I have him as second. I think with a longer career a guy like Haddin could have ousted him, but Haddin never had to keep to a high quality spinner so he can't really compare to Gilly IMO. If you include batting and total value to the side Gilly is easily on top.
Speaking more generally I think people maybe forget how good Heals was. Marsh would be around Gilly too, although hamstrung by the same thing Haddin is. It's tough to compare guys like Haddin and Marsh to guys like Healy and Gilly because they never had Warne/McGill to deal with, so they maybe never got to show how good they were.
Gilly is easily the best batting #7 Australia's ever produced. To have a batsmen of his calibre at 7 shows just how much depth we had during that golden period of 1994-2004 (the Taylor and Waugh years). We had more depth and talent in the lower/state teams than any other country in the history of test cricket during that decade.
Look at all the batsmen that were scoring thousands of runs in Shield cricket at that time, yet either couldn't get a crack into the top 6 of the test team's batting order or weren't able to cement their place in the side once they got in: Love, Katich, Lehmann, Law, Bevan, Elliott, Cox, Siddons, Hodge, Blewett, Maher and the list goes on. Also, players like Ponting, Hayden, Langer couldn't permanently nail down their spots in the team until the early 2000s, and Hussey had to wait until he was 30 to make his debut (makes me wonder how his career would've panned out had he been given an opportunity in his early 20s like Ponting did). Then with the wicketkeepers, when Healy retired, we had players the quality of Gilchrist who easily slotted into the side. With the spinners, MacGill came in when Warne had injuries and suspension, and we had the off-spin of Colin Miller, a late bolter in the side debuting at 34 but averaged 26 with the ball. When McDermott retired and McGrath became the #1 fast bowler, he had Fleming, Lee, Kasprowicz, Bichel, Gillespie as an opening fast bowling pair. Simply put: we took that period for granted. Although it was heavily criticised at the time, the Australia A concept was great when it was introduced in 1994/95, as it allowed those up-coming fringe players exposure of playing against the best of the best. In one of those Australia A matches, 10 of the 11 players either had worn or went on to wear the baggy green for Australia. Also, they received a lot of exposure, and after they were scrapped from the ODI series after 94/95 to just play occasional matches against the touring sides in the following summers, several of their matches were televised by Ch9. The last that was televised IIRC was their 4-day match vs England at Hobart just before the 2010/11 Ashes.
You need to produce an environment and structure that is conducive to success. Back when I first started watching cricket, there was a very strong emphasis on Sheffield Shield form, test players still regularly turned out to play for their state teams, a lot of emphasis on the AIS when Rod Marsh was head of it (look at all the players who came through the AIS system during the early-mid'90s: Ponting, McGrath, Warne, Slater etc.). Nowdays, if you do well in ODIs or are a T20 clown like Glen Maxwell, this translates to earning a baggy green. Handing out baggy greens like cricket cards from a Weet-Bix box shows how far the standards have fallen since James Sutherland took over as CEO of Cricket Australia. That represents everything that is wrong with cricket in this country at the grassroots level.
Also, with Bob Simpson as coach, he - alongside Border - made winning a MUST rather than a SHOULD and although we couldn't usurp the Windies at #1 during Borders reign (although we came agonisingly close in 1993 at Adelaide), the foundations of a champion team rather than a team of champions was set during the Border/Simpson years, starting from when we turned the corner with the '89 Ashes tour triumph. Until then, we had only won one test series (not including one-off tests) between when Chappell/Marsh/Lillee retired and that '89 Ashes. We became a winning side during the second half of Border's captaincy, we knocked off the Windies during Taylor's captaincy, and we were a ruthless side under Tugga, taking things to the next level. Teams scoring 300 runs in a test in a day, playing an aggressive/enjoyable/entertaining style of cricket that fans wanted to see was great to be a part of, and feel sorry for the young kids today that look up to the likes of Glen Maxwell.
