Six Giants of the Wisden Century
Encyclopedia
The "Six Giants of the Wisden Century" are six cricket
ers who were judged by Sir Neville Cardus
in 1963 to have been the most notable players of the previous 100 years. Cardus made his selection at the request of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
which issued its 100th annual edition in 1963.
Given that Cardus was making the choice, the omission of Rhodes is the biggest surprise. In another place, Cardus has written that he would "bend any rule to ensure that Wilfred is in my team".
Cardus explained that he had looked for more than brilliant batting and artful bowling. He wanted players who, in addition to scoring runs and taking wickets, "have given to the technique and style of cricket a new twist, a new direction". In other words, he wanted not just great players but creative players (Cardus used the italics himself).
W G Grace
Jack Hobbs
Tom Richardson
Victor Trumper
Sydney Barnes
Don Bradman
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
ers who were judged by Sir Neville Cardus
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus CBE was an English writer and critic, best known for his writing on music and cricket. For many years, he wrote for The Manchester Guardian. He was untrained in music, and his style of criticism was subjective, romantic and personal, in contrast with his critical...
in 1963 to have been the most notable players of the previous 100 years. Cardus made his selection at the request of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
which issued its 100th annual edition in 1963.
Selection
In alphabetical order, the six players selected were:- Sydney BarnesSydney BarnesSydney Francis Barnes was an English professional cricketer who is generally regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the sport's history...
- Don Bradman
- W G Grace
- Jack HobbsJack HobbsSir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs was an English professional cricketer who played for Surrey from 1905 to 1934 and for England in 61 Test matches from 1908 to 1930....
- Tom RichardsonTom RichardsonTom Richardson was an English cricketer. A fast bowler, Richardson relied to a great extent on the break-back , a relatively long run-up and high arm which allowed him to gain sharp lift on fast pitches even from the full, straight length he always bowled...
- Victor TrumperVictor TrumperVictor Thomas Trumper was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found unplayable. Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby...
Alternatives
Cardus was aware that any such selection would be controversial for he wrote: "I can already hear in my imagination a thousand protesting voices (including my own)". He then named several other players that he had considered for the honour:- K S RanjitsinhjiK S RanjitsinhjiRanjitsinhji Vibhaji, Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar was an Indian prince and Test cricketer who played for the English cricket team...
- Fred SpofforthFred SpofforthFrederick Robert "Fred" Spofforth , also known as "The Demon Bowler", was arguably the Australian cricket team's finest pace bowler of the nineteenth century and was the first bowler to take 50 Test wickets, and the first to take a test hat-trick in 1879...
- Wilfred RhodesWilfred RhodesWilfred Rhodes was an English professional cricketer who played 58 Test matches for England between 1899 and 1930. In Tests, Rhodes took 127 wickets in and scored 2,325 runs, becoming the first Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches...
- Johnny TyldesleyJohnny TyldesleyJohnny Tyldesley was a Lancashire and England cricketer and for many years the finest professional batsman in county cricket.-Life and career:...
- Charlie Macartney
- Aubrey FaulknerAubrey FaulknerGeorge Aubrey Faulkner was a leading cricketer for South Africa for two decades.-Early life:...
- Bill O'ReillyBill O'Reilly (cricketer)William Joseph "Bill" O'Reilly , often known as Tiger O'Reilly, was an Australian cricketer, rated as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. Following his retirement from playing, he became a well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster.O'Reilly was one of the best spin bowlers to...
- Keith MillerKeith MillerKeith Ross Miller MBE was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. Miller is widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. Because of his ability, irreverent manner and good looks he was a crowd favourite...
- Frank WoolleyFrank WoolleyFrank Edward Woolley was an English cricketer, one of the finest all-rounders the game has seen. In a career lasting more than thirty years, he scored more first-class runs than anyone but Sir Jack Hobbs, and took over 2,000 wickets at an average of under 20...
- Ray LindwallRay LindwallRaymond Russell Lindwall MBE was a cricketer who represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946 to 1960. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. He also played top-flight rugby league football with St...
- Len HuttonLen HuttonSir Leonard "Len" Hutton was an English Test cricketer, who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and England in the years around the Second World War as an opening batsman. He was described by Wisden Cricketer's Almanack as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket...
- BJT Bosanquet
- Bart KingBart KingJohn Barton "Bart" King was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King was one of the Philadelphian cricketers that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I...
Given that Cardus was making the choice, the omission of Rhodes is the biggest surprise. In another place, Cardus has written that he would "bend any rule to ensure that Wilfred is in my team".
Cardus explained that he had looked for more than brilliant batting and artful bowling. He wanted players who, in addition to scoring runs and taking wickets, "have given to the technique and style of cricket a new twist, a new direction". In other words, he wanted not just great players but creative players (Cardus used the italics himself).
Rationale
His stated reasons for each of the six choices included the following comments:W G Grace
- None of these (other great players), not even Sir Jack (Hobbs), dominated for decades all other players, none of them lasted so long.
- In a way he invented what we now call modern cricket. His national renown packed cricket grounds everywhere. He laid the foundations of county cricket economy. The sweep of his energy, his authority, and prowess, his personal presence, caused cricket to expand beyond a game. His bulk and stride carried cricket into the highways of our national life. He became a representative Victorian, a father figure.
Jack Hobbs
- Sir Jack is the only cricketer of whom we might fairly say that he directly descended from W.G. fully-armed, like Jove.
- I never saw him make an uneducated stroke. When he misjudged the nature of a ball he could, naturally enough, make the wrong right stroke. He not only enlarged and subtilised the art of batsmanship; he, like W.G. widened and strengthened cricket's appeal and history.
- ...the vintage Hobbs, the Master of our time...
Tom Richardson
- I choose Richardson as one of my Six, not on the supposition that he was the greatest fast bowler of the century, though certainly he was in the running.
- I take him as the fully realised personification of the fast bowler as every schoolboy dreams and hopes he might one day be himself. Richardson was, in his heyday, a handsome, swarthy giant, lithe, muscular, broad of shoulder, and of apparently inexhaustible energy.
- He was indeed the ideal fast bowler, aiming at the stumps, always on the attack. His leap before the right arm wheeled over was superb in poise. Never did he send down a defensive ball. He would have been too proud.
- "He tried," A.C. MacLaren told me, "to get a wicket every ball. Honest Tom!" Let us remember him by those two words of MacLaren's tribute -- Honest Tom.
Victor Trumper
- It is futile to ask who was the greatest batsman? There are different orders of greatness. Talent, even genius, is conditioned by the material circumstances in which it is developed.
- Victor Trumper was the embodiment of gallantry as he made his runs. He was a chivalrous batsman, nothing mean or discourteous in any of his movements or intentions at the wicket. "He had no style", wrote C. B. Fry of him, "but he was all style".
- But not by counting Victor's runs, not by looking at any records, will you get the slightest idea of Trumper's glorious cricket. You might as well count the notes of the music of MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
.
Sydney Barnes
- Most cricketers and students of the game belonging to the period in which S.F. Barnes played were agreed that he was the bowler of the century. Australians as well as English voted him unanimously the greatest.
- Clem HillClem HillClement "Clem" Hill was an Australian cricketer who played 49 Test matches as a specialist batsman between 1896 and 1912. He captained the Australian team in ten Tests, winning five and losing five...
, the famous Australian left-handed batsman, told me that on a perfect wicket Barnes could swing the new ball in and out very late, could spin from the ground, pitch on the leg stump and miss the off. - Barnes had a splendid upright action, right arm straight over. He ran on easy strides, not a penn'orth of energy wasted. He fingered a cricket ball sensitively, like a violinist his fiddle. He always attacked.
Don Bradman
- Sir Donald Bradman (hereinafter to be named Bradman or The Don), must be called the most masterful and prolific maker of runs the game has so far known. He was, in short, a great batsman. Critics have argued that he was mechanical. So is a majestically flying aeroplane.
- The difference between Bradman and, say, Victor Trumper as batsmen, was in fact the difference between an aeroplane and a swallow in flight.
- Discussing him entirely from the point of view of a writer on the game, I am happy to say that he was for me a constant spur to ideas. A newspaper column couldn't contain him. He was, as far as a cricketer can be, a genius.