• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Clive Rice

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
While discussing All rounder we always seem to forget this guy. Growing up in 80s I always read great things about him and his exploits in the Country Cricket. County Cricket in the 80s was of very high standard and Clive Rice did very well there.

Can anyone describe how he would stand up to some of the greatest allrounders of his era ?
 

Engle

State Vice-Captain
Searching my memory, there were some single-wkt cricket matches in Eng, and Rice beat out some formidable ARounders (ITB, IK...) by dint of superior thinking / strategies. Twice IIRC.

He was very competitive and wud have captained SAf well
 

Bouncer

State Regular
My first memory of him is as a player for same county as Sir Richard Hadllee .....was rated very highly according Richard Hadlee's Bio published in one Pakistan cricket magazine in 1989-90.....Awesome player no doubt!
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
If county cricket was so superb in the 1980s, why then was the 2nd half of that decade that the worst English cricket has ever known?

The competition was far, far stronger in the 1990s.

Clive Rice, nonetheless, was fairly undoubtedly rather good. It's rather a shame his career coincided with Apartheid.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
If county cricket was so superb in the 1980s, why then was the 2nd half of that decade that the worst English cricket has ever known?

The competition was far, far stronger in the 1990s.
What has that got to do with English Cricket ? Country cricket was great in 80s because top players from all over the world used to play in England, the competition was lot harder that it is now. IMO English cricket got weaker because most of its 80s stars' performance declined and some retired and TCB was too late to acknowledge and address it.

I disagree that county cricket in 90s was far far stronger. Oh and thanks for getting that avtaar back.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Just because there were high-calibre overeseas players playing doesn't neccessarily make it that strong.

Otherwise, English players would likely have been being produced who were better than they were.

Obviously, there were many disruptive influences around that time, but there was also a dearth of quality.

Looking at the county game before the 1990s compared to in the 1990s and beyond, it looks shambolic and amateurish in many, many ways. Mostly, teams still clambered onto the team bus with just a coach and a physio, and often clasping a 24-pack of lager.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Otherwise, English players would likely have been being produced who were better than they were.

Obviously, there were many disruptive influences around that time, but there was also a dearth of quality.
Well Michael Artherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain, Robin smith, Hick, Ramprakash etc were all product of the late 80s and it looks like England did produce a good amount of talent, it seems to me that they massively underachieved.

Looking at the county game before the 1990s compared to in the 1990s and beyond, it looks shambolic and amateurish in many, many ways. Mostly, teams still clambered onto the team bus with just a coach and a physio, and often clasping a 24-pack of lager.
The guys who played for England in the early 90s weren't product of 90s county cricket. they were products of mid-late 80s county cricket.
 
Last edited:

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Just because there were high-calibre overeseas players playing doesn't neccessarily make it that strong..
Well you have to follow the game to know if they were strong and I did follow the games, didn't watch them but read about them in the newspapers. The amount of coverage Indian newspapers used to give th county cricket was fairly amazing and I would religiously follow the county games esp somerset(Botham and Richards) and worcestershire(Graeme Hick) and I thought they were fairly high standard, not of International standard but a much higher standard than today.

I dont know if you really followed the 80s county cricket but your reason isn't good enough. You only reason seems to be that 80s county circuit didn't produce better cricketers than 90s hence they were not of high standard and that really isn't a very valid explanation.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Well Michael Artherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain, Robin smith, Hick, Ramprakash etc were all product of the late 80s and it looks like England did produce a good amount of talent, it seems to me that they massively underachieved.

The guy who played for England in the early 90s weren't product of 90s county cricket. they were products of mid-late 80s county cricket.
Not really. Hick and Smith are both imports and had been playing since the early 1980s, Stewart had been playing since the early 1980s too, and Atherton, Hussain and Ramprakash (as well as Thorpe) barely played a thing in the late 1980s and were mostly products of the 1990s.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Well you have to follow the game to know if they were strong and I did follow the games, didn't watch them but read about them in the newspapers. The amount of coverage Indian newspapers used to give th county cricket was fairly amazing and I would religiously follow the county games esp somerset(Botham and Richards) and worcestershire(Graeme Hick) and I thought they were fairly high standard, not of International standard but a much higher standard than today.

I dont know if you really followed the 80s county cricket but your reason isn't good enough. You only reason seems to be that 80s county circuit didn't produce better cricketers than 90s hence they were not of high standard and that really isn't a very valid explanation.
No, that's not my only reason. I said quite clearly that it was shambolic and amateurish. Coaching was very poor and usually confined to one person, and it was routine for players to clamber onto the bus clasping a 24-pack of lager - which is about the ultimate statement of lack of attention-to-detail and laissez-faire. Those days are long-gone now, and the game's played at a higher standard because of it.
 

Swervy

International Captain
While discussing All rounder we always seem to forget this guy. Growing up in 80s I always read great things about him and his exploits in the Country Cricket. County Cricket in the 80s was of very high standard and Clive Rice did very well there.

Can anyone describe how he would stand up to some of the greatest allrounders of his era ?
a really good player, no doubt about it.

And I wil tell you, he would put Kallis to shame as an allrounder:)
 

Swervy

International Captain
No, that's not my only reason. I said quite clearly that it was shambolic and amateurish. Coaching was very poor and usually confined to one person, and it was routine for players to clamber onto the bus clasping a 24-pack of lager - which is about the ultimate statement of lack of attention-to-detail and laissez-faire. Those days are long-gone now, and the game's played at a higher standard because of it.
Got to agree with you in some respects, I have alays thought that 80s county cricket was a joke. Th eoverseas players were class in general, but the gap between them and your normal county layers was often embaressing.

Things these days seem a bit more even, and these does seem to be less of the old style county trundler going around, which has to be a good thing. The disappearance of Jonathon Dakin hearalded a better era.:laugh:
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
There were plenty, and I mean plenty worse bowlers than Jonathan Dakin, mind.

Scott Boswell, to pick someone from the same county.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
And I wil tell you, he would put Kallis to shame as an allrounder:)
Well... that'd be because Kallis hasn't really been an all-rounder for quite some years now.

Even when he was, he was never a particularly outstanding front-line bowler, just a good one.
 

Swervy

International Captain
There were plenty, and I mean plenty worse bowlers than Jonathan Dakin, mind.

Scott Boswell, to pick someone from the same county.
Not many wore to be honest

I always thought, no matter how bad Boswell really was, he got the **** end of the stick. He bowled really well in the semis vs Lancs of whatever tournament it was...and he got whoever it was into the final. Nerves etc got in the way, bang went his potential career
 

Swervy

International Captain
Well... that'd be because Kallis hasn't really been an all-rounder for quite some years now.

Even when he was, he was never a particularly outstanding front-line bowler, just a good one.

well, there is that...and Clive Rice was a really really good allrounder, credit where credits due
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Not many wore to be honest

I always thought, no matter how bad Boswell really was, he got the **** end of the stick. He bowled really well in the semis vs Lancs of whatever tournament it was...and he got whoever it was into the final. Nerves etc got in the way, bang went his potential career
There was more to his career than those 2 matches, y'know.

What have you got against Dakin? He was far more accurate than many.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
well, there is that...and Clive Rice was a really really good allrounder, credit where credits due
Indeed, and Kallis is a really good batsman, who also happens to bowl... still decently, but never outstandingly.

Rice could undoubtedly bowl outstandingly and bat very well indeed.
 

Top