Ranking Nations in terms of producing Batsmen and Bowlers

Batting Talent

Australia
England
India
South Africa
West Indies
Sri Lanka
Pakistan
New Zealand
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

Fast Bowling Talent

West Indies
Australia
Pakistan
South Africa
England
New Zealand
Sri Lanka
India
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

Post your rankings

what kind of a silly ranking is this?

It is not straight forward exercise. It has varied over time and even gone back and forth.

India, for example, produced weak batsmen (against world class pace attacks) for most of the first half of their cricket history. They still do if we stop looking through the coloured spectacles of the shorter formats which do not punish ill equipped batsmen enough.

Similarly, there was a time when England produced the best finger spinners (particularly left arm) in the world and this lasted for a very very long period of time viz Rhodes, Verity, Peel, Briggs, Blythe, Laker. This hasn't now been true for decades.

Because of the lateral movement in the air and off the wicket in the English conditions they also produced great medium pacers and the best openers in the history of the game. Thus barnes, Tate, Bedser were the world's greatest swerve and swing bowlers for the first sixty years of the 20th century while Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hutton dominate the list of openers for about the same period. Again this monopoly is finished.

West Indies, after a weak start like most newbies, consolidated into a staggering batting line up in the fifties and sixties with an attack that had some fast, though not always accurate bowlers, and a couple of world class spinner. Twenty years later they had started producing fast bowlers in numbers that were enough to send a pair to most of the leading Test nations and still have a pair left at home :o) The batting continued to be strong.

This was to soon fall apart and both world class fast bowlers and batsmen suddenly stopped appearing among the debutants.

Thus any list one tries to may need some qualifiers.

1. Generally the wickets with pace and bounce will help nourish bowlers with pace and leg spinners. The batsmen brought up here will be, relatively speaking, freer stroking batsmen strong off the backfoot. Australia showed that for a long time till the wickets started changing in character somewhat in the last 3-4 decades.

2. The wetter and heavier ambience and, relatively, softer and greener wickets will produce bowlers with lateral movement both in the air and off the wicket. These conditions will reward fast medium bowlers and many may find the extra effort to reach real pace not commensurate in rewards. The batsmen will tend to be, relatively, more cautious and prefer to play off the front foot more.

3. Dry and dusty tracks will allow spinners of all hues to prosper and will prove the death knell of pace bowlers. The batsmen will be stroke players and will play spin and medium pace (without excessive lateral movement) like champions but flounder against real pace, on pacy bouncy tracks and against good lateral movement.

4. On the hard, dry wickets with some bounce, as the West Indies used to have traditionally, the batsmen will turn out to be stroke players who will play well off the backfoot as well as any body. Bowlers of real pace will be the one's to get something out of these wickets. Medium pacers will be put to the sword.

As the shorter format has become more and more important financially in the game, the wickets, which were earlier differentiated based on how they assisted (or defeated) the bowlers, are now beginning to move to a more common look of batsman friendly wickets. The Test wickets are not always the same but in many countries the character of the surface has changed, mostly to favour the batsman. Thus it is going to become more and more difficult to predict what will come as far as bowling talent is concerned in the years to come. One thing can be predicted though, unless the Indian board gets its act together and moves towards more sporting wickets, this one country will produce poor bowling attacks in all varieties, fast, medium pace and even spin. The batting standards will fall alongside with batting averages fattened on 'pata' wickets against mediocre attacks making it impossible for batsmen to know how useless they are going to be in different conditions and against better attacks.

Surely WI produced more quality batsman than India or SA ? Same with ENG bowling ? PAK has probably 5 great bowlers, 3 world class bowlers. They can't really be the 3rd best in bowling!

Post your ranking then if you disagree. And Smali piss off if you have nothing to contribute.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SJS

It is not straight forward exercise. It has varied over time and even gone back and forth.

India, for example, produced weak batsmen (against world class pace attacks) for most of the first half of their cricket history. They still do if we stop looking through the coloured spectacles of the shorter formats which do not punish ill equipped batsmen enough.

Similarly, there was a time when England produced the best finger spinners (particularly left arm) in the world and this lasted for a very very long period of time viz Rhodes, Verity, Peel, Briggs, Blythe, Laker. This hasn't now been true for decades.

Because of the lateral movement in the air and off the wicket in the English conditions they also produced great medium pacers and the best openers in the history of the game. Thus barnes, Tate, Bedser were the world's greatest swerve and swing bowlers for the first sixty years of the 20th century while Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hutton dominate the list of openers for about the same period. Again this monopoly is finished.

West Indies, after a weak start like most newbies, consolidated into a staggering batting line up in the fifties and sixties with an attack that had some fast, though not always accurate bowlers, and a couple of world class spinner. Twenty years later they had started producing fast bowlers in numbers that were enough to send a pair to most of the leading Test nations and still have a pair left at home :o) The batting continued to be strong.

This was to soon fall apart and both world class fast bowlers and batsmen suddenly stopped appearing among the debutants.

Thus any list one tries to may need some qualifiers.

1. Generally the wickets with pace and bounce will help nourish bowlers with pace and leg spinners. The batsmen brought up here will be, relatively speaking, freer stroking batsmen strong off the backfoot. Australia showed that for a long time till the wickets started changing in character somewhat in the last 3-4 decades.

2. The wetter and heavier ambience and, relatively, softer and greener wickets will produce bowlers with lateral movement both in the air and off the wicket. These conditions will reward fast medium bowlers and many may find the extra effort to reach real pace not commensurate in rewards. The batsmen will tend to be, relatively, more cautious and prefer to play off the front foot more.

3. Dry and dusty tracks will allow spinners of all hues to prosper and will prove the death knell of pace bowlers. The batsmen will be stroke players and will play spin and medium pace (without excessive lateral movement) like champions but flounder against real pace, on pacy bouncy tracks and against good lateral movement.

4. On the hard, dry wickets with some bounce, as the West Indies used to have traditionally, the batsmen will turn out to be stroke players who will play well off the backfoot as well as any body. Bowlers of real pace will be the one's to get something out of these wickets. Medium pacers will be put to the sword.

As the shorter format has become more and more important financially in the game, the wickets, which were earlier differentiated based on how they assisted (or defeated) the bowlers, are now beginning to move to a more common look of batsman friendly wickets. The Test wickets are not always the same but in many countries the character of the surface has changed, mostly to favour the batsman. Thus it is going to become more and more difficult to predict what will come as far as bowling talent is concerned in the years to come. One thing can be predicted though, unless the Indian board gets its act together and moves towards more sporting wickets, this one country will produce poor bowling attacks in all varieties, fast, medium pace and even spin. The batting standards will fall alongside with batting averages fattened on 'pata' wickets against mediocre attacks making it impossible for batsmen to know how useless they are going to be in different conditions and against better attacks.

---

Quite an informative post

WI haven't produced anyone good for years. All of their young players these days are terrible.

So what. RSA was banned from test cricket for 20+ years so that kinda hurts them and India sure as hell hasnt produced more quality batsmen in its history than the WI. And all of the WI youngsters r not terrible ala Darren Bravo and last I checked Shiv Chanderpaul was still in the WI team. ENG and OZ naturally have an advantage over any other team seeing that they played test cricket from about 40+ years before most of the others teams came along. In any event overall:

Batting

OZ
ENG
WI
RSA
IND

the rest.

Bowling (spin)

Oz
Eng
Ind
Pak
RSA

the rest

Bowling (pace)

WI
OZ
Pak
RSA
Eng

the rest

I think the infrastructure of the country has a lot to do with the ability t find and groom young players

Is this meant to be an all time ranking or one that applies only to recent years? Those criteria would yield very different selections.

Australia is one country which consistently produces good teams and that means good/great batsmen and bowlers..That said..

Workman like batsmen

Australia/England/SA/NZ

Batsmen with flair

West Indies/India/ Pakistan and to an extent SL as well

Bowlers :

Fast : Aus, WI, Pak,SA
Spin : Aus,Eng,India,Pak

It's an all time ranking.

If its all time then I can't believe you can put Pakistan above England, personally. I would need to sit and think about it for longer to fully commit but that was the main thing to jump out at me from AN's lost, which I otherwise thought fairly reasonable.

I guess it depends how you quantify it though. Are we looking at the top 5%? Their Test attacks as a whole?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GIMH

If its all time then I can't believe you can put Pakistan above England, personally. I would need to sit and think about it for longer to fully commit but that was the main thing to jump out at me from AN's lost, which I otherwise thought fairly reasonable.

I guess it depends how you quantify it though. Are we looking at the top 5%? Their Test attacks as a whole?

---

I have the biased short term memory affect when it comes to test cricket. :p

I have rated Pakistan higher because they now have the ability and talent to continue producing great fast bowlers (including potential wasted talent). They did not have this before Imran. And I think it's better than England's.

Maybe I was too dismissive of RSA. I might have them third and Pak fourth.