Allan Border vs Courtney Walsh

[JBH001]

These are two blokes who even though they weren't in the case of Walsh the most destructive tear-away like so many of the other West Indies bowlers during a great era & Border being a hard-working & not the most elegant Australia have produced played a lot of test cricket for their respective nations with great distinction over long careers.

But how highly would they rate in the history of West Indies & Australian cricket. Would Walsh be rated above Marshall, Ambrose, Garner, Holding, Hall, Roberts, Croft & would Border be rated above Chappell, Ponting, Harvey, McCabe, the Waugh brothers, Hassett, Boon, O'Neil?

What do you think?

Gotta agree that Walsh is way under-rated, especially towards the middle and end of his career where he really stepped up and filled the role of strike bowler and stock bowler.
(his early career was marred statistically in always having to play a supporting role)

WI Bowlers:
Marshall
Roberts
Ambrose
Walsh
Holding
Garner
Hall
Croft

AB is one of the all time greats - and would probably slot in at 5 in my all time Aussie XI.

Aussie Batsman
Greg Chappell
Alan Border
Steve Waugh
Neil Harvey
Ricky Ponting
Stan McCabe
Mark Waugh
David Boon
Norm O'Neill
Lindsay Hasset

The difference is that Border was able to instill a pride and determination in his Australian side - something that still forms the core of the modern Australian side. In Walsh's case he exemplified a pride and determination from the past traditions of WI cricket, but was unable to transfer that in any substantive way to his own WI team.

 

[silentstriker]

Aussie Batsman
Greg Chappell
Alan Border
Steve Waugh
Neil Harvey
Ricky Ponting
Stan McCabe
Mark Waugh
David Boon
Norm O'Neill
Lindsay Hasset

Hmm, there was this fella who had a decent average in test cricket, but is missing from this list.

 

[JBH001]

Who? Oh Him! Yeah....

Doesn't even need to be mentioned, does he? lol!

Seriously though, I was only going by aussie's list, otherwise I certainly would not have had Hassett or O'Neil in there and would have put in McCartney, Trumper, Gregory etc

 

[marc71178]

Hmm, there was this fella who had a decent average in test cricket, but is missing from this list.

Brad Hodge?!

 

[Craig]

I was thinking Mike Hussey to the anger of howardj.

 

[Matt79]

I know the title of the thread doesn't quite reflect the intent of the thread, but to answer the question it poses anyway - they were probably roughly equivalent in terms of their ability, discipline and durability in their chosen discipline.

But if we reverse the tables - I'd say Border would do a better job of batting against Walsh, than Walsh would batting against AB!

 

[tooextracool]

Brad Hodge?!

Wait so its not Andrew 'the allrounder' Symonds?!
guess he didnt get enough chances in test match cricket then....

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

You seem to be holding Walsh's workhorse characterization against him, which is just baffling to me.

Right. Because Andy Roberts wasn't a workhorse, right?

 

[shortpitched713]

Not for quite so long as Walsh. The fact that he was able to keep that up for so long only adds to his greatness.