LONDON, Sept 16: A plethora of former cricket players and captains from his country may have loads of criticism stored for him, but a general public opinion still rates ex-England captain Naseer Hussain as best English skipper since Mike Brearley.

Despite an abrupt end to his captaincy, Hussain is rated higher than any other England skipper since Brearley and is well ahead of the likes of Mike Atherton, Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch, according to a survey commissioned to mark publication of first issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.

The Chennai-born cricketer is placed at a creditable fourth on overall list among post-war captains behind Peter May, Ray Illingworth and Brearley, the magazine said in a release.

But there was bad news for Hussain’s successor Michael Vaughan, as only half respondents gave any chance to his team winning back the Ashes in 2005.

About 70 percent of them infact thought that master leg-spinner Shane Warne should be picked to play for Australia again despite his recent controversies.

According to the survey a huge majority, 92 percent, people supported idea of umpires being treated more like players, with those consistently making poor decisions being dropped.

About 65 per cent ‘voters’ were against use of Hawk-eye technology for leg before decisions but 55 percent supported use of ‘more’ technology to get correct decisions.

In stark contradiction to claims of game’s authorities, seven out of 10 English cricket fans believed that corrupt practices were still a part of cricket world but fewer than one third said it (corrupt practices) spoilt their enjoyment of the game.—PPI