50 Greatest Australian Cricketers

Book excerpt: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them by virtue of their skills with ball and bat. This book is about the latter. Australia's favourite sport has a proud history of turning nobodies into somebodies and ordinary men and women into heroes of international renown. From the black-and-white belligerence of Ian Chappell to the colourful celebrity of Shane Warne, the diplomacy of Adam Gilchrist to the ruthlessness of Meg Lanning, the pantheon of Australia's greatest cricketers is as mottled as the crowds that cheer them on. But who is the greatest of them all? In The 50 Greatest Australian Cricketers, sports journalist and comedy writer Dan Liebke relives the careers, characteristics and enduring legacies of the finest Australian cricket players of the past 50 years.