South Africans vs 1966-85 XI

[silentstriker]

If we were hand picking the best players from the period then Barry Richards should be the second batsman chosen after Viv, but all the candidates that were voted on were put up for selection based purely upon their record in Test Cricket. Barry Richards doesn't meet the criteria chosen so shouldn't be included.

And even assuming he played test cricket, was he really a better batsman than Gary Sobers? Sunil Gavaskar? Greg Chappell?

I mean, I can say that Vijay Merchant averaged 78 in his FC career, and far outshined Barry Richards. He was also touted by Bradman and most other people. In only 150 FC matches, he had 45 centuries, 13,500 runs @ an average of 71. Is he now better than Barry Richards?

But he didn't play enough Test matches, thus its too bad for him. As sad as I am about that, that's the way it works.

 

[silentstriker]

n his 10 Tests, all against England, spread over 18 years, he made 859 runs, and in 47 Ranji Trophy innings he reached 100 on 16 occasions, totalling 3639 runs at the astounding average of 98.75. In all first-class cricket he made over 13,000 runs at 71, and took 65 wickets (31.87) with medium-pace offspin.

Among his 44 first-class centuries were 11 in excess of 200 (the nine in India all at Brabourne Stadium), one of which was built to 359 not out, a 10¾-hour innings against Maharashtra at Bombay in 1943-44. Here he added 371 with Modi for the sixth wicket and 210 for the eighth with R. S. Cooper. A year later he and Modi added 373 for the third wicket against Western India. In seven consecutive Ranji innings between 1938-39 and 1941-42 Merchant made six centuries, ushering in, it was said, an era of safety-first batting in India.

...

In 1936 he toured England and topped the batting with 1745 runs at 51.32. In the Manchester Test he (114) and Mushtaq Ali (112) put on 203 for the first wicket when India went in again 368 runs in arrears. On that second day, a record 588 runs were scored, 398 by England and 190 (without loss) by India. In the Lancashire match Merchant had made himself at home at Old Trafford by carrying his bat through both innings, for 135 and 77. Twice more he carried his bat, once against Warwickshire on the 1946 tour. His 1936 success had earned him selection as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year - and prompted C. B. Fry to exclaim: `Let us paint him white and take him with us to Australia as an opener.'

His reputation now quite awesome, he was the Nawab of Pataudi snr's vice-captain for the 1946 England tour, and during that wet summer, when he lost a stone in weight, he made 2385 runs, average 74, with seven centuries, those against Lancashire and Sussex being doubles. In the three Tests he scored 245 runs in five innings, the last, at The Oval, reaching 128 before Compton ran him out with a soccer kick.

So now I'm supposed to rate him as the second best to Bradman? As much as I want to, I can't put him above Sobers and Chappell and Gavaskar who have all proved it at the highest level.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

And even assuming he played test cricket, was he really a better batsman than Gary Sobers? Sunil Gavaskar? Greg Chappell?

I mean, I can say that Vijay Merchant averaged 78 in his FC career, and far outshined Barry Richards. He was also touted by Bradman and most other people. In only 150 FC matches, he had 45 centuries, 13,500 runs @ an average of 71. Is he now better than Barry Richards?

But he didn't play enough Test matches, thus its too bad for him. As sad as I am about that, that's the way it works.

Dispite you (wrongly) considering yourself the font of all knowledge, other people are entitled to their opinion. I saw all these players and consider Barry Richards second to Viv in this period. But as I've already agreed that he shouldn't be considered because he didn't have the chance to prove it, all that nonsense about Vijay Merchant adds nothing to the debate.

 

[silentstriker]

Dispite you (wrongly) considering yourself the font of all knowledge, other people are entitled to their opinion. I saw all these players and consider Barry Richards second to Viv in this period. But as I've already agreed that he shouldn't be considered because he didn't have the chance to prove it, all that nonsense about Vijay Merchant adds nothing to the debate.

I don't consider myself the font of all knowledge, just the font of all cricketing knowledge.

But as to your point regarding Merchant, its the same reason I don't rate Merchant as high as others. He didn't prove it at the top level, so the discussion about him replacing anyone in an all time list is inaccurate.

And you already agree with me, I realize that. I am fully willing to admit that it is possible that Barry Richards was a great test batsman, but its only a possibility and not a reality and thus should not make the list of 'greatest batsmen ever'.

 

[silentstriker]

And as for other opinions....of course people are allowed to have other opinions. But I am also allowed to strongly disagree with them as well. I mean, how else could I correct their incorrect opinions?

 

[bagapath]

Thats actually very wrong. There are exceptions, but the best precictor of Test success is first class average and it also holds true for ODIs as well.

Just because there are a few guys (Hick, Ramprakash etc) that dont fit the model does not mean the model is not accurate. FC average shows their capabilites and then other factors may help determine failure (eg Treatment within the dressing room and handling by the selectors).

Goughy! Its not just Hick and Ramprakash. We are also aware of the huge difference in the first class and test career achievements of Merchant, Ajay Sharma, VVS Laxman, Tich Freeman, WV Raman, Pat Pocock, John Emburey, Zaheer Abbas, WG Grace, Darryil Lehmann, Michael Bevan and S Venkatraghavan[. I have not had time to present their numbers, but all of them were excellent first class cricketers but never lived up to the same standards at the test level. A few of them made their debuts past their primes, probably. And some of them - Abbas, Laxman and Merchant - were merely good at the highest level. History is full of such players who rocked the first class scene but never attained the greatness of harvey, hutton, compton, gavaskar, laker or chappell in test matches.

It is very difficult to logically convince anyone that Barry Richards would have been as good a test player as he was in first class cricket based on the flimsy evidence of a mere four test matches. The same goes for the Procter - Lillee comparison. Lillee deserved to be compared with Hadlee, Marshall, McGrath, Holding and Imran. Not with a one series wonder.

Of course, this has got nothing to do with my sincere regret that we never got to see these South african champions in full flow at the highest level. But someone had to pay the price to make the whole cricketing world one united family. Unfortunately barrry and procter got the axe.

 

[Matt79]

Right, this is a basic example of what I'm trying to get at. No batsman has ever been perfect. A perfect batsman would never get out, and would strike at 600/100. Nobody will ever be like this, and nobody has ever been like this. Bradman was the closest thing to perfect we have ever seen, this is to say that he has had the best eye, timing and shot selection combined, from anyone who has ever played the game. Bradman in this sense was very far from perfect, because he still managed somehow to get out. I can't say for exact who has had the best technique ever, but I guess it would be somebody like SRT (best attacking) or Boycott (best defensive), who have both got as close to perfect technique as I have ever seen. The perfect technique consists of a perfectly straight backlift, a perfectly straight bat, and a perfect footwork and so on. If we were to combine SRT's attacking technique and Boycotts defensive technique, and then give them to Bradman, then he would no doubt average more than the 99.94 rpi than he in his test career. Understand?

There's a fantastic book on cricket stats by Charles Davis, "The Best of the Best" (pub. 2000) who managed to come up with reasonable formulas (not perfect, but certainly quite defensible) to convert batting and bowling stats into bell curves, so you measure statistically how far a player deviated from the norm. The best and worst players will deviate the furthest from the average. After making statistical adjustments to factor in conditions, which moved Bradman's average DOWN to around 87, rather than 99, Bradman was still a whole 8.7 standard deviations above the average. In comparison, Sobers and Imran (the second and third best players in his analysis) was 7 and 6.7 SDs. Bearing in mind the exponently increasing difficulty of achieving each extra SD that's a huge gap. Babe Ruth, Pete Sampras, Michael Jordan were all in the 6-7 SD range above the average. He found across a range of sports that the 'clearly greatest' players topped out at around 6 or 7 standard deviations above the "average player". Explaining what being 8.7 standard deviations from the average meant, he equated it to a 1 in 200,000 chance of randomly occurring. The SD's were worked out using only the careers of test players who played 10 matches or more, and given that there have been nowhere near 200,000 test players it means that Bradman's career simply shouldn't exist. It is about as statistically likely as getting struck by lightning whilst being eaten by a shark.

All of which is a long winded way of saying that if Bradman isn't 'perfect' then he is closer to being perfect than any test player is statistically likely to be this side of the year 6000 AD (assuming roughly 50 new players debut a year between now and then), and the closest thing you'll ever find to perfection in a sportsmen in any competitive sport.

So... I don't think you can seriously argue that his technique held him back.

 

[Goughy]

Goughy! Its not just Hick and Ramprakash. We are also aware of the huge difference in the first class and test career achievements of Merchant, Ajay Sharma, VVS Laxman, Tich Freeman, WV Raman, Pat Pocock, John Emburey, Zaheer Abbas, WG Grace, Darryil Lehmann, Michael Bevan and S Venkatraghavan.

Interesting how these so called 'failures' have test batting averages higher than Greenidge, the man I was originally discussing and a player nominated in the XI of the Age. Hardly failures.

Raman, Emburey and Pocock only had good FC records, with nothing to suggest they would be special at the higher level.

Ajay Sharma was only given 1 Test match

Bevan was done by a combination of a perceived problem with the short ball and the depth of Aussie batting talent. However, for a failure its good to see htat he went on to become one of the best ODI players in history.

Laxman has also done pretty well, averaging almost what Greenidge did.

2 Further points.
- Richards played a lot of FC cricket across 3 continents. It was not like he dominated in an environment that suited him and just stayed there.
- Hampshire 50.50
- Natal 59.43
- South Australia 109.85

Overall average of 55 across 3 continents and a variety of players and conditions.
This is before his WSC stuff is looked at.

2ndly
- The reason why FC averages are important in predicting is this. There is a relationship between FC and Test averages. Of course it will not apply to all, but look at test batsmen that average over 50 and look at their FC average. Maybe only Barrington did not average 50 in FC. In otherwords a player with a FC average of less than 50 will not average over 50 in tests. The same goes on and on down the averages.

Succeeding in FC is no cast iron guarantee of succeeding at the higher level but failing at a lower level is a guarantee of failure at the higher level (Trescothick being the exception that proves the rule)

Quite simply across the board the better the FC average the better the Test average on any sample size. A good FC av is no guarantee but it dramatically increases the probablity of success. Look at the large number of specialist batsmen England have picked with FC averages in the 30s and compare their success to those in the 40s (this happened alot in the 80s and 90s).

 

[Matt79]

Richards also opened with Greenidge for at least one season in county cricket, and everyone who saw them bat together was very clear that Richards was the far superior batsman.

 

[bagapath]

Interesting how these so called 'failures' have test batting averages higher than Greenidge, the man I was originally discussing and a player nominated in the XI of the Age. Hardly failures.

Ajay Sharma was only given 1 Test match

Bevan was done by a combination of a perceived problem with the short ball and the depth of Aussie batting talent. However, for a failure its good to see htat he went on to become one of the best ODI players in history.

Laxman has also done pretty well, averaging almost what Greenidge did.

2 Further points.
- Richards played a lot of FC cricket across 3 continents. It was not like he dominated in an environment that suited him and just stayed there.
- Hampshire 50.50
- Natal 59.43
- South Australia 109.85

Overall average of 55 across 3 continents and a variety of players and conditions.
This is before his WSC stuff is looked at.

2ndly
- The reason why FC averages are important in predicting is this. There is a relationship between FC and Test averages. Of course it will not apply to all, but look at test batsmen that average over 50 and look at their FC average. Maybe only Barrington did not average 50 in FC. In otherwords a player with a FC average of less than 50 will not average over 50 in tests. The same goes on and on down the averages.

even viv richards did not not average 50 in FC cricket. that doesnt make him a walking wicket in test matches!!!

ajay sharma got only one test i agree but it is still only three less than what barry got!!! if you are going to attempt to make his case strong based on his four tests pl remember mark taylor's debut series. for a man who threatened bradman's series record he ended being a good batsman rather than a great.

sunil gavaskar has written a brilliant article in this week's sportstar magazine. he claims the second year is the most difficult for an international cricketer since the success (if he was hugely successful in the first year) of the first year would have made opposition bowlers around the world to work out methods to dismiss him exploiting the chinks in his armor. He claims that is why he could not score a century for three years after a dream debut. he is proud of the fact that he improved his technique to succeed consistently at the test level and won acclaim all over the world.

he makes the following points regarding barry richards

- barry scored 10, 43 and 49 when he played indian spinners in england in tour matches. if he could not score even a half century where the spinners could not grip the ball due to cold weather, sunny predicts, barry would have found it even more difficult in india or pakistan to score against quality spin the kind he would not have played in country matches.

- since barry scored 508 in his first series and did well in fc matches to be called a great sunny wonders if he (sunny) had stopped playing test matches after his first series in which he scored 774, and continued to do well in FC matches would he have been branded a "great" too?

I enjoyed this article since the tone was pretty sharp and the arguments very valid.

Goughy! you said "interesting how these so called 'failures' have test batting averages higher than Greenidge, the man I was originally discussing and a player nominated in the XI of the Age. Hardly failures."

the point is there is a huge difference between the first class and test averages of merchant, lehmann and abbas. they were much better in first class than in test cricket. which means a person's first class average does not necessarily mean he would do equally well in tests.

also abbas and lehmann were not openers like greenidge and their averages were better than greenidge's in mere decimals. lehman's average is almost bad in this batting friendly era. greenidge is a much superior bat than abbas with more all round success against good bowling attacks in over 100 tests and match winning double centuries on three different occasions.

merchant played only 10 tests. there is no guarantee he would have maintained a 47 average after 30 test matches leave alone 100. the same holds true for barry.

if mark taylor had retired after his first series would you have ranked him on par with hutton and hobbs? sutcliffe and gavaskar?????? test cricket is the ultimate test. first class cricket is not.

 

[aussie tragic]

So I'm going to take the result as showing that there'd be no South Africans in the 1966-85 World Test XI if they had been allowed to be considered.

This is based on 10 people stating that the team is a solid choice or that there was too much speculation involved, while Barry Richards is very close with 9 people saying they would have voted him in (most likely over Greenidge).

btw, this thread was just raised to see how people felt, there was never any chance that they'd actually replace one of the selected XI so go easy on my position above