Cricketers who changed the way the game was played

[social]

Originally Posted by Richard

Err, where on Earth have I said Ames changed the game? I quite clearly stated that neither Ames, Murdoch, Stewart, Gilchrist or anyone else changed the game. The game cannot be changed in the respect of batsmen-wicketkeepers, and if anyone is stupid enough to start allowing rubbish wicketkeepers to keep in Tests it's unlikely to last that long.

All I said was that Ames was a Test-class batsman regardless of his skills as a wicketkeeper.

Then why does every team now consider the batting skills of the keeper when making selections?

[Richard]

People have always considered the batting skills of wicketkeepers, it'd have been plain stupid not to. And since the West Indies pace barrage in the early-1980s having a wicketkeeper who could not bat at all became untenable. Bob Taylor was the last genuine non-batsman who kept wicket regularly in Test-cricket.

The trend grew gradually stronger - in the early-1990s it was still acceptible merely to have a wicketkeeper who batted a bit; since the mid-1990s it's pretty much become a must for it to be a wicketkeeper-batsman. But a batsman-wicketkeeper will always be a genuine luxury, and those who pick wicketkeepers who cannot keep to the requistite standard are asking for trouble and will find it. The trend of picking the likes of Deep Dasgupta, Parthiv Patel, Geraint Jones, Matthew Prior, Kamran Akmal, etc. (none of whom are Test-class batsmen or even close to anyway) will cease before long, with any luck.

[Zinzan]

Originally Posted by Richard

TBH I've always thought it was more Michael Slater than Gilchrist who started the "Australian strokeplay without fail" trend. Gilchrist was obviously the lynchpin in its execution many times.

.

I've always found it ironic that Slater never made it as an ODI player given he was such a talented strokemaker. I remember he played a couple of great oneday innings early in his career, looked the goods only to never regain that form. One of crickets great anomalies for mine.

[Richard]

Slater was the classic case (Vaughan, Younis Khan and Jayawardene are a few others) that being a boundary-reliant strokeplayer (even at the top of the order) won't work in ODIs. In that form, you simply have to be good at picking the gaps.

Matthew Hayden only very late in his ODI career picked that up and went from wholly average ODI player to very good one.

[bagapath]

Originally Posted by Richard

Slater was the classic case (Vaughan, Younis Khan and Jayawardene are a few others) that being a boundary-reliant strokeplayer (even at the top of the order) won't work in ODIs. In that form, you simply have to be good at picking the gaps.

Matthew Hayden only very late in his ODI career picked that up and went from wholly average ODI player to very good one.

you can probably add sehwag to that list too. always found ganguly to be a superior opener of the two to partner sachin in ODIs.

[Spikey]

Richie Benaud was the first leggie to bowl around the wicket into the footmarks wasn't he? That changed how spinners bowled

[Richard]

Originally Posted by bagapath

you can probably add sehwag to that list too. always found ganguly to be a superior opener of the two to partner sachin in ODIs.

Haha yeah, true that. I always forget him, somehow, partly due to the fact I don't ever see him being a successful Test opener at pretty much any time other than post-2001.