You are talking in cricketing sense. Without VIV there is no way people will even know Antigua exists... Besides its not far fetched to say summer of 76 changed how english society changed in perceiving colored people and role of richards during and after is immeasurable. [Posters with first hand experience may know better than me]
Don't know!! I always thought greater meant how a cricketer transcended playing fields, inspired generations et al. While better is more of a statistical comparison.
Of course I am talking in the cricketing sense but to be fair the WI did have a reasonably good side even before the time of Richards. In fact Richards is not even the greatest cricketer to come from the WI. It is Gary Sobers. So I am sure that people who knew about cricket also knew about the WI after Richards maybe a few more people found out about Antigua but Imran's legacy on Pakistan's cricketing fortunes is greater IMO.
'Better' is limited in scope and only takes into account raw skills and results, where as 'greater', in addition to that, takes into account things like influence on the game, how they changed their respective art etc. At least that's how I see it...
so who did you vote for???
Yeah, I don't like see it like that, personally.
Hmm.. but it is not Richards fault that W. Indies had more great cricketers compared to Pakistan and that he wasn't the first, or the greatest to emerge. I don't have any particular preference or opinion on this poll, but this logic seems a bit faulty.
I am mulling it over
True it is not Richards fault that he was not the first or the greatest to emerge but my point was that in terms of cricketing impact there is a first movers advantage that Imran had over Viv and that WI had great sides in the past so the world was already taking note of WI cricket. It is not that Richards introduced the world to WI cricket. The world had already taken notice of the excellence of WI cricket.
I am not really qualified to talk on the subject of how much richards meant to colored people in england as I have no first hand experience. But I am pretty sure VIV's impact on society and culture is a lot. Sobers was a better cricketer and had greater impact doesn't mean richards is not important. If people saw sobers as their dream, they saw themselves in richards. If sobers or bradman in the poll I'd have chosen them ahead of VIV.
Obviously Viv is important I only mentioned Sobers because he is comfortably ahead of almost all cricketers and the English were no strangers to the name of Sir Garfield Sobers and hence to WI cricket.
I do mean results and skills and also the impact that players have had on the way the game has been played in their country and internationally. It is a combination of both. If the player is outstanding in all aspects of the game and he can impact the way the game is played then that may earn the player brownie points. But there is leeway if people want to interpret it in just the narrow sense of performance on the field then they are free to take that as the greatness of the player.
Yeah the "Grovel" comment & all.There are some youtube vidoes floating around titled "Empire of Cricket". They are 6-part videos for India, England, Australia and WI. The WI one talks about the impact Richards had for the self-esteem of colored people in England. I'm sure the 5-0 thrashings must have helped a bit as well.
Nah DWTA unless he gives a definition of greatness in the OP. He doesn't, so we all go by our own definitions.
Yeah well tbh if everyone is just voting according to their own subjective interpretations of what 'great' means it will just end being a completely meaningless poll. A poll isn't going to show anything if people are voting for completely different things.
