Angus Fraser

[wpdavid]

Best Pommie bowler since John Snow.

That's quite a statement - not convinced he was better than Willis & Botham in their pomp though. But he was very good indeed, especially before the injury..

 

[Dazinho]

Pretty good bowler. Might have to dig deep and upload some of his wickets. His batting was very solid, ungainly, but solid.

Hi Robelinda - a Gus compilation would be brilliant.

Love the channel by the way...

 

[fredfertang]

Well if fred's a Northerner then I'm Bjork. That said, since his election to the office of Grand High Wizard of CW, I should neither mock him nor disrespect him.

Despite his Caledonian name, Angus was born in Billinge, Lancashire - although younger brother Alastair was Middlesex-born so the family presumably relocated before then.

Seems therefore that there is a sound case for saying dear old Gus is more of a Lancastrian than I am - how depressing

 

[Top_Cat]

Hi Robelinda - a Gus compilation would be brilliant.

Yes!

Angus was no natural athlete - no argument there.

That said, anyone who preferred McCague and Bejamin to him needed their head examining!!

Yeh, perfect example of extreme over-rating of 'knowledge of local conditions'. Pretty sure the rationale for picking MacCague was along the lines of 'played for WA and hurried Boonie up once in '93'. I have no idea why Joey Benjamin was picked although don't remember him being a serious Test prospect that series.

Gus's treatment for that series was abysmal. He'd come out here, played some grade cricket, bowled well and, as he showed in Sydney, was sending down some good stuff. How the **** did he not play in Brisbane?

 

[Dazinho]

Yes!



Yeh, perfect example of extreme over-rating of 'knowledge of local conditions'. Pretty sure the rationale for picking MacCague was along the lines of 'played for WA and hurried Boonie up once in '93'. I have no idea why Joey Benjamin was picked......

Gus's treatment for that series was abysmal. He'd come out here, played some grade cricket, bowled well and, as he showed in Sydney, was sending down some good stuff. How the **** did he not play in Brisbane?

Completely agree - If I remember rightly, the rationale for picking McCague was along the lines of getting the most out of 'fast, bouncy pitches' that are were all over Australia...when Illingworth was playing in the 1970s!!

His theory fell down on two fronts - firstly, by 1994 this was no longer the case.

Secondly, McCague was crap and clearly not up to Test Cricket, notwithstanding his constant run of injuries.

Like you say, Benjamin is one of those mystery selections that there wasn't even a flawed logic behind - just baffling.

So Gus takes a few wickets in grade cricket, probably figuring that some sort of bowling crisis would occur, and gets the call when England are 2-0 down thanks largely to the Aussies getting 'fill a trolly' type bowling from McCague.

I'm not saying we would ever have won the Ashes in the 1990s (Australia were consistently the better side), but if we'd stopped shooting ourselves in the foot and actually picked our best players on a regular basis then we could have run Australia a lot closer than we ever did IMO.

 

[BoyBrumby]

In fairness to Benjamin I don't think he actually played a test on that tour; went down with chicken pox IIRC.

Doesn't mitiagte Illingworth's arseheadness one iota tho.

 

[Dazinho]

In fairness to Benjamin I don't think he actually played a test on that tour; went down with chicken pox IIRC.

Doesn't mitiagte Illingworth's arseheadness one iota tho.

Correct - edited my last post with full acreditation.

The selection policy back then was just haphazard and completely random. Calling up Gooch and Gatting for that series was a prime example with Illingworth and co having previosuly expressed a wish to build something new.

Gooch was shot by then as the Kiwis (Dion Nash in particular) had already demonstrated. Gatt did make a hundred on that tour, buried in a litter of other failures - then again, he was never a top batsman, even at his peak.

Illlingworth's retro obsessions did real damage and I'm amazed we won a single series while he was running the show.

Off the top of my head, some of the bees in his bonnet were:-

People who'd played for Yorkshire (probably to be expected).

Any spinner whose name is not Phil Tufnell.

Any seamer whose name is not Angus Fraser.

Do we have Stewart as a keeper-batter or pick a specialist keeper as well? Er, Stewart was also a good keeper - the likes of Rhodes (who in fairness did ok) should never have been on the table as an option. Instead we chopped and changed between the two for no apparent reason.

All-rounders who can bat at six and also be a front-line bowler, even if the evidence to hand suggests that this player does not exist.

The mad idea that two spinners is a good move in English conditions - what?

Left-armers who add 'variety' to the attack, regardless of the point that it's not how many options you have, but the quality of those options that counts (see Alan Mullally, Paul Taylor).

And a general theme - Illingworth was one of the few people in England who did not think county cricket was a mess in need of shaking up. A good record in the domestic game does not automatically transfer upwards and you're looking for extreme skills and a prevailing attitude that will mean a player can survive on the bigger stage.

Statistics only ever tell part of the story, but try telling Illingworth that...

 

[Top_Cat]

Mullaly was quality, though. When he was playing for WA, remember the Chappell, Benords and, well, everyone, saying he was a Test prospect for Australia and it wasn't without reason.

But yeah, Rhodes is a perfect metaphor of the team's mental timidity and I think a fair case can be made to pin a lot of it on Illy. Bloke comes out here and blocks his way to virtually no runs, walks out in Perth and plays his shots and makes you wonder where that was 4 Tests ago. Same with a few other players although I'm sure a lot of the batters were hamstring by knowing they had 2 of the top 4 who were going to fumble their way very slowly to bugger-all runs.

 

[Dazinho]

Mullaly was quality, though. When he was playing for WA, remember the Chappell, Benords and, well, everyone, saying he was a Test prospect for Australia and it wasn't without reason.

But yeah, Rhodes is a perfect metaphor of the team's mental timidity and I think a fair case can be made to pin a lot of it on Illy. Bloke comes out here and blocks his way to virtually no runs, walks out in Perth and plays his shots and makes you wonder where that was 4 Tests ago. Same with a few other players although I'm sure a lot of the batters were hamstring by knowing they had 2 of the top 4 who were going to fumble their way very slowly to bugger-all runs.

In domestic cricket, Mullally was decent both in England and Australia.

The key difference is - had he ever got into the Australian setup, it would have been for a couple of matches before they'd work out he wasn't all that.

England kept picking him because 1) Illy had his favourites and Mullally was clearly one of them and 2) If you MUST have 'variety' then he was the best left-armer at the time (Taylor had been the other option and was found to be useless).

Something was lacking - for an absolute specialist (couldn't bat, average fielder) he just didn't have the spark of a strike bowler capable of getting top batsmen out regularly. The three who did (Cork, Gough, Fraser) were finally put in the same side in 1998..

Rhodes had a certain toughness about him that was admirable - I remember him saving the Dion Nash test at Lords by scoring 30 in about five hours or something like that. I think part of the problem was fear of losing one's place in the team, which perpetuated a spiral of nerves, anxiety etc. Block-block-block-block-out was the net result.

There was nothing wrong with Stewart as a keeper and even if his batting suffered, it was marginal to the point where he was clearly still the best option available. The next best option as a pure keeper was Jack Russell, so it makes the selection of anyone else a bit of a mystery...

 

[stumpski]

Tbf to Joey Benjamin, he'd had a good season for Surrey (80-odd wickets, IIRC) and had played in the last Test of the summer (Malcolm's Match). He did OK taking four in the first innings, but obviously no-one else got a look-in in the second. So there was a degree of continuity in picking him for Australia - the trouble was that he was 33, and clearly not a long-term bet. Would be like England picking someone like Masters now. If anything Joey should have been the stand-by, and he would still have gone out when McCague was crocked.

 

[Dazinho]

Tbf to Joey Benjamin, he'd had a good season for Surrey (80-odd wickets, IIRC) and had played in the last Test of the summer (Malcolm's Match). He did OK taking four in the first innings, but obviously no-one else got a look-in in the second. So there was a degree of continuity in picking him for Australia - the trouble was that he was 33, and clearly not a long-term bet. Would be like England picking someone like Masters now. If anything Joey should have been the stand-by, and he would still have gone out when McCague was crocked.

Fair point on his first class record at the time, but this was part of the problem we had back then. The notion that 'form is temporary, class is permanent' just wasn't on the radar.

Different rules and lines of logic seemed to be applied to different players.

Just checked McCague's wiki, and apparently he downed 72 pints of Guinness on a stag weekend in Dublin - would have been interesting to see an England team picked on those lines.

Or alternatively, a drink-off between McCague and David Boon...

 

[stumpski]

I think Botham and Lamb would have wanted in on that!

 

[robelinda]

Illingworth was talking big before that 1994 Brisbane test, saying England had a pace attack as fast as Lillee/Thomson in 1974, but it all fell apart when Devon malcolm was out with chicken pox before the 1st test, McCague got absolutely smashed by Slater and Mark Waugh, Gough was finding his feet still but bowled ok, by the last test they had Lewis and Fraser propping up the bowling attack.

 

[Dazinho]

Illingworth was talking big before that 1994 Brisbane test, saying England had a pace attack as fast as Lillee/Thomson in 1974, but it all fell apart when Devon malcolm was out with chicken pox before the 1st test, McCague got absolutely smashed by Slater and Mark Waugh, Gough was finding his feet still but bowled ok, by the last test they had Lewis and Fraser propping up the bowling attack.

Chris Lewis, bags of talent backed up by a complete lack of heart.

What happened to him as a cricketer was sad, but the bigger story in his life generally is nothing short of tragic.

Would have been interesting to see how he might have fared in a winning team rather than the dismal one we had at the time.

Slater vs McCague is a form of bullying, yeah?

 

[Burgey]

Just saw Vince Wells get Ricky Ponting out caught down the leg side in an ODI at the SCG in 1999, in one of those "when retards attack" moments.

 

[grecian]

Loved Gus, would have been our Glenn McGrath if it wasn't for that nonsense about his back injury, and treatment afterwards, which would be enough to make anyone grumpy.

Not as good as Mallender though, natch.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Gus was awesome, such a shame injury hampered him so much. Still ended with a decent career but you wonder what might have been had he stayed injury free.

 

[zaremba]

Just saw Vince Wells get Ricky Ponting out caught down the leg side in an ODI at the SCG in 1999, in one of those "when retards attack" moments.

Vince Wells. Ffs.