Everyone has always loved to rank sportsmen and which cricket fan hasn’t enjoyed picking their own teams and playing imaginary matches, using dice, cards, table-top games or computers? “You can’t compare eras” is an oft-quoted phrase but it certainly hasn’t stopped countless generations of fans sitting around the school playground, dinner table, pub garden or international match debating who were the greatest players of all time.

In this book players are ranked, split according to their roles. Openers, middle-order batsmen, all-rounders, wicket-keepers, fast bowlers and slow bowlers are all selected in the same proportions in which they make up a team.

In a game awash with numbers, every cricket fan knows what 99.94 and 501 relate to. Some of the numbers explored here transcend the game itself and have become part of cricket’s long historical narrative. I guarantee your list would be different, so let the debates begin!