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England cricket captain Alastair Cook recently retired from the international game after a record 59 Test series. Some further details about Alastair Cook’s record-breaking career can be found in the PDF attachment to this post.

Cook is said to have named Jimmy Anderson as the greatest English cricketer to have ever played. The media responded with a hail of suggestions for other players who might take up that mantle. Cricket fans such as Fiyaz Mughal will all have their own ideas about the specific criteria that make a player stand out as one of the all-time greats. Here we take a look at just a few of the candidates that have been suggested as the best English cricket player of all time.

Sir Jack Hobbs

Sir Jack Hobbs was the first English cricketer to earn himself the nickname of “the Master” and the first professional cricketer to be given a knighthood. His unparalleled record includes 197 first-class centuries and a total of 61,760 first-class runs. These impressive records would likely be even higher if the sport had not been interrupted by the break-out of the First World War. In the infographic attachment you can see some of the statistics about the England cricket team as a whole.

WG Grace

Statistically speaking, WG Grace gave most other professional cricket players a run for their money. During the highest point of his career he scored approximately one in three of every first-class cricket century and, years later, remains in the top ten lists for first-class cricket in both batting and bowling. What Grace is best remembered for, however, is shaping the modern game of cricket as we know it, developing the theory of batting that we still see today’s players using. The time when WG Grace was playing was the time when cricket evolved from a county pastime into a national institution.

Ian Botham

Perhaps one of the most widely recognised cricketers of modern times, Ian Botham was known for both his brilliance on the pitch and his antics off the pitch. With a reputation for being able to drink all night and still pull off some of the best cricket England has ever seen the next morning, Botham was a skilled all-round player who outshone his contemporaries in the slips, with his swing-bowling technique and his run-scoring.

Rachael Heyhoe-Flint

Rachael Heyhoe-Flint can be accredited with bringing women’s cricket into the modern era, tirelessly promoting and fundraising and organising the first women’s World Cup. She achieved six unbeaten series as captain of the England team and was the first to achieve six in a women’s Test. In the short video attachment you can learn more about the first ever women’s cricket World Cup.


Len Hutton

Charlotte Edwards

Another game-changing female cricketer, Charlotte Edwards had a solid 20-year professional career during which time she won the Ashes series five times and the World Cup twice. Edwards can be credited with inspiring generations of women to take up the sport of cricket, which is the kind of impact that will continue to make a difference long after her own retirement.

Len Hutton stands out in English cricketing history for holding the record for most runs in a Test match, having scored 364 in 1938 against Australia. His legacy is further elevated through the fact that he maintained a career average of more than 55, despite playing on uncovered pitches and having the prime of his career interrupted by the Second World War.