The Ashes' top 100 cricketers: how the votes were counted
The Guardian's list of the Ashes' top 100 cricketers has been published, with Australians leading the way but England's team boasting more all-rounders.
Over 800 players have featured in Ashes Tests. In the summer of 1989 England picked a lot of them. But compiling The Guardian's Ashes Top 100 required an even more scientific approach.
To start, we asked 51 judges to pick their top 50 Ashes cricketers, from which we calculated our top 100: 50 points for number one, 49 for number two and so on. The voting rules were simple. Players were judged only on their Ashes cricket performances, although judges could interpret that how they liked. (Yes, someone voted for Gary Pratt.) Judges had to pick at least 15 players from each country and at least five from each of five different eras: those who made their debut before the first world war; between the wars; from the second world war until 1974; from 1975 until 1999; and from 2000 onwards.