Hayden better than Tendulkar? Nobody may be taking the ICC’s rankings seriously, but they’re talking about them all right
19-Jan-2009
So where did you place on the ICC rankings then? © AFP
“It is not even worth reacting. It is so disgusting. I don’t care if they rank me 150th, but what is the procedure? And what is the need?”
Bishan Bedi raises a pertinent question“It is appalling. The ICC has no business to humiliate some of the greatest icons of the game. How can you have Gavaskar at 20 and Sachin at 26? I am 35th, and Wasim Akram 59th. They must be joking. I have always maintained that Akram was a much better bowler than me… This ranking is like the Duckworth-Lewis method. No one knows about that. No one knows about this either.”
Kapil Dev is singularly unimpressed“The ranking does not really count for him [Tendulkar]. He is a great cricketer and has been scoring runs consistently for more than 15 years. He is a hero for this country.”
Chaminda Vaas, too, fails to see the need for the rankings“Some unfortunate PR, and how my heart weeps as I type that phrase, has made the regrettable error of offending India’s greatest cricketer. You can almost picture them cowered in the corner, clutching their knees and rocking back and forth as they realise what they had done. All they had intended was to procure a little sly sponsorship for their client with a press release about Matthew Hayden, revealing that according to their oblique calculations, he was the 10th greatest Test batsman of all time.”
The Guardian‘s Andy Bull can empathise with whoever formulated the rankings“This does not necessarily mean he [Hayden] is the 10th-best Test batsman or 18th-best ODI batsman in the history of the game. The rankings give an indication of how players peaked during their careers but do not give a full picture of those players’ level of consistency or longevity in the game.”
The ICC tries in vain to clear the air“Of course, a bunch of bored schoolboys armed with a calculator and with access to www.cricinfo.com might have surely done a better job than the honourable experts to whom the ICC chose to hand over the job… But all this is not the point, really. The point is, we needn’t have bothered.”
A balanced view from Nirmal Shekar in the Hindu”All I can say is that the greatest batsman in world cricket, Sir Don Bradman, had named Sachin Tendulkar in his team. After that, I don’t think Tendulkar requires any other rankings.”
The BCCI isn’t threatening to cancel any tours: Rajiv Shukla, a senior official, doesn’t deem the rankings worth protesting about“The ICC can be forgiven for struggling with some of cricket’s intricate modern politics. It doesn’t help itself, though, when it produces inadequate outcomes on what are nuts-and-bolts cricket matters like these.”
Age”Some computer or some software can’t decide who are the top 100. There is no need to give any importance to such rankings. I don’t understand why anyone should bother about it. But then there is little cricket until we play Sri Lanka so media seems to lap it up.”
Anil Kumble knows exactly who is enjoying the whole affair“Perhaps, this is because there is not much international cricket right now featuring India. I don’t want to give too much importance to these rankings. Just forget them.”
Must be the Bangalore air, for Rahul Dravid thinks the same“I think these jokers should not be given the pleasure of rating players in this way.”
“Tendulkar has been one of the greatest batsmen in the history of Indian cricket and I believe that he has even superseded the ranking standards. He is above all the cricketers in the world.”
“We can all agree that the rankings are a sham of a mockery of a charade.