Recently, I was having an intense discussion with a colleague over who they thought was the greatest modern batsman of all time.
Knowing that it would become an open-ended answer that was bound to start a heated debate, I asked anyway because I wanted to find out what criteria they had for a cricketer to be a great in their eyes.
For some, it was a purely statistical and numerical evaluation, whereas others reminisced over the way certain batsmen played or performed in key matches which affected them on a more nostalgic level.
Others I discovered admired some batsmen primarily on their character, grit and the unique personality they brought to the game.
While it appears as though batting has gone via a completely explosive route now thanks to arrival of Twenty20 cricket, it is important to remember the other types of batsmen that truly make cricket the spectacle that it is. The game would certainly be poorer without them.
Without further ado let us reflect on some of these wonderful wielders of the willow.
‘Go hard or go home’
They have no respect for the bowler and sometimes for the game itself, yet they never fail to provide the rockstar entertainment that cricket needs. Whether they score a hundred or a make a duck, the beauty of the big hitter is that they will never die wondering – and they’ll exhaust every possible part of the boundary before heading back to the pavilion.
Most of today’s young batsmen fit into this criteria thanks to the mindless hitting encouraged by the game’s shortest format, however the vintage exponents of this batting style had a certain aura, swagger and bullish confidence that had bowlers fearing for their lives.
Viv Richards and Javed Miandad were incredible master blasters of the 70’s and 80’s who could take you to all parts of the ground with considerable force and power.
Later eras saw the likes of Dean Jones and Ian Botham hitting boundaries as easily as taking candy from a baby, giving all batsmen a chance of survival and hope in a time when bowlers reigned supreme.
Andrew Symonds wasn’t afraid of chasing the boundary. (Image: Wikimedia/Privatemusings CC BY-SA 4.0)
The style of explosive batting received a further facelift when Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana stunned the cricket world with their quickfire scoring, effectively handing the island nation their first ever world cup title.
The Virender Sehwags, Chris Gayles, Adam Gilchrists, Andrew Symonds and Kevin Pietersens of the modern era then ruthlessly carried on the tradition of big hitting, with the arrival of Twenty20 providing the most ideal platform to unveil their destructive scoring in full force.
Elegance personified
This batting style is akin to the harmonious purring of a Rolls Royce engine. With the same satisfaction one feels when viewing a perfectly tiled floor layered in a chessboard design, watching a batsman of the elegant variety can be an immediate cure for a headache or an ideal stress reliever from a long day at the office.
These batsmen do not just ooze class, timing and immaculate strokeplay, they seem to be able to make cricket look like the easiest and most languid game to play in the world.
They hold the bat like a magic wand, as though the spell cast on the ball is one aimed to make them look marvelous no matter what the situation.
The strokemaker is effectively cricket’s version of an artist or poet; every shot exemplifies romance, beauty and an insatiable desire to be replayed on repeat just to get a glimpse of the enchantment in motion.
England’s David Gower and the Indian maestro Sunil Gavaskar were wonderful batsmen who embodied this batting style with much finesse and panache.
Later years saw the likes of Greg Chappell and Clive Lloyd play some of the most gorgeous shots – you would have thought the ball was sliding on ice.
The 1990s saw a plethora of classy batsmen make their mark on the international stage, with the likes of Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Younis Khan eager to show off their dazzling strokeplay.
Left-handed batsmen have always naturally appeared to look more elegant than their opposite number, and Kumar Sangakkara is no exception. Can there be anything more pleasurable than that delicious cover drive?
Let’s get technical
If cricket ever had the equivalent of a bookish, overachieving nerd who sits in the front row of every class, the technical batsman is your answer.
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These guys live for the motorised ball machine. The coaching manual is their Bible. Always the first to show up to training, and the last to leave, the textbook batsman is one who is difficult to dislodge purely because his forward defence is as impenetrable as a bullet-proof vest.
They have been drilled on the virtues of playing in the ‘V’, having the elbows up high, keeping the head down and above the ball, and knowing when to transfer the weight from the back foot to the front foot to execute each shot correctly.
They are the coach’s pet and a bowler’s worst nightmare, as their near-perfect technique allows little room for error. They are disciplined not just in the ways of orthodox batting but also in the mind, and have a penchant for long hours of concentration and stamina at the crease.
They may not always be beautiful to watch but you can be assured that they will hang around long after the strokemakers and big hitters have departed.
Famous stalwarts of the technical variety were Geoff Boycott, Hanif Mohammad and Gordon Greenidge, batsmen who knew how to thrive in all conditions due to their impervious discipline and powerful mental strength at the crease.
India went on to produce a number of magnificent, technically sound batsman, of which the great Rahul Dravid deserves an honourable mention. Often nicknamed the ‘Great Wall of India’, Dravid’s bat was so straight you could get a protractor and measure it to be exactly perpendicular with the pitch.
As always, Sachin Tendulkar reigns supreme and many believe that he has arguably the best international batting technique of all time.
The weird, unusual a downright ugly
When Pablo Picasso famously remarked that “every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction” this crop of batsmen seemed to take his words almost literally.
The unconventional and unorthodox batsman is by far a most peculiar breed; they are alien on the eye, impossible to set a field to, yet score runs as quickly and as effectively as the big hitters while showing blatant disregard to any standard method on textbook batting.
Their dilscoops, cheeky reverse-sweeps, helicopter shots and paddled deflections continuously rebel against any wisdom on how to bat properly, because they have accepted being the Apple iPhone of modern run scoring.
Constantly updating their software by creating new and innovative shots designed to give every fielding captain a throbbing headache, the anomalous batsman is an entrepreneurial character who not only goes against the grain with the way he hits the ball, but also through the way he holds his bat and stands at the crease.
Glenn Maxwell is renowned for his ‘inventive’ play. (AAP Image/Rob Blakers)
Quite simply, everything about these guys is just plain weird.
Meet Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Standing front on at the wicket, and approaching the ball like a scuttling crab, the left-handed West Indies legend has managed to successfully find a method that has earned him over 10,000 Test match runs despite many purist commentators labeling his batting style as ‘ugly’ and ‘difficult to watch.
Other famous unorthodox batsmen of the modern era are ‘Mr 360′ AB de Villiers, Tillekaratne Dilshan, Eoin Morgan (remember that double reverse-sweep?), and of course the talismanic MS Dhoni.
Stuckbetweenindopak
Roar Rookie
Yeah I was surprised he mentioned miandad in that category
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
I am almost 60 years old and have watched with hopefully a critical eye of batsmen. There is only 1 batsman that totally stood out for me ....and yes I have watched them all. That man is Graeme Pollock . I worked about 3km from the Wanderers 30 odd years ago and listening on the radio we knew when he would come in to bat. We all took lunch , tea etc....whatever applied , jumped into our cars and raced off to the stadiumto watch him bat. He hit the ball with scary power , usually refused singles and played all around the wicket. In 1970 SA vs Aus at Durban where GP scored 274 , Gregg Chappell famously said that it was the hardest he had ever seen a ball being hit.
Akkara
Roar Rookie
Nice article. I certainly identify with the open ended arguments on the best batsman. I would suggest Grit / Mind as a separate category to technical. I would put Smith in this and the ugly categories. I would have Koli in it and technical as in my view he has the best cover drive in the game (like Roy Dias).
Adz Sportz
Roar Guru
When it comes to pure elegance, nobody was more elegant than Mark Waugh, as stated by Bradman himself. I could watch Mark Waugh bat for hours and hours. It's a bloody outrage he was left out of the elegance list when he's clearly at the top!!
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
I feel that the media creates too much hype about the switch hit or the scoop shot; and the other types of improvisation.s
Paul
Roar Guru
Gary Sobers, Graeme Pollock, Neil Harvey, Alvin Kallicharan and Arthur Morris were all pretty graceful players but could also hit the cover off a ball, especially Sobers and Pollock
Paul
Roar Guru
Lets compare Miandad and Jones with guys like Viv Richards, Sobers, Graeme Pollock and more recently guys like Sehwag, Jayasuriya and a really good Pakistani example, Afridi. Neither Jones nor Miandad were in the same league as these other guys for pure hitting yet both could accumulate runs quickly through a mixture of great shot placement, great running between wickets and some good hitting. The other batsmen I mentioned could score quickly solely through hitting.
Rellum
Roar Guru
I wouldn't call Greenidge a technically correct batsmen. He had his own style that was more brute flaying with technique. For me the guys that ended up influencing my play where the technique and style masters. Martin Crowe, Haynes, Chappell and Mark Waugh. A stylish, technically correct player is what I love to see and very few of them exist now with the dominance of the "360 deg" batting technique and the change in foot movement, stance and backswing. Kohli and maybe Williamson are the only ones I can think of. There does seem to be a small revolution in technique back to using a backward step for pull shots instead of just trying to pull of the front foot. Players don't really go back like they used to and still don't try to get inside the line of the ball but it is a change for the better.
Noah Barling
Roar Pro
I am surprised not to see the likes of Bradman, Smith and Kohli in this list, there is no doubt they are great batsmen, surely a mention would have been sufficient?
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
Ranjan Madugalle was another Lankan batsman I enjoyed watching. I was disappointed when he left international cricket so prematurely.
Nuwan Ranasinghe
Roar Pro
Thanks Rafiqul! Graceful strokeplay is always so lovely to watch isn't it? You have picked some great names there. I really enjoyed watching Roy Dias and VVS Laxman too. Zaheer Abbas was a brilliant stroke maker as well.
Nuwan Ranasinghe
Roar Pro
Thank you so much for your feedback there Paul, I'll definitely take it on board! I guess many batsmen fit into a lot of the categories I tried to describe, and there is of course a subjective evaluation here too. Batsmen will often 'change gears' in their run scoring depending on the match situation. So yes, you're right - you can play gracefully, aggressively and still dominate all in the same innings. Aravinda De Silva often comes to mind here. I am well aware Chanderpaul arrives into a great position to play the ball, however even that position is one that cannot be found in most coaching books. Chanderpaul played most of his shots in a front-on position, where as traditionally we're always taught to play the ball side-on. It's interesting you say Miandad was of the free-flowing type, because many commentators and experts suggest otherwise. He was Pakistan's first real master blaster, and even on his Cricinfo profile it clearly states that 'Miandad was not of the classical school of batting.' You only need to watch a few highlight reels of Dean Jones' batting and it's quite evident that he likes to hit them big. The man himself says so too.
Tigerbill44
Roar Guru
I was a left handed bat, but my list of favorite batsman is dominated by right handers. i should also mention that I love graceful stroke-play over power-hitting or unorthodox batting. My list includes: Zaheer Abbas, Kim Hughes, Roy Dias, Peter Kirsten, V.V.S. Laxman, Rohit Sharma (just to name a few). Both Azharuudin and Salim Malik were my favorites till they fell from their grace. Md. Wasim of Pakistan looked similar to Azza but failed to build his international career. Among the left handers only three can make my list: Gower, Kalli &; Tamim.
Paul
Roar Guru
I like your description of batting types Nuwan but you have many batsmen in the wrong places. For example, Botham and Richards were true master blasters when they were at the to of their games, but Miandad was never in that category and nor was Dean Jones. Both were free flowing batsmen when in full flight, but were more graceful and could accumulate runs extremely well because they were so quick between wickets. Clive Lloyd was never a "graceful" batsman, he was a big man who used a heavy bat and could hammer the ball. He was a graceful mover in the field however and a brilliant cover fieldsman. He played before Greg Chappell and Gavaskar and these guys came well before Gower. Grenidge could also not be called a technician. He could flay an attack as an opener. Guys like Lawrence Rowe, Kallicharan were way more technical. Even Grenidges partner, Dessie Hanes was more technical. You have been fooled by Chanderpaul's stance, which admittedly is unusual. By the time the ball get;s to him however, he is in an excellent position to play a completely normal cricket shot. The truly great batsman are those who can combine all of the styles you mention when the situation demands. Guys like Richards, Chappell, Ponting, Lara, AB de V, Kohli, etc, can look graceful, look ugly, punish sides, play very technically correct and totally dominate.