v2 G.O.A.T Round 1 Group 10

Yesterday’s group was dominated from start to finish by Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps who bagged 37 from 80 votes totalling 46% of the vote, joining him in round two as group 9 runner up was American baseball legend Babe Ruth who went through with a 3 vote advantage over boxing’s Mike Tyson, also leaving the tournament at the first stage is the iconic All Back Jonah Lomu.

Today’s group sees Tennis, baseball, Motor Sport and Cricket compete for your votes.

We have just the one participant championed today with an article written by forum members, so please feel free to submit your own argument below for the one not championed.

Please vote for the competitor you believe has achieved the most in sport and should progress into the next round.
Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Valentino Rossi- Motor Sport- Championed by CJB

Arguably the most talented driver in all of motorsport, Valentino Rossi fell in love with minimoto and karting very young. Rossi would finally begin to concentrate on the two wheeled racing when the increasing costs of karting was too much for Graziano Rossi, a talented racer in his own right.

After impressing on the national and European level, Rossi was given a chance to impress in the 125cc category on an Aprilla. At only 17, Rossi would impress with a race win and a third leading to a ninth place finish despite five crashes. He would go on to dominate the 125cc class just a year later with 11 wins in 15 races. This would earn him a move up a class to the 250cc class where in two seasons he would win 14 races with seven other top three finishes. In his first season he would come a close second behind more experienced teammate Loris Capirossi while his second season would earn him the title and a move to 500cc bikes, the premier class.

His first season although blighted by three retirements would see two victories and a second place finish. However it would be his second season where Rossi would really come into his own. He would dominate winning his first world championship in the premier class. This would be the first of three World Championships on the Honda bike often considered the best. Each of the titles were dominant with an average winning gap of almost 110 points, with 31 wins of the 48 possible.

Rossi would continue in similar vein at Yamaha winning two more World Championships to take his toll to five consecutive and seven overall titles. However the next two years would be a struggle for Rossi with a 2nd and a 3rd in the championships and only nine wins, losing to Hayden and Stoner. Rossi would successfully return to the top of the pyramid with another 15 wins and two more world titles to reach seven premier class title and nine world championships in any class.

Whilst it is futile to not include Rossi in the discussion of the greatest motorcyclist of all time a case could be made to describe him as the most flexible and talented of all motorsports. When Rossi tested the Ferrari F1 car in 2006 he would finish just over half a second behind the most successful F1 driver ever, Michael Schumacer, after only 3 days, an impressive feat. He has also shown a talent for Rallying finishing 11th of 39 in a World Rally Championship race in 2006. Rossi is often called the GOAT (Greatest of all time) by those in the know of the sport and has inspired some of the current crop of great riders such as Stoner, Lorenzo and the late Simoncelli.

Went with Warney.

Not seen much of the others and having seen a lot of Warne, the guy did things with the ball that seemed ridiculously impossible.

I rate Murali above Warne, so he's a no no.

Will vote for Rossi, thanks to CJB.

No write up for Warnie?!

I'll await further information before voting. Would like to see some stats on Bubka. And Ty Cobb but that could be a long wait.

VTR wrote:No write up for Warnie?!

I'll await further information before voting. Would like to see some stats on Bubka. And Ty Cobb but that could be a long wait.

There was one lined up unfortunately it wasn't sent back to me

Hang on, hang on!

Please tell me this is meant to be Bubka the pole vaulter ....

I went with Shane Warne too.

I couldn't name another pole vaulter, so it's not the biggest sport. That excludes Bubka.

Never heard of Ty Cobb.

And Rossi would get my second place vote. Despite me rating Carl Fogarty ahead of him.

That's a shame MtotheC. If I had more time today I would cobble one together. Definitely my favourite ever bowler, mesmerising to watch and I can watch "The Ball of the Century" over and over again.

Never heard of Ty Cobb , who hell he?

Just googled it. Seriously, baseball player from early 20th century, before powered flight, before the 1st world war. Come on, I can take one baseball player, but seriously. The standard must have been terrible back then.

He'll get fewer votes than Gavin Hastings.

Also, where is the tennis player you talk of MtotheC? You have a Pole Vaulter, Cricketer, Victorian Baseball player and a motorcycle rider.

super_realist wrote:He'll get fewer votes than Gavin Hastings.

Super Gav should be in the second round of this competition, it's a travesty he didn't get through.

Tommy Lee Jones played in Cobb in a film. He must have been either great, a character or both.

super_realist wrote:Never heard of Ty Cobb , who hell he?

I thought he was the actor in 12 Angry Men and On the Waterfront.

More seriously, it's commendable to put relative unknowns up for consideration but a basic outline of their contribution should be a prerequisite.

Sergei Bubka was someone who always stood out for me (not particularly a fan of athletics), and his career record shows why. 6 consecutive world championships, 4 world indoor championships, Olympic gold, 35 world record vaults, still holds both indoor and outdoor world records, still the only man to vault over 6m10cm. Between 1984 and 1994 Bubka added 29cm to the previous world best. Was, according to the IOC website, voted world's best athlete on several occassions.
I think Bubka was up there with Michael Johnson and Ed Moses in terms of domination of his event, although it must be said that he disappointed in a couple of Olympics, but I do remember thinking, when watching him, that the result was a forgone conclusion and it was just a matter of how high Bubka would go. Of course it can be argued that pole-vault is a bit more of a 'niche' sport than running, but you can only beat what's in front of you, and Bubka did that, in terms of both opponents and records, in spectacular fashion, throughout most of his career.

My vote goes to Shane Warne, the greatest person to ever bowl a cricket ball.

super_realist wrote:Never heard of Ty Cobb , who hell he?

Just googled it. Seriously, baseball player from early 20th century, before powered flight, before the 1st world war. Come on, I can take one baseball player, but seriously. The standard must have been terrible back then.

He'll get fewer votes than Gavin Hastings.

Also, where is the tennis player you talk of MtotheC? You have a Pole Vaulter, Cricketer, Victorian Baseball player and a motorcycle rider.

Apologies, its a typo, enjoy today's group gents.

Azzy

Foggy ahead of Rossi? Sorry, but its not even close. WSB is really the 2nd class race series behind Grand Prix - look at how well moderately successful GP riders like Checa and Biaggi have been when moving to WSB. Rossi is really in a class of at most 3, along with Agostini and Rainey, and most people would rate Rossi's skill and dominance over a strong field as the best of those.

Surprised there has been no write up for Warne yet, so here's one mostly off the top of my head:

Shane Warne simply revolutionised cricket. Prior to his emergence for Australia, bowling attacks were about pace, pace and more pace, with a spinner being included to bowl some defensive overs with the old ball and to speed up the over-rate. One ball changed everything - his first ball in an Ashes test in England (actually his 7th Test match), now called 'the ball of the century'. Facing the young, blonde Aussie leg spinner was Mike Gatting, an experienced English batsman with a reputation for playing spin well. Warne took his now-familiar short run in and bowled a flighted ball that started on a line towards leg stump. As the ball started to drop, the spin on it caused it to drift slightly outside leg stump - Gatting adjusted his front foot position and looked to play a forward defensive stroke pretty much straight back down the pitch. Then the ball pitched, and it suddenly wasn't where Gatts (or anyone else) expected, turning viciously away from Gatting's groping bat and bouncing to just clip the outside of his off stump. In one moment, a new star was born and spin bowling, in particular the extremely difficult skill of leg spin, was back in vogue.

Warne though was far more than an instant wonder - in a Test career starting in 1992 and ending in 2007, he took 708 wickets in 145 Tests, a record for any bowler at that time (since broken by his near contemporary, the great Sri Lankan off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan). One of cricket's great debates is who of the two was the better bowler - for me, Warne was better on wickets offering little assistance to spin bowlers, while Murali was more effective on the spin-friendly wickets of the Sub-Continent. However, as a rounded cricketer, Warne is well ahead - while not really an all-rounder, he was a useful lower order batsman, and holds the perhaps unwanted record of having scored the most Test runs without a century (his best being out for 99, with a couple of other scores over 90) as well as being a very useful slip fielder. Also, as a personal preference, I'm always a fan of those sportsmen who make the almost impossible look effortless, and in this regard Warne's simple and smooth action appealed to me much more than Murali's contortions. Neither bowler was a stranger to controversy, with Warne guilty of several off-field indiscretions (that probably cost him appointment as Australian captain), while Murali's issues related to the legality or otherwise of his bowling action.

How good was Warne? Well, I'll leave the final words to the Barmy Army of England supporters, who in Warne's final appearance in a Test in England were heard chanting 'We wish you were English'

Strange one this one, Bubka undoubted GOAT in his field, but what a small field it is. Id have the same issues with him as with Ed Moses really. Warne...maybe, probably the best spinner ever but not the best cricketer. Ty Cobb...again my baseball knowledge lets me down
So I'll go for Rossi I think who is IMO the best on 2 wheels ever.

Nice one Dummy

I've gone for Warne and it would be nice if someone had provided a write up. Certainly the best bowler I've ever seen and something of a cricketing savant (given he appears to be a borderline moron in everything else he does).

In the absence of time to do him a write-up, I've inserted a wonderfully descriptive piece of writing taken from Gideon Haih's biography of Warne:

"[Warne] presented his opponent with a narrative. I am better than you, he said; everybody knows this, but circumstances decree that we go through the motions of proving the obvious. I am better than you, he repeated; therefore I dictate the terms of our engagement, bowling my overs at my own pace, moving my fielders as much or as little as I desire, treating you as very nearly an irrelevance, because I have eaten alive better players than you will ever be."

It really does sum up a Warne over perfectly.

Easy for me(well easy by the fact that i love one of them and dont know enough about the others)

Shane warne is my fav non english cricketer

What he could do with a cricket ball was extraordinary..

Warney hope you win this one..

Easy for me, too.

Shane Warne - did things that no other could do with a cricket ball, the greatest spinner the world has ever seen and exemplified everything that was so dominant about that Australian team.

His wicket taking exploits, in a team that included Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee who would all often remove a few opposition batsmen before he even came on to bowl, were nothing less than extraordinary.

Also a great slip fielder, the first man to take 700 Test wickets, and the highest scoring batsman to have never scored a Test century (he once fell on 99 - which was rather funny).

Tough one, with some real champions out today. Regard Ruth as a greater figure than Cobb for a couple of reasons - combination of power and average against Cobb's pure contact hitting brilliance, plus Cobb's cavalier attitude to rules, sporting ethics and common humanity. Find it relatively easy to sideline the querulous old git.

The others are tougher - Warne is the greatest leg-spinner ever, but despite his own Hollywood projection of himself, only an equally influential member of arguably the greatest team in cricket history, together with McGrath and Gilchrist, in my view. When added to the fact that his record against the best players of spin of his era (India) was decidedly shabby, I feel that I can pass on Shane. It's not as though he has the tie-breaker of gentlemanly off-field behaviour or global legacy in his favour. More people may be trying to bowl leg-spin these days, but only in the same few countries that have always had an interest. It's clear that Australia withheld the captaincy for which he was so well qualified from Warne because of doubts about his personal qualities - in the final analysis, this has to count heavily against a candidate for greatest sportsman ever.

The only doubt I have about Rossi is that to me, he looks about equal with Agostini at the very summit of motorcycling achievement. Not clear why we're picking one and not the other when their status as the nonpareils of their sport is so similar. Would probably be my second choice here, since there is no doubt that anyone with a track and field leaning will tell you that pole vault history is all about just one man....

Sergey Bubka. Preposterous record, with the slight Achilles heel of just a single Olympic title, I guess. However, that incredible series of world titles tells the truth about his domination of his event. In a world where equipment and technical support are improving out of sight, Bubka's marks are not being remotely threatened by his successors, and it may be that his world outdoor record will have lasted for as long as half a century by the time it is finally broken. he is also giving something back to sport and the Olympic movement these days, which while not strictly relevant, is good to see. Bubka will do for me today.

Warney has also managed to bag Liz Hurley, if that is not worth any floating voters I struggle to imagine what will be.

Oooh this is a tough one for me.

I'm a huge admirer of both Rossi and Bubka - clear GOATs in their sport but also with levels of domination which sets them apart from other GOATs, and both in technical sports where to the untrained it seems as if a slight mistake means game over.

Warne however is possibly my favourite ever sportsman - his impact is clear to see when you see all the spinners around at the moment, and coming through the ranks in junior cricket. Dummy is correct to emphasise that he made his entrance at a time when outside the subcontinent spin was pretty unfashionable. Another thing which has to be emphasised is his tactical expertise - a great captain when he had the opportunity of course, but also in how he'd work over a batsman. Here's him telling everyone what the batsman is going to try and do, and how he's going to get him out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ChUfhFbcc

A bit like Federer, in that clearly he was a genius, but also reached the heights which his talent deserved.

Rowley wrote:Warney has also managed to bag Liz Hurley, if that is not worth any floating voters I struggle to imagine what will be.

A looker in her day but predominantly made of plastic and various fillers these days, much like Warney himself. He deserves not to get a vote after the amount of Botox he has had put in his head and the various hair transplants. Only kidding...please do not let these comments stop people voting for him.......but he a a bit of a tool.

captain carrantuohil wrote:More people may be trying to bowl leg-spin these days, but only in the same few countries that have always had an interest.

Not sure this is true or fair. A lot of young Englishmen are now coming onto the county scene bowling leg-spin (Will Beer, Max Waller, Scott Borthwick to name but 3) - being all around 20 years old, it's clear they grew up under the influence of SK Warne having success in England (England has traditionally mainly produced finger-spinners), certainly Borthwick's action is obviously copied on Warne's.

Further afield, in France we have 4 leggies in or around our junior side, of which 3 have similar actions to Warne's.

Diggers wrote:

Rowley wrote:Warney has also managed to bag Liz Hurley, if that is not worth any floating voters I struggle to imagine what will be.

A looker in her day but predominantly made of plastic and various fillers these days ....

.... and yet she still speaks so highly of you, Diggers.

Shane Warne for me. I am always reluctant to be too critical of a 'star' players in 'star' teams. He is a bit like Ritchie McCaw in that respect. Plays/played in a great team but was still head and shoulders above his peers. I see that as a huge credit to his excellence rather than a caveat to his success. Brilliant spinner, brilliant fielder, brilliant tactical mind and a very capable lower order batsman. The amount of wickets he took despite having to fight with McGrath, Lee etc etc is outstanding. All with a proper action as well. No bio-metrics needed for Warney. On top of that, he was the person that first got me interested in cricket, and I say that as an Englishman.

I could do without the hair-transplanted, teeth veneered, slimming world, Galliano clad version we see now, but I am willing to overlook that.

Its alot easier to define a player in a team like cricket or baseball though Window.. not so easy in rugby or footy..

We actually picked a couple of leggies in the late 90s/early 2000s, Mike, in Salisbury and Schofield. Since then, nowt at national level. Are Will Beer (Michael is an aussie finger spinner) or Waller county regulars? Not strictly speaking. Leg-spin is still regarded as an expensive luxury in England, SA (look how quickly they've abandoned the Tahir experiment) and, indeed, the rest of the world bar Australia. Leg-spin's spiritual home always was Oz (at least since South Africa decided against it as an option after WWI!), with Pakistan and India occasionally producing one (Chandra, Qadir, Kumble). Such is still the case, Warney notwithstanding, particularly as DRS is now yielding proper results for finger spinners. Off spin is the new leg-spin!

mystiroakey wrote:Its alot easier to define a player in a team like cricket or baseball though Window.. not so easy in rugby or footy..

Quite right, key.

Point is still valid.

yep..

i wonder of we will get any all rounders in the top 64..

its easy to pick a mcgarth , bradman or warne..

but could we argue that kallis or sobers trumps the lot?

guildfordbat wrote:

Diggers wrote:

Rowley wrote:Warney has also managed to bag Liz Hurley, if that is not worth any floating voters I struggle to imagine what will be.

A looker in her day but predominantly made of plastic and various fillers these days ....

.... and yet she still speaks so highly of you, Diggers.

Dont get me wrong mate, I still would....

Duty281 wrote:My vote goes to Shane Warne, the greatest person to ever bowl a cricket ball.

Not sure about that.

Maybe the greatest bowler of a cricket ball is more accurate.

mystiroakey wrote:yep..

i wonder of we will get any all rounders in the top 64..

its easy to pick a mcgarth , bradman or warne..

but could we argue that kallis or sobers trumps the lot?

Stick around, mysti! Stick around!

Just to go back to yesterday's vote, hopefully someone will provide a write up for Babe Ruth for his R32 appearance.

Not sure that Cobb deserves to be on our 64 man short-list - he may have hit a baseball more frequently than any other player, but without great power. In 22 years, he only hit 117 home runs, while his near-contemporary Babe Ruth hit 60 in one season and over 700 in a career of similar length, all for a difference in batting average of 0.02 (that is, in 100 'at bats' Cobb would hit about 36 times to Ruth's 34 - anything over 30 is considered great hitting). Oh, and Cobb had a reputation for being a right bar stewards.

Bubka - undoubtedly the best pole vaulter ever, and it should be emphasised that this is probably the most difficult event in track and field, requiring speed, strength, technique and almost gymnastic ability. Bubka was so much better than the rest that it has often been claimed he deliberately just nudged the world records up 1cm at a time to maximise the bonus payments, safe in the knowledge that in training he'd already exceeded these heights - while his best competition jump was 6.15m, it has been suggested that 6.2 or even 6.25m was within his capability. No-one else, even a decade after Bubka retired, has jumped higher than 6.07m. Bubka was a fantasticaly dominant track and field athlete, on the same level as Ed Moses or Carl Lewis (in the long jump), but his record is compromised by his lack of Olympic success - of the five Olympics during his career he won one gold, missed one Games because of the Soviet boycott, was compromised by injury in his last one and 'no heighted' in two, failing to register the (for him) usually simple height of 5.70m.

All this leaves me torn between Rossi and Warne.

While F1 success is 90% about being in the right car, this is not the same for motorbike racing, where a great rider makes a huge difference (and there tends to be more riders on similar machinery). Rossi set new standards for dominance of 500cc and MotoGP racing firstly for Honda (where he probably did have the best bike) and then for Yamaha, where it was Rossi's brilliance that made the difference in getting results on an initially inferior machine and ultimately developing it into the best package. His reputation has taken a bit of a beating in the last couple of seasons, where he has failed to get results on a Ducati that nobody since Stoner has been able to make work reliably, but his move back to Yamaha for the up-coming season will go a long way to answer the question of whether it is Rossi in decline or simply an unrideable bike.

Warne I've already written about. For me, simply the finest bowler I've seen in how he could get the ball to react off supposedly unhelpful surfaces. Someone who could simply do magic with a cricket ball.

I have to vote Warne in this one, am a cricket fan but by no means obsessive about the sport but is quite clear he was something special. In many ways redefined what was expected of a spinner, always remember watching cricket in the pre Warne days and seeing some spinners used to slow the run rate down or block an end up but that was never the case when Warne bowled, he was there to get folk out and did so with frightening regularity. Add into that he was no rabbit with a bat, seems a genuine personality in an era when that is not always the case in sport and he seems exactly what this process is all about.

Also on a purely personal note the fact that he seemingly smokes like a trooper and likes a drink gives hope to all us fat wasters who have never seen the inside of a gym.

I really am hoping that rossi goes foward as well.. dummy makes a good point that motorbikes is quite different to f1.. I am sure the way they throw there bodies around the track makes a huge difference- add to that the bravery of them. F1 is becoming safer than football these days!!

Not that thats a bad thing mind.. Just shows what can be done if we try hard enough and one of the reasons i respect f1 so highly over the american versions of the sport!

Rowley wrote:I have to vote Warne in this one, am a cricket fan but by no means obsessive about the sport but is quite clear he was something special. In many ways redefined what was expected of a spinner, always remember watching cricket in the pre Warne days and seeing some spinners used to slow the run rate down or block an end up but that was never the case when Warne bowled, he was there to get folk out and did so with frightening regularity. Add into that he was no rabbit with a bat, seems a genuine personality in an era when that is not always the case in sport and he seems exactly what this process is all about.

Also on a purely personal note the fact that he seemingly smokes like a trooper and likes a drink gives hope to all us fat wasters who have never seen the inside of a gym.

Jeff - please feel free to pop across - if only for the odd cameo appearance - to the cricket board whenever you wish.

Jeff, I think we need to be a bit careful about the issue of "personality" in our deliberations. There are quite a few of them, from the matchless Ali to the positively evil Cobb, with decidedly individual characteristics. In Warne's case, the ledger is a long way from positive, what with his slightly elastic view on what constitutes an acceptable attitude towards women and his equally flippant view on what he stuck into his body (and I don't just mean pizza).

It's probably safest, in my opinion, to ignore the "character" unless it is an inextricable part of the performer, which probably means Ali and Ali alone.

captain carrantuohil wrote:We actually picked a couple of leggies in the late 90s/early 2000s, Mike, in Salisbury and Schofield. Since then, nowt at national level. Are Will Beer (Michael is an aussie finger spinner) or Waller county regulars? Not strictly speaking. Leg-spin is still regarded as an expensive luxury in England, SA (look how quickly they've abandoned the Tahir experiment) and, indeed, the rest of the world bar Australia. Leg-spin's spiritual home always was Oz (at least since South Africa decided against it as an option after WWI!), with Pakistan and India occasionally producing one (Chandra, Qadir, Kumble). Such is still the case, Warney notwithstanding, particularly as DRS is now yielding proper results for finger spinners. Off spin is the new leg-spin!

I got my Beers mixed up, thanks for the correction.

Beer and Waller feature regularly at least in limited overs cricket, and I think will become regulars in time in their county sides (although Waller will have to compete with the excellent George Dockrell at Somerset). Certainly there are more leggies around the county and county accademy scene than I have ever known in my lifetime. Coaches at county level are always on the look-out for a promising leg-spinner, because they know that (along with perhaps a genuine fast bowler) they are true match-winners on their day.

Tahir was actually perservered with for a while, despite limited success, partly because South Africa understood the value of an attacking spinner.

I think you're also a bit too focused on leg-spin: Warne revitalised spin bowling, or more precisely attacking spin bowling as a whole. Swann for example is an entirely different kind of spinner than anything England have had since possibly Laker (who I never saw). All international sides are now looking for a spinner who can take wickets as his primary function - even New Zealand only reluctantly went for Jeetan Patel.

I did offer on about three occasions to do a write up for any cricketer that didn't have one yet....

Mike, I see your point. I would, however, say that Abdul qadir tends to be forgotten in all this. A man whom Warne rated the best leggy of them all, he was keeping that flame of attacking spin bowling going throughout that dire time of Emburey, Doshi, Ray Bright and John Bracewell. He it was who inspired Warne, and I think that it's slightly unfair in some ways that Warne reaps so much more of the credit because he had peroxide highlights and enjoyed a cough and a drag.

Accept your point re Swann and co. Would still say that countries have tended to prefer the reliable end-blocker to the potential wicket-taking liability, even in the post-Warne era. Look at Giles, Harris and co. Duncan Fletcher wouldn't even look at Swann, which says a fair bit about him, not much of it good. I guess that the point that I'm trying to make is that it is still unclear how permanent Warne's influence is likely to be.

Shelsey

send a PM to MtotheC with the offer. He did though say that someone was preparing a case for Warne, but failed to submit it, so that might be why he didn't take you up on it.

captain carrantuohil wrote:Jeff, I think we need to be a bit careful about the issue of "personality" in our deliberations. There are quite a few of them, from the matchless Ali to the positively evil Cobb, with decidedly individual characteristics. In Warne's case, the ledger is a long way from positive, what with his slightly elastic view on what constitutes an acceptable attitude towards women and his equally flippant view on what he stuck into his body (and I don't just mean pizza).

It's probably safest, in my opinion, to ignore the "character" unless it is an inextricable part of the performer, which probably means Ali and Ali alone.

Very reasonable points Captain but whilst I probably did not express it as I should I do think Warne has a case for it to be considered, whilst you make valid points about his less savoury sides do think he was a shot in the arm for cricket which as you know can have a somewhat staid and stuffy image at times. Neither of these descriptions could ever be applied to Warne, anyone with the character and personality to hook in people who would normally run a mile from their particular sport is generally a force for good for their sport. That said if he had a personality that made Nigel Mansell look charismatic he would still have got my vote, the best bowler I personally have ever seen.

dummy_half wrote:Shelsey

send a PM to MtotheC with the offer. He did though say that someone was preparing a case for Warne, but failed to submit it, so that might be why he didn't take you up on it.

Ah Ok. Didn't see that.

Will write a few words later, but the computer I'm on is playing up a bit so I might end up deleting it before it gets saved...

captain carrantuohil wrote:Jeff, I think we need to be a bit careful about the issue of "personality" in our deliberations. There are quite a few of them, from the matchless Ali to the positively evil Cobb, with decidedly individual characteristics. In Warne's case, the ledger is a long way from positive, what with his slightly elastic view on what constitutes an acceptable attitude towards women and his equally flippant view on what he stuck into his body (and I don't just mean pizza).

It's probably safest, in my opinion, to ignore the "character" unless it is an inextricable part of the performer, which probably means Ali and Ali alone.

Captain - ''personality'' or character is always important to me in this type of thing. In Warne's case, there are certainly well documented negatives. Against that has to be weighed the positive impact and influence he has had on future generations to pursue cricket and, in particular, spin bowling.

Another factor - which I'm not sure gets enough credence as we consider these potential GOATs - is the enjoyment and exhiliration that was derived from Warne's performances by those watching. I do believe we need to consider more the paying spectator. Our wonderful and dreadfully missed friend Windy often used the expression ''giving value for money''; that to me is so important. Very few who paid to see Warne would ever have begrudged their money.

Comparing Ruth's home runs with Cobb's is inappropriate, different roles.

But considering Cobb's "character" it is surprising his name ever made it this far, and extraordinary that it hasn't been removed.
(Could say the same about Tyson of course.)

You won't find me shopping for Tyson's personal qualities, kwinigolfer, but he can't be compared with the dreadful Cobb, whose overt racism was only one aspect of his charming overall character. Tyson was a confused kid of whom people repeatedly took advantage; Cobb, by contrast, was a foul suppuration.

I've gone for Warne in the end. Was close between him and Bubka, would probably have gone for Bubka if he could have added a couple more Olympic titles.

I just think Warne was magnificent with the control he brought to the hardest form of bowling. Murali may have more wickets but Warne also got the most out of his batting and fielding, something Murali failed to do. Mike also mentions his captaincy which I had overlooked and just adds to the case.

Here's the Ball of the Century:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVei8iTyM8