BSHS has four Queensland captains and a Test sensation as old boys, but who is the greatest?

Brisbane State High School has produced four Queensland cricket captains, a bowler who once took 10 wickets in an innings, the state’s greatest ever wicket-taker and the current Test batting sensation of the world. So who is the greatest?

Brisbane State High School has produced four Queensland cricket captains, a bowler who once took 10 wickets in an innings, the state’s greatest ever wicket-taker and the current Test batting sensation of the world.

So who is the greatest cricketer to walk out the front gates of the famous GPS school? It has to be Ian Healy.

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BSHS’s old boy honour board has the likes of Marnus Labuschagne, Stuart Law, John Maclean, Jimmy Peirson, Michael Kasprowicz and Peter Allan as famous cricketing old boys.

But to the younger generation it is difficult to describe how good Healy’s glove work was to the greatest leg-spinner the game as seen in Shane Warne.

Former Australian cricketer Ian Healy. (AAP Image/Jono Searle)

Many have seen highlight reels of Warne turning balls square, yet consider being the person crouched behind the stumps, gloves at the ready.

That man was Ian Healy.

Complementing his skilled glovework was tenacity, toughness and sheer bloody grit.

And he was also an outstanding, aggressive batsman who took on the bowling - regardless of the situation.

Wicketkeeper Ian Healy hugs his Queensland and Australian team mate Carl Rackerman. Pic Darren Tindale. Cricket

Old-timers like Sir Donald Bradman and Alan Davidson swear another Queenslander, Don Tallon, was Australia’s best behind the stumps, but there is no argument since Tallon, Healy is the best.

After all he was named the wicketkeeper of last century.

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Healy’s standing as BSHS’s greatest could be swept away by Labuschagne if he continues to score runs in the numbers he has over his first 14 Tests.

But Healy will take some beating.

Healy and Labuschagne are just two of many cricketing stars from BSHS.

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Consider Stuart Law.

Queenslanders had waited 69 years to win an elusive Sheffield Shield and it was Law who captained the Bulls to that historic title in 1994-95 despite Allan Border being in the team?

Law, who went on to captain Queensland to a further five Sheffield Shield, is also the closest in style and elegance to the legendary Greg Chappell.

A one-Test player, Law was also a big match batsman who rose to occasion on Shield final day.

Stuart Law was the closest in style to the great Greg Chappell.

Kasprowicz is another gem.

In Sheffield Shield history, only the legendary Clarrie Grimmett (513 at 25.29) has taken more wickets than the likeable Kasprowicz (441 wickets at 24.56).

Kasprowicz made his Shield debut as a year 12 student from BSHS and unlike many schoolboy prodigies, he was not a shooting star.

Initially Kasprowicz was quick and bowled outswing, loving bowling conditions at the Gabba.

But as his career progressed he reinvented himself on the barren dust bowls of India at a time when lesser pacemen would have perished.

He took 113 Test wickets at 32.88, but he was better than those figures and his career was on the up - and his average on the way down - when Brett Lee arrived with his blistering pace to replace him.

Michael Kasprowicz at school in year 12 at Brisbane State High when selected for Queensland's cricket team. Picture: News Ltd 1990

A living treasure of Queensland cricket is another BSHS old boy, John Maclean.

Just as Healy was wicketkeeper to the greatest leggie ever - Shane Warne - Maclean was gloveman to the fastest bowler ever - Jeff Thomson.

Maclean, who once famously said no to Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket competition because he wanted to play Test cricket, must have the hardest hands of any man alive from fielding Thomson’s thunderbolts.

Maclean once said of Thomson: “He’d frighten people out”.

Maclean’s career ran side-by-side the iconic Rod Marsh but when Marsh went to the rebel World Series Cricket competition in 1977, Maclean stayed loyal to the Australian cricket board to chase a treasured Test cap.

His reward was four baggy greens in the 1978-79 Ashes series, his last season before retirement.

Former Australian Test cricketer John Maclean poses for a photograph with his treasured Test cap. Maclean was keeper to the fastest ever bowler, Jeff Thomson. AAP Image/Richard Walker)

Maclean spent 86 Shield matches between 1978-69 and 1978-79 toiling in blazing Brisbane heat in a bid to capture what was the Holy Grail of Australian sport.

Former Test paceman Peter Allan is another gun who took 206 wickets at 26.10 for Queensland, including 10-61 against Victoria in 1965-66.

Current fast bowling tyro Blake Edwards, the enormously talented Glenn Trimble and Australian T20 representative Jack Wildermuth are notable old boys, along with thrilling fast bowling talent Sam Hatherell who has only just burst onto the grade scene.

GPS CRICKET COVERAGE: The GPS cricket season starts on Saturday, February 1. Andrew Dawson will be covering matches and reporting for both theQuest Community Newspapers and The Courier-Mail online sites.