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A day after the new chart was released, former cricketers expressed surprise at the composition of the list and said it was 'extremely misleading" since many great names did not figure in the top ten positions.
India's former left-arm spinner Maninder Singh went to the extent of calling it a ‘joke’ and said ‘sadistic’ ICC officials should stop coming out with such lists.
"The ICC is in the habit of making a joke of themselves, and this list proves that. Now, how can you explain Tendulkar who has scored over 12,000 Test runs not being in that list?
I think these jokers should not be given the pleasure of rating players in this way", Maninder said.
The ICC, on its part, promptly, came out with a clarification saying that the list does not rank players in terms of true greatness and does not give a full picture of a player's level of consistency or longevity in the game.
It said that Matthew Hayden's place higher up the table than Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara in the all-time Test and ODI rankings does not necessarily mean that the just-retired Australian 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 said in a statement.
Explaining the manner in which the rankings have been decided, the ICC said, "A batsman or a bowler who averages around 700 ratings points for most of his career apart from a purple patch where he shoots up to 900 points before dropping down again may be ranked higher on the all-time ratings.
"But that does not mean he should necessarily be considered to be better than a player who hovered around the 850-point mark for his entire career," it said.
The ICC accepted that the all-time list does not rank players in terms of true greatness.
"For that reason some players, who are considered by most observers of the game to be truly great, such as Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, Wally Hammond, Greg Chappell and others, do not feature in the top 20 in the all-time high ratings," the statement said.
Tendulkar was ranked 26th in the Test rankings while Lara was listed three rungs above him.
The ICC urged fans to take a closer look at a player's entire career graph to determine his greatness rather than go by the snapshots, which is what the "best-ever ratings" effectively are.
If a player's career is considered as a mountain, then a single peak would hold worth less than a high, long plateau, the ICC said.
"Hence Tendulkar would be deemed greater than most other players despite having a lower peak. One way of assessing a player would be to calculate his ‘average rating’ over his career though of course this could penalise a player whose long career included a slow start," the ICC said.
Maninder said the complex calculations used by the ICC was hard to comprehend since the chart does not reflect the reality.
"I don't think players like Tendulkar, Lara, Border or Steve Waugh become smaller just because they don't figure in this list. They have achieved a lot in their careers and cricket fans know their true worth", Maninder said.
Former Indian cricketer and coach Madan Lal was also quite astounded by the composition of the list.
"It shocked me that Tendulkar is not there. He is Test cricket's most prolific run-getter. He has scored heavily in every condition and against all countries. If he is not there who will be there, I don't know. Tendulkar should definitely have been there," he said.
"I am not bothered whether Matthew Hayden or others like Kumar Sangakkara are there. They are also great players but I am surprised any such ranking does not include a Tendulkar and Brian Lara. I don't know what factors or criteria they used to rank the players."
Former Indian opener Chetan Chauhan said it was quite shocking to see the list without the name of Tendulkar who has been regarded as one of the best batsmen in the world.
"Anybody who has scored over 12,000 runs has to be in the top five at least. Tendulkar is still going strong after 19 years of international cricket, so it is really baffling he is not higher up in the list", Chauhan said.
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These list of greats without sachin is seems to be manipulative
ICC's explanation about Sachin and Brian Lara is just gibberish. The media, in future, may decide to ignore such nonsense as non-news.
Sachin may be emotional point for Indians but really he is not all time great.The list includes some average foriegn playres bellow Sachin but it does not mean that Sachin is all time great for India. He is playing since 1989 but he has hardly 4 to 5 matches which are really won due to him.Most of his centuries are in draw matches. Kapil have made us to see the team as world champion for nearly a decade. Sachin is dismal failure on this count.He had problem in leading indian team and accepted a junior role under junior players. We indians have 3-S i.e. sallumiya,sanjubaba and sachin master-blaster. Tough they are in their forties, we love them in treating them as teen aged boys. He is successful in only maintaining his career for 19 years but we can not point any five years where Sachin has won the matches for india. Even Dravid has proved realy a 'wall' in defending indian side as well as in hitting centuries when india was in sever need.
I truly agree that, Sachin's centuries were not directly contributed to a win. However, he was such a great player that, every other player's confidence, form was depending on Sachin's performance in the middle. Even if sachin scores 50 runs in a confident manner, other players use to perform and make India win otherwise, they use to hole out. Greatest example is 2003 WC. Before WC, we lost to NZ very badly and whole team was down with confidence. It was that time, Sachin single handedly lead and induced the confidence in the whole team. If Sachin had players like current Dhone time during his prime days, probably, we would have won many matches. In his prime days, we hardly had consistent match winner.
Hi channe,Do you know what cricket is, better first know that !!!Vasu N
This is uncle malcolm's list which is helped by some horrible dubious umpiring
this result was waste, lara
The ICC's clarification that the all time high rating does not give a player's consistency or longevity is ridiculous.If the ranking does not give the quality of a player,then there is no meaning of a ranking order.If greats like Tendulkar and Lara can be beaten by a batsman like Hayden in the top 20 list,for other reasons,then it should be construed,that the ICC has not made a true effort to grade the players taking all aspects into consideration.The list therefore cannot be made valid !.
its a joke , nothing to take serious, a foolish list made by people having absolutely no knowledge about cricket, how can u deny sachin, lara, inzimam etc.....
It clearly shows BCCI in bad light. And I am afraid the future ICC Chairman aspirant Sharad Pawar will have some talking to do for the same.ICC is still a 'gora' club.
What a waste of time! The game's controller rates players and issues a users manual and interpretation handbook to understand its rations. That is why this ICC has not been professional. Cant even do meaningful rating of its own players.
ICC must have followed a certain formate to determine the merrit list. If observe that they might have considered only those runs when their team won the match. Afterall this is a team work. Runs scored on lost match must have been ignored. That is the only way schin is let down.
This exercise of ranking players is to show a list of leading players either playing or not playing where they stood in terms of their ability. After doing this, ICC telling us not to consider this list for considering their greatness, clearly reflects the defending tactics of ICC when they are attacked. Scrap this ICC or ensure no whites are involved in the management because whiltes love to create contraversies. You see the way they are screwing the England team which is not good even to play against Bangladesh.
the current icc rankings should not in any way disappoint tendulkar, lara or anybody who follows the game completely. the true measure of being a champion in a sport is the awareness a person carries when he is at the top of his sport and when he is fully aware that he has played the game to the best of his abilities and his efforts have been recognized and appreciated by those who follow his game closely and enjoy the way he performs. ratification by any council / body is bound to be affected by criteria which is not always comprehensible and almost never transparent. so guys forgive the icc and continue enjoying the performance of tendulkar et al for what you feel they are worth....
Hey they feel it is still a western sport and few countries should have their say. But fact is that it is not. Things will change and would the perception. Cricket is an international game and rules should be made to satisfy the overall public perception. That is the world of cricket lovers.
Today, the whites are down in cricket. That is why, even at the expense of looking like idiots, the ICC is trying to make it look that the whites are superior. Cheap racialism, indeed.
Looks like ICC has lost its mind completely. Ignorance is bliss in this case surely. No admirer of the game would ever take either ICC or their list of all time greats seriously.
We need an alternate International cricket body . Death to monopoly and tyranny .ICC is International Cricket Crooks ! The last ODI World Cup Final between Australia and Lanka was played in the DARK in the final overs.
Rubbish. Will ATP or FIFA dare do such ridiculous ranking? ICC is packed with some------s, who continuously dream up ways to project mediocres as greats!
White men never save India; they perfected the art of divide and rule. Did Indians learn anything? Indians should learn History first to understand the world and how did it work and infer how is it going to be in future. India needs people with character not just “cubicle coolies” or these things will happen and no need to surprise or alarm.
The ICC has brought out a list, which they themselves admit, is not based on true merit. The list shows two things : It is not of the best, ranked in order of merit, and the ICC is made up of a bunch of total idiots.
This is an insult to the ICC cricketing knowledge whoever chose that list of ranking and not of Sachin Tendulkar as in the cricketing world every one knows what are the ranking of Sachin and Lara and other greats from different country. So ICC should stop ranking the greatness of the players otherwise ICC looks BUNCH OF STUPIDS can't counter BCCI in politics try to victmise the players.
Correct.They are master of there arts but not the greatest.I like Garry Sobers, Bradman are the best for me
ICC is correct. Sachin and Lara are not cricketing greats because they don't have white skin
ICC is set of stupids who are racials and they would try everything to prove white's supremacy.
For all the idiots who want Tendulkar should be here, read what is written carefully. This is the list of the highest ranking points achieved in a career span and the numbers do not lie! Yes, I am a huge fan of Sachin's and would like to see him in every list that says world's best but then do not look at these lists always as an India versus the rest of the cricket playing world! Accept a few things. How long can we go around saying that the Don found Sachin to be resembling himself? Besides that statement of Don doesn't say or mean Sachin is the best batsman of all time!!!
Shut yourself in limelight kaushik, with the way u responded to the situation. just shut urself. i dont want anyone replying him to put a Mr. behind his name. lafoot would be right. JAI SACHIN
Mr.Kaushik must be out of his minds to say sachin is not best look into the consistency,scoring against all countries.He plays for the game and country and not for himself to create records
Mr. Kaushik, if so then then should not name it "Greatest Test Players", instead they should call it "Highest Points Grabber in Test Cricket"!!!Right??Syntax error or what!!!Ha ha aha
It is not neccessary that sachin should figure in every list but it is important to see that mere one year ranking of any player's career can make him all time legend that is if somebody has achieved above 950 marks in his initial or any time of career then there is no need to check his career profile. Is this method is correct to evaluate, so why the average of any player is calculated after considering all his innings/matches?