Ashes Weekly: Who are the 100 greatest Ashes cricketers?

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Speaker 5 Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Ashes Weekly.

Speaker 5 I'm Max Rushdon, and for the next couple of months, we'll be doing pods during the Ashes as England win yet another test series down under without any major concerns.

Speaker 5 Checks notes, haven't won a test here since January 2011. But there is always hope.

Speaker 5 This episode is the pilot, so it doesn't count, but we're releasing it anyway to add some intense broadcasting pressure to our panelists.

Speaker 5 It also coincides with the Guardian releasing its top 100 Ashes players of all time from when it began in the 1880s up to the present day.

Speaker 5 If it's anything like the top 100 footballers list, the paper does each year, readers and listeners will not take it too seriously and lose their minds because WG Grace is ahead of Kevin Peterson.

Speaker 5 There is controversy in this list right at the top. This is the Guardian Ashes Weekly.

Speaker 5 Joining me on the panel today, our cricket columnist Emma John. Hi, Emma.

Speaker 3 Hi, hello.

Speaker 5 Our cricket correspondent, Ali Martin.

Speaker 1 Hello, Max. Good to see you mate.

Speaker 5 And Guardian Australia's Jeff Lemon. Hey, Jeff, you're on this journey for the whole time with me.
Thank you.

Speaker 6 That's it. Limbering up, getting ready for a long series.
Stress fractures have cleared up and I'm good to go.

Speaker 5 Good stuff. You're fine.
I just want to talk about 2005. You're, of course, welcome to steer me into the present day.

Speaker 5 So look, what we're going to do is bring you previews and recaps of all five tests. We'll do a proper preview of the first tests, a bit closer to the first test.

Speaker 5 But just briefly, Ali, I mentioned it in the intro. We haven't won a test here since, what, January 2011.
We've got hope this time, haven't we?

Speaker 1 There is a little bit of hope. Also, you've got to remember that that last Ashes series in Australia, Stuart Broad unilaterally avoided it.
So the record's not quite as bad when you factor that in.

Speaker 1 England will be coming out with a fresh game plan. They're going to be doing it differently.
You know, whether the results are different as a result of that, who's to say?

Speaker 1 But they're certainly coming out with a different approach, hyper-aggressive with the bat. and with a decent battery of fast bowlers if they can stay fit.

Speaker 1 So it looks like a solid template for what should be a Grey Series.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a big if that's staying fit. I mean, I guess, Jeff, you know, the news out of the Australia camp is that your mob are all incredibly old.

Speaker 1 All of them, almost all of them, over 30 years old.

Speaker 5 Can you imagine being over 30? I certainly can't.

Speaker 6 No, I mean, who can? I have to go a long way back to imagine being over 30. And it seems quite nice in retrospect, but I suppose, aside from Cameron Green, everybody is.

Speaker 6 But look, you live in Australia now. You know how that works.
You watched Geelong win a premiership in 2022 with the oldest team that ever turned out in the grand final. Old blokes win stuff.

Speaker 6 That's the Dan Christian motto, and it may hold true here.

Speaker 5 Emma, what are the vibes telling you ahead of this one?

Speaker 3 I am keeping my hopes up because I'm heading out for the Adelaide test.

Speaker 3 And so I could really do with it not being 2-0 down, or sorry, 2-0 up for Jeff's man by the time I get out there because I've actually had a pretty bad run with going to see England in Australia.

Speaker 3 Yeah, some of my wins.

Speaker 5 What's your record? Have you got any wins?

Speaker 3 I've got no wins so far.

Speaker 5 No wins, good stuff. Okay.

Speaker 3 I'm completely scratched. And some of my worst cricket watching moments, I mean, I've genuinely shed tears at the Wacker sitting under a tree at the end of a terrible defeat.

Speaker 3 So I'm just hoping for a happier time.

Speaker 6 I've shed tears at the Wacker just being at the Wacker when it's like 44 degrees and you're trying to work from a tent with no fans and the TVs don't work and everyone's laptops are overheating.

Speaker 6 It was not always the most pleasant place to be.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think I'm 0 from 2. I was at the Wacker when Gilchrist scored that century in about eight balls.

Speaker 5 And then I was at the MCG when Scott Boland got about 25 wickets in four minutes the last time that England lost. So look, maybe this will be different.

Speaker 5 Let's talk about the top 100, which you can see the whole list on theguardian.com. Ali, I did want you to do a full countdown, like Bruno Brooks on top of the pops.

Speaker 5 But actually, reading out 100 names would take about 10 minutes. Ali, how do you go about putting this list together?

Speaker 1 How did I go about no, Max? Yeah, yeah. This is this.
And you're not responsible for this. No, no.
So this is a desk production. This was commissioned by Steve McMillan, our sports features editor.

Speaker 1 With a decent split of English and Australian. And yeah, each person was asked to submit their top 50.

Speaker 1 And using that, with 50 points for your first vote and one point for your 50th vote, all the votes were put together. And

Speaker 1 we crunched the numbers in the office or other people did it. I didn't do it.
And it produced what I think is a pretty interesting list and a pretty fascinating top result, I'd say.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we'll get to that.

Speaker 5 Obviously, people can look at the websites. That's not really a spoiler, but nice to add to the tension for this.

Speaker 5 Sometimes, Emma, when I do the top 50 footballers, I get them and I go, okay, I've done that. And obviously, you're doing a million things.
And I realize, like, I've left Leonard Messi out.

Speaker 5 So I don't know. Like, you can be honest, when you got to your list, you were like, oh, no, there's no both of them in there or something like that.

Speaker 3 Well, me, yes. I mean, I did have to have a couple of goes.
I think for me, the hardest thing is the relative merits of, you know, the greats of the past who none of us have seen.

Speaker 3 And you're just having to go on the things you've read.

Speaker 3 Maybe, you know, if you're really lucky, you've managed to see a little bit of footage of, you know, somebody batting in some sort of cine reel from 100 years ago. But really, you're just going on.

Speaker 3 stories, what you've read. You know that the statistics don't all correlate to each other.
You know, pre-war cricket, very different to post-war cricket. So it's a fun exercise, let's put it that way.

Speaker 5 Jeff, no Darren Goff, no David Warner, no Merv Hughes, no Merv Hughes. I mean, on moustache alone, that's a disgrace, surely.

Speaker 6 Kind of on a vibes basis, I suppose. I did my 50 partly on vibes.
It was looking at the list and thinking who, like, which names stir something in me, which might be recognition.

Speaker 6 And there were, like, I really wanted to vote for George Bonner, which I didn't end up doing in the end because he played in the 1880s and was just famous for being huge and handsome and smacking the ball a really long way.

Speaker 1 His numbers are shithouse, but he looked great.

Speaker 6 Like he's a good story. And in the end, I couldn't justify it.

Speaker 6 But there are quite a few votes where it was that I had where it was more based on what do I like about this player's story more than just what were their numbers?

Speaker 6 Because the numbers don't stack up across areas.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 5 Is David Boone in?

Speaker 6 Yes, David Boone's in there.

Speaker 3 But he was

Speaker 6 important because he was sort of with Steve Waugh, the face of the renewal in 1989.

Speaker 6 He's when Australian Australian cricket goes from that decade of being pretty bad to turning it around and then surges on from there.

Speaker 6 And he takes the catch, the hat-trick catch for Shane Warne at the MCG. So almost on that alone, you've got to give Booney a spot.

Speaker 5 Sure. And, you know, however many cans of VB that he would crush on a 24-hour flight, etc.
And it's interesting, Emma, you sort of mentioned those players from the past.

Speaker 5 And, you know, there are names that listeners will probably sort of know, but not really know.

Speaker 5 You know, I sort of heard heard the name Tip Foster but I couldn't tell you anything about Tip Foster or you know I thought Johnny Briggs who's holding up the whole thing up at 100 was a you know went from child TV stardom in the you know the north and the UK in the 80s to propping up this chart so like of the of those era cricketers you know tell us a bit well I mean I think the most important one is is probably Jack Hobbes right I mean Jack Hobbs sits at seven sorry I say the most important one I mean I'm just like I'm going from an England point of view I really really apologise.

Speaker 3 I entirely just, but I also sort of thought we might be kind of like not just talking about the top couple for a while. So, so if I'm just thinking about things, people who are more important to me,

Speaker 3 you know, Jack Hobbes comes in at seven.

Speaker 3 He's an important person to talk about because he scored the most English runs

Speaker 3 in the Ashes,

Speaker 3 3,636, 54.26.

Speaker 3 But what's really incredible about his Ashes career is that the majority of those runs were scored in Australia,

Speaker 3 2,493 of them. So he's, and he's another person with just, you know, he's got a great Ashes story in the sense that, you know, he scores 83 on Ash's debut on his first tour on 1908, 09,

Speaker 3 and he doesn't do any better than that. Then he has a great series in 1911, 12.
And then obviously he goes off to the First World War. And he's, he's a...

Speaker 5 Always gets in the way, doesn't it? Really gets in the way.

Speaker 3 Really messes up people's stats.

Speaker 3 So he goes off to become an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps, which, you know, he's then in the RAF. But by 1918, he's like serving in France with his squadron.

Speaker 3 But he comes, the amazing thing about Hobbes' story is he comes back from this experience an even better batter.

Speaker 3 Like there aren't, you know, there's so many stories we know about players who, you know, the war or either of the two world wars you know really kind of did for them in some way and they came back physically or or impaired or or you know it just had taken really taken out of them he comes back and he's he's even better and um and he's better in an england team that is not winning and he's scoring along with his opening partner Herbert Sutcliffe he's he's scoring the majority of their runs so he's just this really fantastic character and can I just tell one more thing that I love about Jack Hobbes, please?

Speaker 3 Sorry, while I'm off on a sir Jack Hobbes rant, is that he was just supposed to be this really kind of easygoing,

Speaker 3 lovely guy as well. And that showed in his batting.

Speaker 5 Ali, who from yesteryear sort of, you know, can you just do what Emma did for another cricketer is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1 Well, also, I just want to interject. I mean, yes, Jack Hobbs did pause his career for World War I, but Ian Bothan took time out of the game to appear in pantomime.
So fair.

Speaker 1 Who did he play?

Speaker 1 Who who did bb play oh god widow twanky it's gotta be ain't it it's gotta be widow twanky do you know what i mean i he's he's low on our list uh but he is in the top 100 uh i'm gonna go for gilbert jessup and the crowd chair basically because of uh well the England record that the Bazballers have been trying to break pretty much for the last four years, the 76-ball Tess 100, which is England's fastest in Tess cricket.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of hung over them. There is obviously a bit of debate as to whether the accuracy of that.

Speaker 1 Simon Wilde has put together an excellent book, which I believe is out at the moment, which delves into that. He has the number around about 72, 73 balls, I think, from memory.

Speaker 1 But it's just one of those sort of, you know, great origin stories. And as I say, it's a record that still sits there to this day.

Speaker 5 And sort of when did he get this? Where was he?

Speaker 1 Well, this is in the golden age, Max. You must know.
Well, I know the golden age.

Speaker 5 Some listeners may not know.

Speaker 1 Well, sort of, I mean, his test career was kind of turn of the century, i.e. 1899 to 1909.

Speaker 1 How about you, Jeff?

Speaker 6 I was more interested with who didn't make it because

Speaker 6 there tends to be a degree of recency bias with this sort of thing or celebrity bias, I suppose.

Speaker 6 Although I was a bit surprised that Ian Bell missed out dominant in 2013, made 300s that series, was the only one who wasn't spooked by Mitchell Johnson in 13-14, the way that I remember it.

Speaker 6 But you go back to some of the early days. There's some players who could have made it.

Speaker 6 I suppose Billy Midwinter took the first wicket haul in in test cricket but it wasn't but an ashes series technically because australia and england weren't playing the ashes yet ranjit singey 175 at the scg that was the biggest score for england i think until tip foster actually max you'll be interested to know too

Speaker 6 287 at the scg i think tip foster had the highest score for a visiting player to australia for like 90 years until ross taylor came along or more than maybe it was a century just over a century it was an extraordinarily long-standing record.

Speaker 6 But the ones who really made me stop and go, what's going on here?

Speaker 6 George Giffin missed out, who played 11 Ashes series, took over 100 wickets, made over 1,000 runs, which is pretty good going in those days.

Speaker 6 Arthur Mailey, 9 for 121, is still on the wall at the Percy Beams bar at the MCG for the best figures by an Australian bowler at the MCG. He's not in there, which is, you know, borderline outrageous.

Speaker 6 Doug Walters, ton on debut in an Ashes test. Ton in his second test in an Ashes test.
Century in a session in an Ashes test. Still didn't make the list.
What's going on with that one?

Speaker 6 And last, like the most egregious one of all, Jack Blackham played 17 different series against England. 11 of them were Ashes series.
He played in the first ever test match.

Speaker 6 He played in the 1879 Riot match in Sydney. He played in the birth of the Ashes match in 1882.
And he captained Australia in what was technically their first Ashes series win.

Speaker 6 They'd won a pre-Ashes series, but their first Ashes win. After losing seven series in a row to England, he captained that win, played for a million years, still didn't make the list.

Speaker 6 I'm outraged on behalf of Jack Blackham.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 Emma, can I ask you a question about W.G. Grace? Because obviously a lot of old cricket is just pictures of W.G.
Grace. He's in at 31.

Speaker 5 Is that where he should be? Is he in the right spot?

Speaker 3 It's because his Ashes record, and I should have it up in front of me and I don't, but it's because his Ashes record isn't as great as

Speaker 5 a flat track bully. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, he is obviously this immense figure,

Speaker 3 literally.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 so we, you know, a lot of his, his, the big numbers and the big stats are all are all kind of first-class runs, just sheer weight of numbers of

Speaker 3 centuries and first-class, you know, appearances. But his, his Ashes career wasn't as extensive.
And,

Speaker 3 oh, Jeff will, Jeff will remind me what happened when

Speaker 3 he went and captained in Australia, because that was an interesting story, wasn't it?

Speaker 6 Well, he did captain one tour, but he wasn't available for some others.

Speaker 6 And it was one of those long meandering sort of Australian tours. But yeah, it wasn't an era when

Speaker 6 Batters returned huge bulk runs a lot of the time. And so his overall record's relatively modest.
Grace, he's, what, a thousand-ish runs all up, but he played a lot of test matches.

Speaker 6 So he got them at a modest sort of average. But he's significant, you know, the birth of the Asher story doesn't happen without him.

Speaker 6 He's the one who's whose dodgy play in that test at the Oval pisses off Fred Spofford so much that he comes out and bowls out England for 67, is it off the top of my head?

Speaker 5 What did he do specifically?

Speaker 6 He ran out a player who

Speaker 6 was gardening, who was, you know, had stepped up to pat down some divots. And Grace sauntered in and knocked the, you know, sneaky style of the ball.
Right, sort of bestow.

Speaker 1 this is this is no very much

Speaker 6 the ball was dead

Speaker 6 as opposed to the ball being alive when the wicketkeeper throws it

Speaker 6 immediately upon receiving it so the laws are very very clear on that point right I see seem a little bit defensive about that bit um yeah Ali can we talk about England 2005

Speaker 5 mainly for me, but I suspect there are other sort of middle-aged people going, this was just such a similar until you look at like the Ashes results and you realise just how long it had been since we'd won an Ashes.

Speaker 5 You're sort of your whole childhood right of just never winning in ashes for people like me and then suddenly this thing happens in 05 you know edge baston happens that incredible last day you've got strauss at 68 vaughan at 40 peterson 34 flint off 22.

Speaker 1 how are they not all in where's goraine jones what's going on where's simon jones well i i mean i i can i can reveal that there is One undercapped player who did get one single vote as the 50th player on one of the judges lists, and that is Gary Pratt.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get him into the top 100, unfortunately.
But there was a vote for Gary Pratt. I don't know who it was by.

Speaker 1 It's all anonymous voting, but yeah, I did love that. You're right.
Just on that point about, because we've been sort of talking about recency bias.

Speaker 1 So built into the kind of the judges' modeling, we broke down the ashes into five distinct eras, and every judge had to include a minimum of five players from each of those eras.

Speaker 1 So there was a kind of, there was a kind of a slight inbuilt. It's only 15 out of your 50 that you submit, but it was a slight inbuilt bail safe to defend against recency bias.
But it's funny, though.

Speaker 1 I mean, I look down the list and I wonder if sort of recency bias can also work the other way.

Speaker 1 I wonder if we don't perhaps put modern feats up there as much because we're a bit sort of wary of putting them on the same pedestal as some of the greats. And I kind of look, I mean, you mentioned

Speaker 1 you're still talking about Flintoff, who's up, you know, he's right up there. Now, I've got to now go straight by 22.

Speaker 3 He's 22. He's one ahead of David Gower.

Speaker 1 So he's 22. And if you take Flintoff's Ashes career in isolation, it's very fleeting.
You know,

Speaker 1 it's 2005. It's a doomed Ashes series under his captaincy.
And then it's the kind of a shadow of the man just about holding his body together for a bit of an encore in the 2009 Ashes.

Speaker 1 What Flintsoff did in that 2005 series, you know, as man of the series, ending a 16-year wait. I mean,

Speaker 1 it's such an iconic moment. And I think that's one of the beauties of this kind of this voting system and kind of the talking points.

Speaker 1 You can have great Ashes careers or you can have individual moments.

Speaker 1 I mean, I also think we've underclubbed massively on Mitchell Johnson here because as, you know, as much as his, you know, his returns were lurching at times and he didn't have the best of the time in England, albeit, you know, he did have his moments in England.

Speaker 1 In 1314, he didn't just sort of take 37 wickets. You know, he didn't just finesse those seven wickets.
He blew England away.

Speaker 1 He destroyed, you know arguably the you know the best england team of the generation they'd won the ashes away they'd won in they'd won in india they were there to you know to sort of they'd won that summer in england with 3-0 they were there to complete the legacy and mitchell johnson just a one-man wrecking ball bit of help from ryan harris but a what and roud had in but but ultimately a one-man wrecking ball and i so you know he's sort of somewhere in the 30s and i you know i just wonder whether

Speaker 1 I'm trying to think back to my own fighting slip now, whether I put him higher, but it's, I don't know, it's the beauty of this.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, sorry, going back to 2005, because that's what you want to talk about max 2005 yeah and and also you know you've only got to look sort of in our top 10 and i would say that you know with glen mcgras in that top 10 is that probably the greatest impact glen mcras had was not playing in the in the two games that england won in that summer you know as in sorry no it was not his greatest impact his greatest impact is one of the greatest bowlers of all time but The biggest point of influence, the point you'll come to when you wrap up his career is that is the bit where he wasn't there.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
And that, and that, and that was, an england england sees seized their chance that summer um jeff you wanted to you've got a hot take on joe root

Speaker 6 well just that i i wouldn't have had him in there he's because yeah he's made a lot of runs but he's never he's at 46.

Speaker 5 he's he's made so he's at 47.

Speaker 6 yeah he's he's way too high there are a few players like this i mean someone like like the kind of matthew hayden justin langer sort of type players where i go okay they're okay mike hussey you know they they played in some asher series they had a decent record but their stories aren't as interesting.

Speaker 6 Joe Root, I think, was influential on one Asher series that he's played, and that was 2015. He made 100 at Cardiff in the first test, and that set up England to win the test.

Speaker 6 And then, yeah, he made another 100 later in the series, but that's when Australia were already broken. The half century at Edgeburston was probably more important.

Speaker 6 So there are a couple of tests in that series where he's significant. He hasn't.
played a significant hand in England getting a result in any other series that he's played.

Speaker 6 So I look at, if I'm weighing up something like that, I'm thinking, yeah, there's a lot of runs because he's played a lot of test matches, but almost none of them were influential test matches.

Speaker 6 Whereas, like Allie's point to Mitchell Johnson, or you can look at players from earlier eras who might have only played in one or two series, but they might have been like had such an impact on those that they were the player, you know, a player like Frank Tyson didn't play a lot of Ashes cricket, but did was the decisive person when he did play Ashes cricket.

Speaker 6 Joe Root's never been the decisive player in an Ashes series, really. That 2015 is the one time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and he's above, he's he's above Warwick Armstrong, isn't he? And Warwick Armstrong is, you know, like one of, isn't he one of the most successful Australian captains of all time?

Speaker 3 And he was the first Australian captain to whitewash England. And he had this run of eight successive victories.

Speaker 6 And he invented new ball bowling. He invented two fast bowlers opening the bowling.
That didn't happen until Jack Gregory and Ted MacDonald got together in Armstrong's team.

Speaker 6 And he said, well, instead of opening with a slow left armor at one one end like we've been doing for 40 years, what if we just blow teams away? And he did that at Trent Bridge

Speaker 6 in 1921. He sicked his fast bowlers on England and they tore up England and that was essentially it.
Cricket changed at that point.

Speaker 6 You look at someone who's had that influence versus, oh, this guy's got a nice set of numbers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Sally. I was just going to go back to that point about Vaughan and Strauss.
And

Speaker 1 yeah, I mean, Vaughan's at 40 and Strauss is at 68. And I just wonder, I think the judging panel, we've possibly underclubbed on wicket keepers a little bit.

Speaker 1 Adam Gilchrist is at 21 and but he's there for runs.

Speaker 6 He's not there for keeping.

Speaker 1 Yeah, of course, of course, which is what I mean. So he's there for his runs.

Speaker 1 And even that kind of, even that can feel a bit skinny because of the sort of the game-changing effect he had in that position at number seven. But

Speaker 1 and Mike Bruley is in this top 100, but I do wonder whether captaincy hasn't been factored in as much in certain cases.

Speaker 1 I mean, Vaughan at 40, I mean, he's a man of the series in 2002, three, just as a batsman alone, you know, scores over 600 runs.

Speaker 1 I was on that tour as a punter, and that was, you know, the one highlight of it.

Speaker 1 But that, you know, as the circuit breaker in 2005, the captain that ends 16 years of dominance against a great Australian side, I just wonder whether that deserves a few more ticks upwards.

Speaker 1 And Strauss at 68. I mean, he's got two centuries in the 2005 Ashes.
He wins it as captain in 2009 and is player of the series in that series.

Speaker 1 And then he leads England to a historic win in 2010, 11, scoring a century in that series as well. And he's at 68.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it just goes to show it's, it's, it's a bit of fun, but um, but it has financed interest results.

Speaker 3 I want to agree with you on the wicket keepers because Alan Knott.

Speaker 5 There's no Jack Russell.

Speaker 1 Come on,

Speaker 5 any list where you can have Jack Russell and you don't have Jack Russell is a disgrace. And I am cancelling my subscription.
Carry on.

Speaker 3 But also, you know, Alan Knott doesn't even make the top 50. And, you know, I think for a lot of

Speaker 3 England

Speaker 3 fans who might be a little bit older than me,

Speaker 3 you know, Alan Knott is like, you know, your first choice Ash's wicket keeper.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 that's quite extraordinary. And it makes it more difficult to pick an 11, doesn't it? If you

Speaker 3 if you've not got your if you've not got your wicket keepers and your captains properly represented.

Speaker 6 And there are some great players who, you know, Don Tellon, Les Ames, players like that. Burt Oldfield gets in probably just because he got hit in the head by Harold Lowood.

Speaker 6 And that's why he's, you know, he's remembered as the source of the near riot at Adelaide in the Bodyline series.

Speaker 6 But he's there for that more than for the incredible bravery of a really long career of an injured World War I vet who came back and played for so many years for Australia.

Speaker 3 I would have put Steve Waugh higher than Glenn McGrath for similar reasons to those that we've just been discussing.

Speaker 3 That I just think Steve Waugh, you know, not just the captaincy, but sort of just his being, you know, to me, he's a, I think they're both wonderful.

Speaker 3 And in fact, I, you know, I think I, I definitely had both of them in my top six, but probably the other way around. And,

Speaker 3 you know, Steve Waugh,

Speaker 3 just what Jeff was saying earlier, he is, he is the, he's at the heart of this turnaround of Australian cricket.

Speaker 3 He, he kind of inspires it. I think there's a kind of 170 that he scores.

Speaker 6 At leads, yeah, 177 not out. And then he backs it up at Lourdes with 152 not out.
And that's consecutive tests to start that series.

Speaker 3 And then that's you know, that's what it's one of the things that gets them on this train and that this unstoppable train.

Speaker 3 And I actually was thinking about it, and I was thinking, even before War was captain, you know, he was still symbolized so much more to me of what was impossible to defeat about the Australian team than, say, Mark Taylor when Mark Taylor was captured.

Speaker 3 You know, I still would have thought of war was kind of this kind of like adamantine heart in that team. And

Speaker 5 yeah, I mean, I guess maybe this is just my trauma trauma speaking uh we talk about we talk about recency bias but i wonder if there's a little bit of underlying ptsd that is why there are so many australian um sort of 90s figures quite high up on this list yeah well look if this podcast can also count as therapy free therapy it look it's no bad thing look i've got to get to end part one because emmy you've already really given away four of the top 10 so if we carry on going before part two the incredible announcement of the top 10 despite the fact people can see it on the website already uh will lose all all that jeopardy uh so that'll come up in just a second

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Speaker 5 Well, it's part two of the Guardian Ashes Weekly. So let's get down to the top 10.
Do we want to do a list 10 to one? Just a little bit on everyone. Why not?

Speaker 5 10. So look, Emma, you'd mentioned Herbert Sutcliffe, you know, sort of Jack Hobbes' mate.
Like, is it, it's sort of...

Speaker 5 What's a great double act where one half just doesn't really get the justice that they deserve? You know, Morecombe and Wise or, you know,

Speaker 5 or Deck out of Anne and Deck or whatever, you know, like, is that what Sutcliffe's role is in all of this?

Speaker 3 I think, I mean, Sutcliffe scored a lot of runs alongside Hobbes in that era and went, and it was really interesting. You know, if Hobbes wasn't scoring a century, then Sutcliffe does.

Speaker 3 And so, yeah, I mean, he, but I think it's the sheer weight of a weight of numbers that does for Hobbes. And

Speaker 3 Hobbes sort of ends up dubbed the master, right? Because he can do anything at any time. But Sutcliffe, he may have made it look more painstaking, but he's not riding anybody's coattails, I'd say.

Speaker 5 Okay. At nine, Alan Border.

Speaker 1 Jeff, over to you.

Speaker 6 Well, just the heartbeat. You know, you talk about Steve Ward becoming the face of sort of Australian cricket supremacy for a time being.
It's all on the foundations that AB sets up.

Speaker 6 He's the one who... sticks it out when Australian cricket's really struggling.
He's the one who doesn't take the money to go off and play elsewhere and go on rebel tours and all of the rest of it.

Speaker 6 He's the one who goes, I'm going to, I'm going to make this team into something. And by sheer bloody-mindedness, he eventually manages to do that.
So

Speaker 6 I don't think there's anyone more respected in Australian cricket history.

Speaker 6 I think if you pulled up, if you tried to do a list of the best Australian captains, I reckon he would come out on top because

Speaker 6 it wasn't that he was the most talented player, but he was the most bloody-minded and he played forever and ever. And

Speaker 6 nothing would ever make him any less intense in trying to get Australia to a win, taking the barrages of fast bowling through that era when it was so brutal and difficult and eventually being there towards the end of his era when that Australian team had turned the corner.

Speaker 5 And also, Jeff, he just looks so Australian.

Speaker 1 That makes sense.

Speaker 6 And he's also weirdly nice. Like he's sort of terrifying on the field with the storming around and the glaring and the moustache.
And then like having dealt with him a bit in his

Speaker 6 almost retirement life doing commentary and so on, he's just really pleasant to everyone.

Speaker 6 So it's really unnerving when like nice, sweet, kind Ellen Border comes in and asks if you wouldn't mind passing him that plate of biscuits. That would be terrific.
Thanks very much, mate.

Speaker 6 Sort of thing.

Speaker 5 Steve Smith's at eight, Ali. There is something extraordinary about Steve Smith, isn't there? That sort of unget-outable cricketer.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's phenomenal to watch.
It's sort of like Neo in the Matrix kind of stuff when he's on song.

Speaker 1 It's all the sort of technical brilliance, but in its own homespun way, you know, this isn't sort of the classic coaching manual.

Speaker 1 This is a guy who has worked out the game for himself, and he hasn't just worked it out. He's pretty much completed it.

Speaker 1 Personal Ashwood's memories are pretty much the 2017, 18 series in Australia, which England just could not get him out. It was just a relentless, remorseless grind.

Speaker 1 There were some pretty flat pitches. England had a pretty sort of fast-medium kind of attack, but he absolutely gorged himself.

Speaker 1 The sort of levels of hunger that he displayed, even when it was done, is incredible, really.

Speaker 1 But it's also the, you know, the redemption arc, the ultimate redemption arc of um 2019 coming back from that that that year out for the uh for the sandpaper scandal and and turning on the runs again in that way i think only only bradman's got more than his 12 centuries in ashes cricket i think that's he's level with hobbies level with hobbs uh i i would be surprised if uh if he doesn't add one possibly two more to that uh in the coming weeks am i right about this that he only needs 220 runs to overtake hobbs to become the second highest ashes run scorer um

Speaker 3 so and he already has a better average than

Speaker 3 Hobbes in those matches.

Speaker 6 And you wouldn't rule him out going around again in 2027. So who knows what he could add? He's not the same player now.
He's not as at that untouchable peak. He does get out LBW these days.
And

Speaker 6 we saw the peak and that has passed, I think. But it's the fact that he was able to...
Like, he got brick bats twice because people forget he played in 2010-11 at the end of that series.

Speaker 6 And he was pilloried for being absolute rubbish, some sort of joke novelty all-rounder, you know, chubby league spinner who played a few weird shots.

Speaker 6 And he goes away and then comes back in 2013 and then 13, 14, and makes hundreds against England, turns himself into the most important bat in that Australian team.

Speaker 6 And then again, 2019, as Ali says, goes away in disgrace, comes back, gets all the booing and the jeering and so on through that series. 774 runs in seven innings.

Speaker 6 No one has had an Ashes series like that since Bradman in terms of

Speaker 6 the volume of runs in such a short period of time. Only a couple of other players, Viv Richards and one other who slips my mind at the moment, have made that many runs in that few innings.

Speaker 6 So he had that peak where he was as good as anybody who's the very, very, very best who've ever done it.

Speaker 5 We've talked about Jack Hobbs, who's in at seven. We've mentioned Steve Waugh as well.
I don't wonder if you wanted to add a bit on Steve Waugh, Emma, at six.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, there's sort of moments that really stick out for me, and these kind of just crystallize

Speaker 3 how he was the person you could not get past uh in in those 90s ashes uh tests were the twin hundreds at old trafford in 1997

Speaker 3 um when uh like only four other players passed 50 in that game i think and at that stage australia actually won nil down in the series um because england have won at edgeburston and um there's been a draw at lords and actually in the first innings when steve ward comes in australia 42 for three

Speaker 3 and the wickets keep falling at the other end. And they actually end up only making 235.
But then England gets bowled out for 162.

Speaker 3 Dean Headley is

Speaker 3 keeping England in this match, however. So, you know, I just remember 97 so well because it was just the most hope that we'd ever, you know, had in a home Ashes series.

Speaker 3 And so they're, you know, Dean Hedley's taking wickets, they're 39 for three. Then Steve and Mark come, Steve and Mark will come together.

Speaker 3 Even, you know, even when I think Mark Wall gets out 132 for five-ish or something, but then Steve Wall works with the tail. They end up declaring on 395

Speaker 3 for eight, and they end up winning by 268 runs. And that just, to me, was like, that's the kind of, that's the heartbreaker that Steve Waugh is.
That's how he killed English spirits.

Speaker 5 That's more trauma for you, Emma, isn't it?

Speaker 5 Right, we're into the top five. Four Australians, one Englishman.
Seems about right, Jeff, doesn't it? Dennis Lilly at five.

Speaker 6 And Dennis Lilly is the art of sport because he's, you know, the aesthetic is beautiful. The results are dangerous.
But you were talking about double acts before.

Speaker 6 Lilly, without Thompson, isn't, like, I don't think occupies. quite the pantheon place.
He has a much bigger career than Thompson. He's more, he sort of plays across, like spans a different era.

Speaker 6 he's more significant in a lot of ways as a bowler, but the moment that they have, which is relatively brief, 74, 75 through to the 75 Ashes in England, that period of time when they are Lillian Thompson, that's what really nails down the legend.

Speaker 6 But it's so much of it is to do with the style, you know, the flow of the run, the shape of Lily in the load up.

Speaker 6 There are so many photos of him with that remarkable sort of cocked back wrist and everything flowing through the crease and the incredible competitiveness that made him able to come back from the injuries that he had when in a time when there was no sports medicine to deal with that and he had to figure out a way to do it himself and to remain as dangerous as he did for so long.

Speaker 6 So yeah, he's got 355 test wickets, but you throw in the World Series years and all of the rest of the world games that got discounted and something he should have been on about 450.

Speaker 6 He was an even more significant figure than his stats suggest.

Speaker 5 We've talked about Glenn McGrath playing football and doing his ankle alley.

Speaker 1 but like he in the same way that you can't get steve smith out there's a time when mcgras just has the ball and you're just shitting yourself aren't you as an england fan yeah and it was again another double act with uh with shane warn as well the 19 times he knocked over mike atherton i mean that is you know he was it was a kind of strangleholder athers is a pretty stubborn and tough blow but even he admitted you know he did have a hold over him um and yeah it's it's just that kind of i don't know it's just it's the it's the kind of excellence of execution really it's not it's not extreme pace it's it's it's that sort of absolute perfection of of a wrist position of seam manipulation um of just absolute sheer control of line length um you know some great attributes tall guy you know got a good bounce but it's it's yeah and it was just he was just simply too good for a generation of england batsman I like to think of him as like, it's this, some kind of like siege weapon, you know, like when they started inventing new ways of like destroying fortresses in the Napoleonic era, and it was like they started to discover all these kind of like engineering tricks that were just like, well, if we just keep hitting, you know, the base of this wall

Speaker 3 over and over with this gun, it's going to fall. And I just, that's how I think about McGrath.
You know, castles will crumble, empires will fall, and McGrath will just still be going.

Speaker 3 And yeah, I think the subplot with Athens is brilliant. I think also that point about, I think, really, doesn't he only really have one sort of failure? He just doesn't really fail.

Speaker 3 And I think that's true of a lot of the people that are right at the top of this list. That's why they're at the top of the list.
They're kind of got this infallibility to them.

Speaker 3 So McGrath sort of goes for over 100 runs at Edgbiston in 1997 when Jason Gillespie is injured and England win by nine wickets.

Speaker 3 But then he comes back and he takes eight for 38 at Lords, which are, you know, the best innings figures in a Lords Ashes test and the best individual figures for an overseas bowler there and you know it's just that thing where he's just the man doesn't fail really okay the highest englishman is ian botham lord botham alley and

Speaker 1 i guess it's a lot for headingly but beyond headingly like this guy i suppose he took it to the australians he's kind of quite australian in the way he played cricket if that's not a ridiculous thing to say yeah i mean even going for the sort of bleach blonde mullet as well so um it's funny i was thinking about this list list and and we were mentioning earlier about the different ways the judges could interpret it in terms of what constitutes greatness and and i think for for both i mean i mean clearly 81 it 81 goes beyond headingly of course there's i mean he takes a six for in the first innings of that test match incredible turnaround with the bat there's the five for one at edge baston he makes a hundred um or pretty much a runnable hundred at old trafford as well so it's an absolutely iconic sort of series that he has there off the back of being stripped of the captain seat.

Speaker 1 But I'd like to think that when this list is drawn up in sort of you know in a hundred years time when you know unless it's all ai doing our jobs by then they can still do a list the robots could do a list if they want that's fine yeah the robots will do it okay but i sort of think that while some of the names we mentioned will fade and that i feel like that botham is he's going to remain right up there he's going to remain right up there because of as i say i think it's i think it's to do with transcending the sport almost it's about it's about those moments that transfers and transcend the sport the characters that transcend it i just think that you know for for an entire generation of english people

Speaker 1 it's Botham that kind of drives their love and passion for the sport to see a guy out there sticking it to the Aussies, essentially.

Speaker 1 It's a pretty crude way of putting it, but that was his approach, just absolutely unparalleled self-belief.

Speaker 1 And clearly,

Speaker 1 obviously the back injuries came in and he became a bit of a...

Speaker 1 bit of a medium pacer towards the end of his career, but sort of peak both and particularly with the ball that really fast outswing and just a relentless will to win, an incredible cricketer.

Speaker 1 And yeah, as I say, I think he'll be spoken about when this is done in 100 years' time.

Speaker 5 We get to the top two, Jeff, and there is controversy here because

Speaker 5 they're two great cricketers. One, everyone will know from watching him bowl Mike Gatting and being a brilliant bowler.
And the other, listeners will mainly know by just the numbers 99.

Speaker 5 And it is Don Bradman and Shane Warren. And Bradman is at two and Warren is at one.

Speaker 5 And you are not convinced that's the right way around.

Speaker 6 Look, I don't think it's a travesty that it ends up in that order because Shane Warne, as a story,

Speaker 6 did so much, was such a story through so many Ashes series.

Speaker 6 But in terms of the patterns of the voting, so I don't know who voted for who, but I know how people voted because we get to see how the votes were distributed. And so I will take issue.

Speaker 6 I will find out one day who there were two people out of the 51 who didn't give Bradman a vote. Not one, not a single, didn't make the top 50, the top 50 best players ever to play in the Ashes.

Speaker 6 Now, this is a guy who made over 5,000 Ashes runs, let alone the 7,000 he made elsewhere. The average of 99 is his career average.

Speaker 6 He averages 89 in Ashes cricket, 18 Ashes hundreds, and they're like, nah, not top 50.

Speaker 1 And that is some performative nonsense.

Speaker 6 I will say that. Oh, I'm so clever and alternative.
I'm not going to put Bradman in the top 50. Fine.
Whatever.

Speaker 3 It's like, unless it's what Max said at the beginning, and they genuinely just forgotten it.

Speaker 1 Maybe.

Speaker 6 fell off the list no no no we double checked yeah no i believe it was checked and there was a degree of stubbornness that no this was the vote so the difference between warn and bradman is about 120 votes there are those two zeros that are worth 100 and there are a couple other people who put him mid 20s which i think is also it's equally absurd to say that there are 25 better players in the ashes than bradman you might say there are two or three you know um i didn't have him top i put fred spoffeth was my top vote there you go if you want a controversial one, because he created the ashes.

Speaker 6 It's his bowling spell that makes the ashes happen, as well as being so prominent in that early era of Australian cricket. So I don't think Bradman has to be 50, but he probably has to be 46 plus.

Speaker 6 Whereas nobody, no single voter gave Warren less than 48. He got 48, 49, or 50 from every single contributor.

Speaker 6 And Bradman got 48, 49, or 50 from all but four people who, for whatever reason, decided to structure things the way they did.

Speaker 5 I suppose, Ali, the only thing about Bradman is, you know, it's a sort of, for most of us, it's sort of mythical. It was interesting when you were talking about, you know, recency bias and history.

Speaker 5 And like, I felt this with like when England football teams have got to the final of the Euros. And I think, do I actually want them to win? Because the boys of 66 are gods, right?

Speaker 5 And I don't know if... I've never seen any of them have a bad game.
I've never seen Bradman have a bad innings ever because I've never seen him have an innings.

Speaker 1 No, you're right. I mean, I've not seen him play either, Matt.
So, you know, no, I mean, that's what it's difficult, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Because you're quibbling over one and two, and it's almost like there's a sort of intended sort of implied shade against the person in second place.

Speaker 1 You're still saying they're the second greatest of all time.

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, another point about Bradman is England had to devise a completely new way of playing, or at least, you know, what at the time was considered a pretty, you know, it was a pretty controversial move, the whole bodyline tactic.

Speaker 1 That was brought in essentially to stop one man. And he still averaged sort of, you know, he's still averaged 50 in that series, I think.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, he wasn't. So the impact is great.

Speaker 1 I mean, I, I'm going to tell you my top vote. I did go for Shane Worn, actually.
And I think...

Speaker 1 I mean, I guess the thing about Bradman is that the numbers are clearly so much further ahead of any of his peers at the time, but that is, you know, that really does set him apart.

Speaker 1 But my point being is that Shane Worn mastered the toughest skill in cricket. And he did it.
He didn't just master it, you know, just to get ahead of his peers.

Speaker 1 He is so far ahead of any of the rivals for that particular thing.

Speaker 1 And then you can add into that the absolute psychological grip that he had on England, quite literally from the first ball he sends down in Ashes cricket.

Speaker 1 Afterward, and, you know, Jeff mentioned the hat-trick earlier. I'm trying to think what was it.
He played a part in seven Ashes' wins.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's just, you know, for a generation of English cricketers, I said this about McGrath earlier, but he was... a nightmare.

Speaker 1 And even, even in the one series he loses to England, he takes 40 wickets. His life is falling apart off the field.

Speaker 1 He's front page news, he's back page news, and he still is able to deliver his skill, the hardest skill in cricket, in my view,

Speaker 1 to absolute elite levels. So for me, it was Shane Warne is the greatest Ashes cricketer of all time.

Speaker 5 And Emma, it's not just the Gatting delivery, right?

Speaker 1 I mean...

Speaker 5 But still, we're allowed to talk about that because it's so just like Gatting's face is

Speaker 5 like so iconic. Isn't that goes beyond cricket, that moment?

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, there's a song about it. Come on.

Speaker 3 I mean, where else does that happen like one single delivery and it and um uh and duck was lewis method write a song about it i to be honest since ali has since ali has braved this i'm gonna i'm gonna do it too just you know just to see just just to add uh to it i also put warnie first i'm just looking at jeff's face to see how horrified he is oh no he's given me a thumbs up i mean my thing is actually that really the two people at the top it would be nice if they could share it, wouldn't it?

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, the two people, they've got so much in common, these two men.

Speaker 3 So got so little in common in probably their personal lives, but so much in common as cricketing legends. They're both completely untouchable in terms of their statistics and achievements.

Speaker 3 You know, Warren's, just as Ali was saying, Warren's, you know, wickets, number of Ashes wickets stands so high above the next. Bradman's runs stand so high above the next.

Speaker 3 They both defined and dominated entire Ashes eras, not just a series. So we've got lots of people on this list who, you know, it's, yeah, it's Tate's ashes or it's Flintoff's ashes.

Speaker 3 But this is a, you know, we're talking about, you know, years and years. And they're both men who brought this contest completely alive through the sheer force of their competitiveness.

Speaker 3 So I think they've got a lot in common. But then I'm just going to leave you with this.
You know, did Bradman do it on a diet of pizza and beer?

Speaker 3 And did he end up going on, I'm a celebrity and getting bit on the head by an anaconda?

Speaker 5 No. Yeah, no, actually, no, no, John Bradman.
He actually came seventh. Well, he came seventh in Strictly,

Speaker 1 one of the early. early Strictleys in the 50s.

Speaker 6 But he did have that kind of other side to his life and his personality. He had scandals.
He had fights with the board because he was doing jobs outside cricket.

Speaker 6 He had illnesses he came came back from. Like the Bradman story isn't just numbers.

Speaker 6 It's 28, 29 getting dropped after his debut and then coming back and then making 200s while they're getting pulverized and then going to England and setting the series record, making 974 in that series and then bodyline with all the drama and controversy, then getting them back in 1934.

Speaker 6 Then he captains the only side that has ever gone 2-0 down in a five-test series and won it.

Speaker 6 It's happened once in the entirety of test history, and that's Bradman as captain, moving the chess pieces and masterminding the comeback win in the third test, going on to win that series, making 300s on the trot to do it.

Speaker 6 And then you

Speaker 6 come to coming back after World War II when he's hasn't played in six years and he's old and he's still peeling off hundreds in that final series.

Speaker 6 He's got so many parts to his story in the way that Warne does, where they're the central character in half a dozen Ashes series. And that's what they both have in terms of

Speaker 6 the narrative they bring.

Speaker 3 That's true. Can I just say one thing, which is that I think we have much more of a sense of Warren's heart and humor and that.

Speaker 3 I mean, Robertson Glasgow said about Bradman, no one ever laughed about Bradman. He was no laughing matter.
And I think that's one of the...

Speaker 3 One of the things that tempted me to put Warne over Bradman was this sense of personality. Yeah, kind of not iconoclasm,

Speaker 3 but that kind of sense that, you know, it's okay. It's okay to kind of like have a new have a new person at the top of the pyramid.

Speaker 3 I think we're in that era. I think if you look at what's happened in tennis,

Speaker 3 we've just gone through an era where

Speaker 3 there were numerous goats. That's not, that's, you know, supposedly goat is greatest of all time.
But we had an era where it was like, well, Feder is a goat and Jokovich is a goat and Nadal is a goat.

Speaker 3 And I think, I think putting Bourne first kind of, it is sort of in the spirit of that and celebrating that the sport is ongoing and is moving you might in the background hear Willie Rushton child two who has a choice of playing for England or Australia the aim is to rinse the Australian sporting system and then they and get them big mullets and they can open the batting for England but um that's not the only reason to end the pod now it feels like a you know we've done the list I don't know if you wanted to anyone wanted to add anything else before we uh we crack on I wanted to say one thing which is that because I just love that Jeff said that he uh put Spoffeth first because Spoffeth is responsible for the ashes.

Speaker 3 And I think it's really wonderful as a sort of nice symmetry that Ivo Bly, who was the person, you know, why the ashes urn exists.

Speaker 6 Well, he got given it. I mean, it's always, he gets credit for what women did.
You know, they did, Janet Clark did the work and then Ivo Bly gets the credit. Classic.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and Florence hands it over to him. Yeah.
But he comes in 98th. And I think that's really fitting.

Speaker 3 I quite enjoy that because, again, a sort of, there's an iconoclasm about that, that we think of the ashes as kind of, yeah, very kind of attributed to Ivo Bly.

Speaker 3 But, you know, the man,

Speaker 3 I can't remember what he, how many runs he totaled, but he averaged 10 in the Ashes. He played four innings.
Oh, his highest score was 19. That's right.
He scored 62 runs. His highest score was

Speaker 3 19. And he was kind of just famous for this romance.
And I only realized today, as I was thinking about it, he's not even the most famous Captain Bly in history.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 6 his things ended up a bit better for him than old mate hiding under the bed.

Speaker 1 Anyway, thanks, everybody.

Speaker 5 If you would like to get in touch with the pod, we'll be doing it throughout the series. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts on this or anything else we do in the next few weeks.

Speaker 5 The email is ashes.weekly at theguardian.com. You can find us on YouTube.
You can follow the Guardian sport on Instagram and TikTok. But for now, thank you very much, Emma.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 1 thank you, Ali. Cheers, Max.
Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.

Speaker 6 Looking forward to the next one.

Speaker 5 Ashes Weekly is produced by Nick Harmon. Our executive producer is Daniel Simo.
The theme tune is by Rudy Zygadlo, and that is it for now.

Speaker 5 We'll be back next week with a preview of the first test in Perthsea. Then

Speaker 1 this is The Guardian.

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