A new poll and New Zealand's best batsman

My last poll asked you who should open the batting with Mark Richardson in the forthcoming tests against Australia. One of you voted for double century maker Stephen Fleming, four of you voted for current opener Matthew Sinclair and five of you voted for Michael Papps.

My new poll was inspired by Stephen Fleming's achievements in Bangladesh - he is now New Zealand's most prolific runs-scorer. Ben asked me who I thought was New Zealand's best ever batsman and it sparked a lengthy debate between Karl, Ben and I. So now we are going to ask you to decide for us. To help you vote, here is a little information:

According to the PWC system, Glenn Turner had the highest rating of any New Zealander by a mile - 843. Bert Sutcliffe got as high as 787 and Martin Crowe reached a peak of 776.

If you looked at where those three were placed in the rankings, as opposed to simply looking at the ranking score, then you can see that Crowe spent most of the period from 1988 until 1994 ranked in the world's top five batsmen. Glenn Turner spent between 1972 and 1977 doing the same - and hit number one a couple of times, including an extended spell in 1975. Bert Sutcliffe only spent a short period in 1956 in the top 5, but his ranking was more consistent through-out his career than either Turner or Crowe.

Andrew Jones' rating never climbed above 667 and he was never rated higher than the ninth best batsman in the world. But, no-one else earned the nickname "God" or celebrated a test century by giving the Australian press box the fingers.

Of the current players, Fleming might have scored more runs than anyone else but he has yet to rate over 692 and has only broken into the top 20 a handful of times. Mark Richardson has hit the heights of 775 and has spent the past couple of years hovering around the world's top 10.

Martin Donnelly might have made the list in another age. He only played briefly for New Zealand in a career interrupted by the Second World War and the lack of tests at the time - but in that short time he did manage 200 in England and such was his reputation in English county cricket that he was named the best left-handed batsman in the world.

In terms of bare batting averages, we can see the following:
Martin Donnelly 52.90
Mark Richardson 47.03
Martin Crowe 45.36
Glenn Turner 44.64
Andrew Jones 44.27
Bert Sutcliffe 40.10
Stephen Fleming 39.75

Of course, all statistics are problematic when trying to compare batsmen of different eras. Karl tried to work around this by comparing the careers of Turner and Crowe against different nations.

Turner's averages: against West Indies 65.76, Pakistan 39.18, and Sri Lanka 23.66. He never played against South Africa or Zim.
Crowe: against WI 45.33, Pak 57.23, SL 52.25, Zim 62.25 and SA 20.5.

On a purely aesthetic level, Ben pointed out that not even a Fleming cover-drive could beat the grace of a Martin Crowe hook shot. And Crowe could also score runs in the most trying conditions (remember his century in Pakistan against Waqar and Wasim at their fiercest?) while both Sutcliffe (post-injury) and Turner had reputations for being suspect against short, quick bowling.

As an aside, while looking around the PWC website I noticed something about Martin Donnelly's contemporary, fast bowler Jack Cowie. Cowie only played a handful of tests in the 1930s and 1940s but between 1945 and 1949 he was consistently rated in the PWC's top ten and spent 1947 as the world's best bowler - above players like Tiger O'Reilly, Keith Miller and Ray Lindwall. As far as I can tell, Richard Hadlee is the only other New Zealander to reach No. 1 in the bowling charts.