[watson]

[QUOTE=Flametree;2918781]

Originally Posted by watson

The object of a Test match is to capture 20 wickets, therefore the bowlers Strike Rate is more significant than the Economy Rate or Average;
/QUOTE]

I don't buy this.

If strike rate is the be-all of test bowlers, you'll presumably pick MacGill ahead of Warne?

No I wouldn't because there are a number of other factors involved. Warne had an impact on the art of leg-spin bowling, and it's profile within Test cricket that MacGill could not match.

The same applies to Mailey. His ability to spin batsman out relatively quickly, and at an average (V England) similar to Grimmett is only half the story.

A king without a crown

By RC Robertson Glasgow

Biographies and essays have been written about celebrities, fools, crooks, bores, and exhibitionists; but, so far as I know, no one has written a short book (he'd never stand for a long one) on Arthur A. Mailey, one of the great personalities of the last fifty or sixty years.

That he played cricket, as a leg-break-cum-googly bowler for New South Wales and Australia, is merely incidental. As a Test Match bowler, he ranks among the great. But, as a man, he already stands, for those who have had the wonderful luck to know him, among the immortals........

I fear we may not see Arthur Mailey over here in the 1964 summer. He is 75 years old, and has retired from the work of commentary and drawing. But, wherever he is, he will, I know, be encouraging the young and hopeful, and helping the old and despairing. Anyhow, for me, Arthur Mailey is the greatest man I've ever met in cricket. A king without a crown.

A king without a crown | Cricket Features | The Cricketer | ESPN Cricinfo