Ranking Nations in terms of producing Batsmen and Bowlers

[Slifer]

TBH and I'm being frank now, alot of the young men in the WI probably see faster means of making money in other avenues be it in other sports or other 'avenues'. I for one growing up in the Caribbean always dreamt of being in the WI team but as I got older and as the fortunes of the current WI continued to diminish that dream faded and i looked on other directions

[sledger]

Your love for the game is commendable.

[Hurricane]

Originally Posted by Slifer

TBH and I'm being frank now, alot of the young men in the WI probably see faster means of making money in other avenues be it in other sports or other 'avenues'. I for one growing up in the Caribbean always dreamt of being in the WI team but as I got older and as the fortunes of the current WI continued to diminish that dream faded and i looked on other directions

What other directions did you pursue?

[marc71178]

Originally Posted by kyear2

England has done a magnificant job of importing talent though.

Total bull****.

[Slifer]

Originally Posted by Hurricane

What other directions did you pursue?

In highschool I gave up on cricket and started playing soccer and tennis for a while. For a while I even tried my hand at basketball. But growing up on a steady diet of American sports and the money they offer not to mention the disastrous decline of the WI team its easy to see y man have gravitated to 'other' sports. Then there r others who and Im being frank turned to crime to get ahead. No matter what we might see on TV the English speaking Caribbean is a mere 6 million of mostly tourist dependent islands struggling to make it in a increasingly difficult world.

Eventually I settled down to working air traffic in the US.

[smalishah84]

I might be flying in to West Palm International later this year.....will drop a cricket hat for you as a reminder of your first love

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Slifer

Bro WI have always managed to produce world beaters regardless of era 30s : Headley, Martindale, Learie Constatine, H Griffith 50s: 3 Ws, Valentine, Ramadhin 60s: Sobers, Nurse, Butcher, Hall, Griffith, Kanhai, O G Smith (may he RIP)Gibbs, 70s : Viv, Lloyd, Fredricks, Roberts Holding, Kalli, Garner, 80s MM, Richardson, Walsh, Dujon, 90s Lara, Ambrose, Bishop, Chanders. I could go on and on. WI. 2000 left to be seen but the likes of D Bravo and K Roach look very promising.

I suggest u read up on WI and cricket history b4 u start running ur mouth about things u dont know. WI were new on the scene early on and like ne team it took a while for them to find their feet but apart from Pakistan WI took to test cricket much better than most new comers. And as for WI players playing less FC back in the day being a 'colored' team in a world who considered u less than equals didnt afford many West indians the opportunity to play abroad heck one team in particular (RSA) down right refused to play the WI.

The fact that you would reply to me with an infantile rant means I hit a nerve and you know there is truth to what I was saying. Have you ever looked at your team's results since the dawn of their playing days because it doesn't seem like it:
Team records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

That's more losses than wins. Sure don't seem like the result of a team that constantly produce good players. And some of those players from that list you could barely call that good but still that's about 10-15 players out of hundreds that your country has produced. Highlighting all the good ones to shadow out all the crap ones what a great job you did there. You really think I will have trouble finding 10-15 equally mediocre players that your country has produced.

Anyways if that's what it takes to satisfy that sense of nationalistic pride you have going there please by all means keep thinking WI has always produced great players and bringing up things that has nothing to do with anything. This is the last I will even bother.

[Slifer]

Originally Posted by smalishah84

I might be flying in to West Palm International later this year.....will drop a cricket hat for you as a reminder of your first love

Bro that would bemost appreciated but I live a little further south in Ft Lauderdale.

[smalishah84]

ok, I can post it there then or might even visit Ft Lauderdale if i am in Florida. So might drop it if I remember to carry one.

[Spark]

That's more losses than wins. Sure don't seem like the result of a team that constantly produce good players. And some of those players from that list you could barely call that good but still that's about 10-15 players out of hundreds that your country has produced. Highlighting all the good ones to shadow out all the crap ones what a great job you did there. You really think I will have trouble finding 10-15 equally mediocre players that your country has produced.

This is a really, really stupid way to make that conclusion. Really stupid.

[The Sean]

This is an interesting one, insofar as how wide a scope are we looking at - a country's top couple of performers? Top five, ten, twenty? Or the average quality of everyone they've ever produced? I think my answer would differ depending on how I looked at it.

A lot of people are voting for Australia as the leading producer of batsmen but I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Bradman of course tilts the balance hugely, but I'd argue that if you removed him from the reckoning and looked at, say, the top dozen or so bats from each country then both England and West Indies are better than Australia man-for-man. Of course if you take a longer-term look then the depth of talent available to Australia over the course of cricket history means that their list of quality batsman is longer than that of the West Indies, and probably much-of-a-muchness with England. For opening batsmen, it's clearly England. For middle-order players, I'm torn between Australia and the West Indies. Overall, it's inconclusive in any direction.

It's a similar story with fast bowlers. Most people are choosing the West Indies as the clear number one, but I'd argue that the pool of great fast bowlers produced by Australia can match up to that of the men from the Caribbean. However, Australia's great fast men are drawn from a period covering virtually the entire history of Test cricket, whereas most the West Indian greats came from two overlapping generations, and thus man of them played together in the same teams. That so many champion quicks appeared for one country so close together possibly clouds our judgement in their favour. Again, I don't know which way I'd lean, a dilemma further exacerbated by the fact that England come well into the reckoning too, particularly if we include their great medium-pace and fast-medium bowlers (Lohmann, Barnes, Tate, Bedser) in the mix. Pakistan and South Africa might also have a fair bit to say about this.

As for all-rounders, they bring their own questions. While the West Indies produced the single greatest of all, his supporting cast is pretty small. New Zealand have produced a collection of very fine players, while Pakistan have a couple who rank with the very, very best. However in my opinion it comes down to three - Australia, England and South Africa. Today, I think I'd argue that that the pool of genuine world class all round talent South Africa have given us - Faulkner, Goddard, Barlow, Procter, Rice, McMillan, Pollock, Kallis - probably puts them at the top of the tree. Then again, ask me tomorrow and I might say England. Or Australia.

I think wicketkeeping / wicketkeeper-batsman talent is a clear Ashes battle between England (Strudwick, Ames, Evans, Knott, Taylor, Russell, Stewart, Prior) and Australia (Blackham, Oldfield, Tallon, Grout, Marsh, Healy, Gilchrist). Other countries have produced individuals who can sit comfortably in this class, but none have produced anywhere near so many.

One area where I'm more than happy to pick a winner is spin bowling, which I'd give unquestionably to Australia. The only other area with one country so dominant in my opinion is England with its opening batsmen. After Australia, I think India or England probably come in next. Sri Lanka's pre-Test history saw some fine spinners who never had the chance to play at the highest level, and of course since then they have given us possibly the very greatest of all.

Finally, fielding - which is a hard one to measure. Australia and England have both obviously produced great fieldsmen over the course of their history with a 130-year pool of players to choose from, though of course a great fielder from the 1890s looked a lot different to a great one from the 1990s. The West Indians have had some wonderful fielding talent and the champion sides of the 1970s and 1980s set new standards of fitness and athleticism, while during the modern era South Africa and Sri Lanka have arguably led the way. So, take your pick of any of them really.

Something that stands out is that England and Australia rank at or near the top in virtually every category - though this is hardly surprising given that these two countries have played the most Test cricket and produced the most Test cricketers over the longest period of time. It will be interesting to see how - if at all - these lists change after another generation or two.

[smalishah84]

[Slifer]

Originally Posted by The Sean

This is an interesting one, insofar as how wide a scope are we looking at - a country's top couple of performers? Top five, ten, twenty? Or the average quality of everyone they've ever produced? I think my answer would differ depending on how I looked at it.

A lot of people are voting for Australia as the leading producer of batsmen but I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Bradman of course tilts the balance hugely, but I'd argue that if you removed him from the reckoning and looked at, say, the top dozen or so bats from each country then both England and West Indies are better than Australia man-for-man. Of course if you take a longer-term look then the depth of talent available to Australia over the course of cricket history means that their list of quality batsman is longer than that of the West Indies, and probably much-of-a-muchness with England. For opening batsmen, it's clearly England. For middle-order players, I'm torn between Australia and the West Indies. Overall, it's inconclusive in any direction.

It's a similar story with fast bowlers. Most people are choosing the West Indies as the clear number one, but I'd argue that the pool of great fast bowlers produced by Australia can match up to that of the men from the Caribbean. However, Australia's great fast men are drawn from a period covering virtually the entire history of Test cricket, whereas most the West Indian greats came from two overlapping generations, and thus man of them played together in the same teams. That so many champion quicks appeared for one country so close together possibly clouds our judgement in their favour. Again, I don't know which way I'd lean, a dilemma further exacerbated by the fact that England come well into the reckoning too, particularly if we include their great medium-pace and fast-medium bowlers (Lohmann, Barnes, Tate, Bedser) in the mix. Pakistan and South Africa might also have a fair bit to say about this.

As for all-rounders, they bring their own questions. While the West Indies produced the single greatest of all, his supporting cast is pretty small. New Zealand have produced a collection of very fine players, while Pakistan have a couple who rank with the very, very best. However in my opinion it comes down to three - Australia, England and South Africa. Today, I think I'd argue that that the pool of genuine world class all round talent South Africa have given us - Faulkner, Goddard, Barlow, Procter, Rice, McMillan, Pollock, Kallis - probably puts them at the top of the tree. Then again, ask me tomorrow and I might say England. Or Australia.

I think wicketkeeping / wicketkeeper-batsman talent is a clear Ashes battle between England (Strudwick, Ames, Evans, Knott, Taylor, Russell, Stewart, Prior) and Australia (Blackham, Oldfield, Tallon, Grout, Marsh, Healy, Gilchrist). Other countries have produced individuals who can sit comfortably in this class, but none have produced anywhere near so many.

One area where I'm more than happy to pick a winner is spin bowling, which I'd give unquestionably to Australia. The only other area with one country so dominant in my opinion is England with its opening batsmen. After Australia, I think India or England probably come in next. Sri Lanka's pre-Test history saw some fine spinners who never had the chance to play at the highest level, and of course since then they have given us possibly the very greatest of all.

Finally, fielding - which is a hard one to measure. Australia and England have both obviously produced great fieldsmen over the course of their history with a 130-year pool of players to choose from, though of course a great fielder from the 1890s looked a lot different to a great one from the 1990s. The West Indians have had some wonderful fielding talent and the champion sides of the 1970s and 1980s set new standards of fitness and athleticism, while during the modern era South Africa and Sri Lanka have arguably led the way. So, take your pick of any of them really.

Something that stands out is that England and Australia rank at or near the top in virtually every category - though this is hardly surprising given that these two countries have played the most Test cricket and produced the most Test cricketers over the longest period of time. It will be interesting to see how - if at all - these lists change after another generation or two.

Outstanding post !!!

[smalishah84]

Originally Posted by The Sean

Something that stands out is that England and Australia rank at or near the top in virtually every category - though this is hardly surprising given that these two countries have played the most Test cricket and produced the most Test cricketers over the longest period of time. It will be interesting to see how - if at all - these lists change after another generation or two.

With England it must be noted that with the emergence of other teams (reaching decent standards) their excellence hasn't been quite there as say Australia. To me Australia is the real standout team if I take all of cricket's history

[Slifer]

Yeah Oz is pretty much top 2 in whatever department one can think of: Batsmen, spinners, fast bowlers, fielding etc !! What an outstanding cricket nation they r