The thing that should leap out at you is the bias of that list towards the modern player. There are myriad reasons for this. For one, the likes of Glenn Turner, Martin Crowe and John Wright never got to play T20 cricket. The first two would have been very good at it, while Wright would have been unashamedly hopeless. However, it probably would not have added too many more centuries to the list. International T20 cricket has been played for more than 10 years now and there have been just 14 centuries scored.
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What has unquestionably contributed is the increased volume of ODI cricket. Fleming, Astle and McCullum who all feature on the century-makers list, have played 279, 223 and 252 ODIs respectively. Crowe (143), Wright (149) and Turner (41), did not have anywhere near the volume of limited-overs cricket - though Wright's return of one century was fairly paltry, even for the age.
More startling has been the change in attitude to batting in limited-overs cricket, which I have previously written about here. It is a far greater factor than the clichéd big bats/ small grounds lament. The best coaches, captains and selectors give their players licence to fail. The average, once the dominant metric when judging a batsman's worth, was seen as a millstone. In short, batsmen score more quickly, increasing the chances of centuries in 50-over cricket. (A small flipside to that is batsmen are discouraged from 'batting for milestones'. Those that decelerate when they get within sight of a century are now seen as selfish rather than sensible.)
Even taking into account the changing nature one day cricket, it is intriguing to look at the ratios of our greatest centurions. For the purposes of this exercise, we have not calculated the ratios of T20 centuries because there just are not enough of them to make it relevant. The number average innings played to score each century.
A few points leap out here.
Astle and Taylor had the least discrepancy between his one-day and test skills in terms of centuries per innings. Astle needed 1.11 more ODI innings than test to bring up three figures, while Taylor takes just 0.96 more ODI innings between tons.
Guptill's figures are seriously skewiff and highlight the frustrations various selectors have felt at his output. He is the only player on this list to have a higher ratio of test inning per century than ODI... and by a long way.
If we needed more convincing, Williamson is a seriously good player, leading the ratios in both formats from Crowe (tests) and Taylor (ODIs).
McCullum has underachieved in 50-over cricket. His test numbers are very good, especially when you consider one-third of his innings were from No 7 or lower in the order. In limited overs cricket he has batted in the top five 136 times out of 221 innings. Those 85 lower-order innings undoubtedly slant his numbers a little, but a player of his quality should have more than five ODI centuries.
There are other metrics to consider when judging batsmanship, including match situation, strength of the opposition and, as we've discussed with McCullum, position in the order. But one thing is certain: Taylor will soon be the country's greatest century-maker and it is hard to argue that he doesn't deserve that mantle.
