Greatest Cricketers of All Time: The Full Ranked List

Cricket has been played at the international level since 1877, which means any “greatest of all time” list is really an argument across five or six generations that barely overlapped. Bradman never faced Warne’s leg-spin. Sobers never batted against Muralitharan. What follows isn’t an attempt to settle that argument — it’s a ranked list of the 14 names that show up, in some order, on almost every serious version of it, with the numbers and moments that put them there.

At a glance: the top 14

Rank	Player	Country	Era	Primary skill
1	Don Bradman	Australia	1928–1948	Batting (99.94 Test average)
2	Sachin Tendulkar	India	1989–2013	Batting (most international runs and centuries)
3	Garry Sobers	West Indies	1954–1974	All-rounder
4	Shane Warne	Australia	1992–2007	Leg-spin bowling
5	Viv Richards	West Indies	1974–1991	Batting (aggressive)
6	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	1992–2010	Off-spin bowling (most Test wickets)
7	Jacques Kallis	South Africa	1995–2014	All-rounder
8	Brian Lara	West Indies	1990–2007	Batting (highest individual scores)
9	Wasim Akram	Pakistan	1984–2003	Fast bowling (swing)
10	Glenn McGrath	Australia	1993–2007	Fast bowling (accuracy)
11	Imran Khan	Pakistan	1971–1992	All-rounder, captain
12	Ian Botham	England	1974–1992	All-rounder
13	Adam Gilchrist	Australia	1996–2008	Wicketkeeper-batsman
14	Virat Kohli	India	2008–present	Batting (modern era)

1. Don Bradman

A Test average of 99.94 is the reason this list starts here and, for most people, ends the argument before it begins. Bradman played 52 Tests for Australia between 1928 and 1948, scoring 6,996 runs including 29 centuries, and his average sits nearly 40 runs clear of the next name on cricket’s all-time list — a gap statisticians have called statistically absurd for any sport. He famously needed just 4 runs in his final Test innings to finish on exactly 100; he was bowled for a duck instead, and it barely dents his case. No player before or since has separated himself from the field by that margin.

2. Sachin Tendulkar

Tendulkar retired in 2013 with more international runs than anyone in history — 34,357 across Tests, ODIs and T20Is combined — and 100 international centuries, a number no one else has reached. He debuted at 16 and played until 40, which is as much the story as any single innings: 24 years at the top, through multiple eras of bowling attacks, without his output ever really falling off. See our most runs in international cricket leaderboard for exactly how far clear he is, or the full greatest batsmen ranking for how he stacks up against Bradman, Lara, and Richards on batting alone.

3. Garry Sobers

Sobers is cricket’s benchmark all-rounder because he did genuinely everything: 8,032 Test runs at 57.78 for the West Indies, 235 wickets bowling fast-medium, orthodox spin, and wrist-spin depending on what the pitch needed, plus 109 catches. His 365 not out against Pakistan in 1958 stood as the Test record individual score for 36 years. No all-rounder since has matched the combination of runs, wickets and fielding at that level across a full career.

4. Shane Warne

Warne took leg-spin bowling, a dying art by the early 1990s, and made it the most feared skill in the game again. His 708 Test wickets are the most by any specialist spinner in history, and his first ball in Ashes cricket — the 1993 “Ball of the Century” that spun past Mike Gatting to clip the off stump — is still the reference point for what leg-spin can do. He was as much a psychological weapon as a technical one.

5. Viv Richards

Richards batted like the bowler owed him something. His strike rate and sheer aggression reshaped how batsmen approached both Tests and one-day cricket well before T20 made power-hitting fashionable, and he did it often without a helmet. He anchored the West Indies teams that dominated world cricket through the late 1970s and 1980s, a run of success covered in more detail in our most successful cricket captains guide.

6. Muttiah Muralitharan

Muralitharan finished with 800 Test wickets, a number no other bowler has reached, built on an unorthodox action and a doosra that troubled batsmen who had faced him a dozen times before. He also leads the all-format international wicket count with 1,347, detailed in our most wickets in cricket breakdown. Sri Lanka’s rise as a Test nation in the 1990s and 2000s tracked closely with his career.

7. Jacques Kallis

Kallis is the quiet name on this list because his brilliance rarely announced itself — 13,289 Test runs at 55.37 and 292 Test wickets, a combination of bat-and-ball output that no other all-rounder in history has come close to matching across a full career. South Africa’s best team of the 2000s was built with him as the fixed point in the middle order and the fourth seamer when needed.

8. Brian Lara

Lara holds two records that may never fall: 400 not out, the highest individual score in Test history, against England in 2004, and 501 not out, the highest first-class score ever, for Warwickshire in 1994. He carried a West Indies batting line-up that was otherwise in decline through the 1990s and 2000s, often single-handedly, with a flourish that made even defensive strokes look deliberate.

9. Wasim Akram

Akram redefined what fast bowling could do with an old ball. His reverse swing, paired with Waqar Younis, made Pakistan’s attack the most feared in the world through the 1990s, and his 414 Test wickets came with a left-arm angle that troubled right-handers in ways conventional swing bowling didn’t. He remains one of the most influential bowlers in the sport’s tactical history.

10. Glenn McGrath

McGrath’s greatness was relentlessness, not spectacle: 563 Test wickets from a line and length so metronomic that batsmen sometimes got out from boredom as much as skill. He was the enforcer at the top of Australia’s attack through the country’s most dominant era, the late 1990s and 2000s, and his economy rate stayed remarkable even as workloads piled up.

11. Imran Khan

Imran Khan led Pakistan to their only ODI World Cup title in 1992, doing it as one of the most complete cricketers of his era — a genuine strike bowler who could also bat at four or five. He built the fast-bowling tradition that produced Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, and his captaincy is still the reference point for Pakistan’s place among the most successful cricket teams in history.

12. Ian Botham

Botham built his reputation on moments more than steady accumulation, and no moment tops the 1981 Ashes, a series that turned almost entirely on what he did with bat and ball across a handful of days after being dropped as captain the match before. He finished with 5,200 Test runs and 383 wickets, England’s most complete all-rounder of the modern era.

13. Adam Gilchrist

Gilchrist didn’t just keep wicket for Australia’s best-ever team — he batted at a strike rate no keeper before him had managed, often walking in at six to turn a strong position into a demolition. His 17 Test centuries as a keeper-batsman changed what the role was expected to contribute, and every attacking wicketkeeper since has been compared to him. See our full ranking of the greatest wicketkeepers in cricket history for how he stacks up against Boucher, Dhoni, and the rest.

14. Virat Kohli

Kohli is the most prolific ODI run-scorer of the modern era and finished his Test career, which ended in 2025, with an average in the mid-40s across more than 100 matches. His case for a spot this high rests on volume and consistency across three formats rather than a single defining peak, which is why most rankings still place him below the retired greats rather than among them, for now.

How we ranked them

This list weighs three things: statistical dominance relative to the player’s own era (Bradman’s average, Muralitharan’s wicket count), influence on how the game is played (Warne reviving leg-spin, Gilchrist redefining wicketkeeping), and sustained output over a full career rather than a single great series. Active or recently retired players like Kohli are ranked more conservatively, since their final place in history is still being written. For the fan-favourite angle rather than the statistical one, see our most loved cricketers list, and for the format-specific records behind these careers, check highest score in Test cricket and most double centuries in Test cricket. This list covers the men’s game specifically — for the equivalent ranking on the women’s side, see our best women cricketers of all time list.