A plethora of former players and captains from his country may have loads of criticism for him, but the general public still rates former captain Naseer Hussain as the best since the legendary 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 the publication of the first issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.

The Chennai-born cricketer is placed at a creditable fourth on the overall list among the 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 the respondents gave any chance to his team winning back the Ashes in 2005.

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

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

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

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

English fans seemed to have no objection to sledging at the international level with half the respondents putting their weight behind the practice.