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Australia's best-ever finger spinner

Who was Australia's best semi-chucker?

  • Ian Johnson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Greg Matthews

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Jack Iverson

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17

kyear2

Cricketer Of The Year
Not bad against that battalion of batting though. Better than Pollock and Waqar's record v Australia's similarly strong batting in their era.

Played all his tests in Australia on roads where his job was to keep down runs and build pressure. If he toured England he'd have become legend as Hendren infers.
Can't believe that you stated that the Australian pitches of that era were roads.
 

robelinda

International Vice-Captain
Honestly, Bruce Yardley was pretty darn good. I'd say he would be close to our best ever finger spinner, maybe Mallet #1, I thought Colin miller was fabulous , put him at #3.
 

the big bambino

International Captain
If Trumble qualifies as I believe he does then he's no.1. Ironmonger next followed by Mallet then Giffen. Yardley was good value and Ian Johnson was passable. That's about it though.
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
I'm no historian, but I do know that Johnson was strongly encourgaged to persist with cricket (when he wasn't be selected by his state) in order to get back in to the Australian team and assume the captaincy vacancy. Bradman had his fingerprints all over Johnson's career, largely because Bradman didn't want to see Miller captain Australia (when he should have).

Benaud has commented on this, saying that Johnson's "speech making" got him the gig. Probably the one instance in Australian cricket where the captain was selected not on merit.
I'd always been of the impression that Lindsay Hassett drove that selection - he had a "man to man" chat with Johnson essentially telling him that if he got his **** together he could be the next captain of Australia. Hassett was captain of South Melbourne, Victoria and Australia, and had a strong influence in Johnson succeeding him in all three jobs.
 

Burgey

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The fact we have produced so few really good finger spinners yet have dominated cricket for such extended periods really does go to show what an utterly rank and irrelevant discipline of the game it is.
 

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