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Best players of big 3 and/or 4

Dissector

Dissector

International Debutant
Gooch and Boycott in 80-81 have to be high on the list. Probably the best opening pair that the Windies pacemen ever faced. Perhaps some of the successful batsmen in the World Series like Barry Richards and Greg Chappell though I haven't separated out their performances against the Windies from their other games. Gavaskar is also up there. Averaging 40 against that attack in 83 was a significant achievement especially because he was the lynchpin of that batting lineup putting him under huge pressure every time he went out to bat.
 
wfdu_ben91

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
I thought Allan Border did the best against the Windies in the 80s? Too bad he wasn't a top-order batsman and only came in when the new ball had worn off.
 
Richard

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Border rarely if ever batted below number-five, often four and occasionally three.

Anyway there are two distinct things we need to remember - one, that the best four-man pace attack WI ever fielded (Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall) only played together for 4 Tests, all against India, so anyone who did well against them has to have been Indian. Two, only rarely did West Indies field a four-man pace attack where all could be called top-class Test bowlers - mostly it was two or three plus one or two more moderate types:
1974/75: Roberts, Boyce, Julien, Holder (plus Gibbs - played 4 games together)
1976: Roberts, Holding, Daniel, Holder (played 2 games together)
1977-1978: Roberts, Garner, Croft, AN Other (usually a spinner - played 7 games together)
1979/80-1981/82: Roberts, Holding, Garner, Croft (played together consistently for a period of 23 Tests though sometimes one, or even two, was unfit - but the replacements were the likes of Marshall and Clarke)
1983: Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall (4 Tests, as I say)
1984: Marshall, Holding, Garner, Baptiste (8 Tests, though there was the odd game where one was unfit)
1984/85: Marshall, Holding, Garner, Walsh (5 Tests)
1985: Marshall, Holding, Garner, Davis (4 Tests)
1986: Marshall, Holding, Garner, Patterson (5 Tests, Holding missed 1 of them)
1986/87: Marshall, Walsh, Gray, AN Other (mostly a spinner) (6 Tests)
1990/91: Bishop, Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall (3 Tests)
1993: Bishop, Ambrose, Walsh, Winston Benjamin (1 Test, IIRR)
1995: Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop, Kenneth Benjamin (6 Tests, 1 of which Benjamin missed)
1997: Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop, Rose (7 Tests, 2 of which saw someone injured)
2000: Ambrose, Walsh, Rose, King (lasted about 3 Tests)

So by-and-large, runs scores against West Indies' first-team between 1976 and 1986/87 could be said to have come against a pace attack featuring rarely less than three top-class pace bowlers, but only very rarely four.
 
Richard

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
In 1984 and 1984/85 he batted at five in six out of the ten Tests, and three\four in the other four. In 1988/89 he batted at five throughout the five-Test series.

Really not a tremendous amount of difference. Against that attack, it mattered not where you batted, really, and the difference between four and five under the vast majority of circumstances is so miniscule it matters not a jot.
 
wpdavid

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I was astonished to see how low Lamb's average was, given his three tons in 1984: perhaps Marshall, Holding & Garner didn't play in all three of those tests. No arguing with the facts though.
 
Richard

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
From memory I think Marshall missed one of the five and Holding another; the replacements, Milton Small and Winston Davis, were notably several classes behind. Not sure if Lamb made centuries in one or both of those games.

Funny thing about Lamb is for all his excellence in 1984, he was unable to do anything much in 1986 (even Gooch was almost tamed that series, which surely must be the most comprehensive thrashing any England Test side has ever received), I don't remember what he did in 1988, and from memory don't think he did much in 1991 either.
 
wpdavid

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Richard said:
From memory I think Marshall missed one of the five and Holding another; the replacements, Milton Small and Winston Davis, were notably several classes behind. Not sure if Lamb made centuries in one or both of those games.

Funny thing about Lamb is for all his excellence in 1984, he was unable to do anything much in 1986 (even Gooch was almost tamed that series, which surely must be the most comprehensive thrashing any England Test side has ever received), I don't remember what he did in 1988, and from memory don't think he did much in 1991 either.
Click to expand...
I think you're right about 1988 & 1991. But in terms of this particular thread, Holding & Garner (+ Roberts of course) were gone by then. And yes, 1986 was horrible.
 
J

jeevan

International 12th Man
These stats (admittedly focused around 1983 series) bring back something I've found to be a discrepancy. On one hand, there is a somewhat heroic description of Gavaskar plowing a lonely furrow in Indian batting (one post in this thread, as eg).

OTOH he usually had 2 out of Vishy, Amarnath and Vengsarkar in the middle order (even Azhar for the last few years) - these are fairly decent players, even if not Dravids they are at least Gangulys and Laxmans. For opening partners , he had Chetan Chauhan (who certainly teamed up very well with Sunny, regardless of how good he himself was) or Gaekwad and Srikkanth for a huge portion of his innings and more or less throughout his career.

IOW what is brushed off as supporting cast for Gavaskar, might be among the more underrated single group of batsmen. Even against pace he didn't quite have the same skittish bunch as before or at the start of his career (Nari Contractor's near fatal accident in the 60's probably contributed to their mindset) as Jimmy Amarnath's stats indicate.

p.s. Interestingly, perhaps similar treatment for Bradman's team mates?
 
zaremba

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
wpdavid said:
I was astonished to see how low Lamb's average was, given his three tons in 1984: perhaps Marshall, Holding & Garner didn't play in all three of those tests. No arguing with the facts though.
Click to expand...
Allan Lamb's record against the West Indies is one of the great myths of cricket
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure that even in that halcyon 3-ton series, Lamb only averaged low-to-mid 40s. His highest score was something like 110 or 112 and he did very little aside from those three innings.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Cevno said:
Against Roberts ,Marshall and holding

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | Cricinfo.com

Mohinder Amarnath comes top with 54.36 against them in 6 matches ,floowed by gavaskars 49.60 in 7 matches.
Click to expand...
It is interesting to put all the scores of Gavaskar in these seven Tests. Here are all his innings in the order played.

Code: 
[B]Runs	Bat Order	Ground      	Start Date  	BOWLERS PLAYING[/B]

20	1       	Kingston	23-Feb-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
0	1       	Kingston	23-Feb-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
1	1       	Port of Spain	11-Mar-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
32	1       	Port of Spain	11-Mar-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
147*	1       	Georgetown	31-Mar-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
2	1       	Bridgetown	15-Apr-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
19	1       	Bridgetown	15-Apr-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	Garner
18	1       	St John's   	28-Apr-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	
1	1       	St John's   	28-Apr-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	
0	1       	Kolkata     	10-Dec-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	
20	1       	Kolkata     	10-Dec-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall	
236*	[B][COLOR="Red"]4[/COLOR][/B]       	Chennai     	24-Dec-1983	Roberts	Holding	Marshall
  • 496 runs in 12 innings.
  • 383 of those runs coming in the two unbeaten centuries.
  • 113 runs in the ten innings that he was dismissed at an average of 11.30 and a top score of 32 !
  • The 236 run unbeaten century in the last innings in the series scored when he did not open the batting. Of course this did not make much difference because the second wicket fell before India had scored a run !
  • Roberts was at the end of his career and had, in fact been dropped for the first three tests of the series with Daniel, Davis and Baptiste filling up and doing a great job. After Windies was leading 2-0 at the end of the 3rd test and it was clear that this was going to be the great Roberts's last tour, Windies decided to give him a send of in India itself and what better place than Calcutta. He got 3 wickets and West indies won the 4th Test and the series 3-0. They then decided to include him for the last Test also.

Gavaskar plated a superb innings in that drawn Chennai game but his score against these west indian greats have to seen in context of all of the above. He failed to cross 35 in ten of those 12 innings and India lost all five of those test matches by big margins.
 
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