50s plus batting averages of cricketers who have played most of their test career in the 2000s. In reality some/most of them aren't quite as good as their averages might suggest. There isn't the same spread of quality bowling as there was in the 70s, 80s & 90s. Also, today's batsmen enjoy so many advantages in personal protection & equipment, prepared wickets (& often slow), & roped, shorter boundaries. A quick note on Gilchrist. It's the destructive nature of his batting that makes him so highly regarded. When on song he totally destroyed opposition bowling attacks & their overall morale. The same applies to Viv Richards. There are many Windies batters with a higher average, but you would be loathe to leave him out of an all-time Windies XI because his fierce batting was so destructive to an opposition's morale. If only picking the best was so easy..........

A lot of interesting discussion on the "best 5" since Donald. The problem, as always, is do you judge on appearance or on results. Modern players averages, and by definition aggregates, are inflated by roped boundaries, railway sleeper bats and pretty flat tracks for the most part. Not to mention relatively ordinary bowling attacks. Certainly the top five would include Greg Chappell and Ricky Ponting in both categories (looks and numbers) whereas Steve Waugh had the numbers but brother Mark the style. Having seen Harvey I'd also have him in both categories. Certainly his average tapered toward the end but his results were prodigious compared to everyone else of his day. People tend to forget, for example, what a great player Kim Hughes was but he was also self destructive to his cost and it damaged his reputation. His average looks ordinary when talking about "great" but that 100 in Melbourne against the Windies and his two innings in the 1980 Lords Centenary Test were three of the best innings of all time. Players of the 50s, for example, talk of Norman O'Neill and then the others but O'Neill hasn't been mentioned. Gilchrist is difficult to place, certainly a "modern era" player and definitely the most exciting player of recent years but is he really in the top 5? If you're picking numbers I'd go for Chappell G, Border, Waugh S, Harvey and Ponting. For style it's Chappell G, Waugh M, Harvey, O'Neill, Ponting (and Hughes, first reserve). I note that like Harvey, Ponting's numbers are falling rapidly as he nears the end. I can't remember any other "great" player get knocked over so early, so often, as Ponting is now. The only Aussie, in the last 12 months, to make a first ball duck in all forms of the game (and dropped first ball on his way to 209 last summer).

Thanks Kersi. I wasn't aware you are published on the subject - congratulations. I will look out for your book to help get off my current shaky ground when I contribute in future. Even though you have shattered my childhood memory - but I guess memories exaggerate with time. I'm also a big fan of Miller though obviously never saw him play. Back to Headingley.

I think Cricinfo rated Hayden's hundred against Pakistan in Sharjah (? - somewhere in the middle east anyway) in 50 degree heat in a game where he outscored Pakistan's match total by himself very highly (much higher than the 380).