Best & Worst Cricket Tournaments

[morgieb]

Best:
Ashes 2005
Border-Gavaskar 2003-04 & 2004
Worst:
Border-Gavaskar 2007-08
PS: Can someone change to "Best & Worst Cricket Series". Cheers!

 

[Jakester1288]

Worst:
2007 Twenty20 World Cup.

Everyone to agree.

 

[morgieb]

Worst:
2007 Twenty20 World Cup.

Everyone to agree.

Umm, Jake, I was referring to Test Series, not One-day Tournaments.

 

[Richard]

Best:
Ashes 2005
D'Oliveira Trophy 2004/05
Pre-D'Oliveira Trophy 1998
Wisden Trophy 2000
Pre-D'Oliveira Trophy 2003
Sri Lanka vs England 2000/01
England vs Pakistan 1992

Worst:
Wisden Trophy 2007 (never have I seen two worse Test-class teams face-off, nor come close to doing)
Ashes 2002/03 (as opposed to 2006/07 which was high-quality cricket meets poor quality, 2002/03 was just abysmal makes no-more-than-decent look superhuman - and 2001 wasn't dissimilar)
Australia vs South Africa & South Africa vs Australia 2001/02 and 2005/06 (basically see Ashes 2002/03)

 

[Precambrian]

Best

2001 Aus In Ind Border Gavaskar (Lax 281, Bhajji 30+ wickets, Haydos)
2003/04 Ind in Aus BG Trophy
2004 Ind in Pakistan (first time we toured in a number of years, Sehwag 309, Dravid 200, Tendu - infamous decl 194)

Worst

1999 Ind in Aus Nightmare whitewash
2007 Ind in Eng - Yeah we won, but against a totally understrength Eng team, and on a/c of Lord's test we saved just coz of rain
2007 Pakistan in India - Again we won, - but again quality was poor. Pitches were roads. Kumble resorted to medium pace and worse, he got a fifer!

 

[Uppercut]

2005 Ashes, everyone must agree on that. Bar a few die-hard Aussies.

Worst- any two-match series.

 

[iamdavid]

Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2001 the best series I've watched, narrowly tipping out the 2005 Ashes.

West Indies tour of Australia in 2000/01 the worst (when Australia absolutely dominated without playing particularly well at all, Lara was waaay below his best and Warne injured)

 

[Richard]

Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2001 the best series I've watched, narrowly tipping out the 2005 Ashes.

Depending on what you'd call best, I suppose. The 2005 series - purely on account of being composed of five rather than three Tests - was for mine irrefutably more exciting, though the quality (apart from the England bowling) was often pretty poor. The Border-Gavaskar in 2000/01, though, was simply two fantastic teams clawing it out tooth-and-nail with far less in the way of basic error.

 

[Uppercut]

Depending on what you'd call best, I suppose. The 2005 series - purely on account of being composed of five rather than three Tests - was for mine irrefutably more exciting, though the quality (apart from the England bowling) was often pretty poor. The Border-Gavaskar in 2000/01, though, was simply two fantastic teams clawing it out tooth-and-nail with far less in the way of basic error.

Yeah, i prefer a lot of drama, suspense and excitement alongside good quality cricket to just supreme quality cricket. So i'd pick 2005.

 

[GIMH]

Ashes 05, India V England 06, Pakistan V England 00-01, England V West Indies 2000, England v South Africa 98, think I'll whack Ashes 97 in there as well just because it was when I started watching. No apologies for preferring series that England did well in. I'll never change.

 

[Richard]

Even I did that TBH. Definate preference for England-did-well series.

Also considered whacking 1997 in there as it was pretty damn intreguing as Ashes series' go. It'll always leave a bitter taste in my mouth though with the knowledge that 1 Umpiring decision and 1 dropped catch (letting-off Stephen Waugh 1st ball first-innings in the Third Test and Matthew Elliott in the Fourth) very possibly effectively decided that series.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, I mean they had the better side but it could certainly have gone the other way. Nonetheless, 3-2 was a good result for us in the wilderness years (ie 89-03)

 

[Richard]

Eh? Wilderness years?

Anyway, it was a less-than-normally-disastrous result - not least in that we actually won a Test when The Ashes were still at stake - but it was a huge disappointment because although you couldn't say an Australian win was an injustice, it certainly wouldn't have been had England won either.

 

[GIMH]

Don't know why I said wilderness years, what I meant was the years where we didn't hold the Ashes

 

[Richard]

Another one I forgot earlier which was the worst series for totally different reasons was England in New Zealand 2001/02. Especially for the Surrey players.

 

[nightprowler10]

I'll have to go with:

Pakistan in England 92
Pakistan in India 99 (even though I didn't watch much of it)
Pakistan in India 05
Ashes 05
England in Pakistan 05
India in Pakistan 06
India in South Africa 06
Pakistan in South Africa 07

Can't be arsed to list the worst.

I've only listed the ones I've seen some part of.

 

[Richard]

I'd be surprised if anyone'd done anything but - and so far they don't seem to have. You can appreciate how good a series was in hindsight, but you can't have enjoyed it as it was going on.

 

[Somerset]

Another one I forgot earlier which was the worst series for totally different reasons was England in New Zealand 2001/02. Especially for the Surrey players.

What was so bad about that series? Second test was a bit average but the other two had their fair share of drama.

 

[_Ed_]

Think he was referring to the death of Ben Hollioake while the tour was in progress.

I agree though, the cricket in that series was excellent.

 

[Richard]

Well, there were times it was excellent, times it was pretty awful. Apart from the rain-ruined Second Test though, it was generally pretty exciting - enough to keep me up most of the night.

But the death of Ben Hollioake really cast a shadow over the whole thing. And all the players' autobiographies I've read say exactly that. It was just awful. It's so much harder to appreciate interesting cricket with that in the backdrop.