• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

When I Was Wrong!

ret

International Debutant
on Ganguly .... that he should have been dropped before the current series .... he has been amazing in this series, playing out of his skin and showing one of the most graceful retirement in the Indian history .... I remember only Gavaskar and Sidhu going on a high earlier

Amazing stuff from Ganguly :thumbsup:
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Richard, I dont think that you realise that Rod Marsh, who was picked as a keeper batsman, averaged 26!!!!!!

Wally Grout, Don Tallon and Brian Taber all averaged mid-teens!

So for Healy to average 22 in his second season, it was actually seen as being pretty damned good

Anyway, you need to look at selections and performances in the context of the time - Oz was comfortably the worst team in the world for a period so they were trying anyone at anytime in the hope that someone or something would succeed
Marsh's average went down lots post-WSC - it was a damn good mid-30s in his heyday.

Healy didn't actually average 22 in his second season either, he averaged 22 for an extended period, taking in 1989, 1989/90, 1990/91, 1991/92, 1992 and 1992/93.

Grout, Tallon and Taber weren't batsmen of any note - they belonged to the era before the 1970s when wicketkeepers often enough played purely on wicketkeeping skill.

Either way, I'm actually not saying anything that much about Healy, apart from the fact that he (like Stephen Waugh, like Hughes, like McDermott, like Reid, like Boon) were players who were mediocre for a time - sometimes a long time - but turned the corner and ended-up huge players in Australia's revival as a good Test team then their assault on and reaching of the summit. And that it'd not be all that surprising if each of these took someone (maybe many) by surprise somewhere.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Either way, I'm actually not saying anything that much about Healy, apart from the fact that he (like Stephen Waugh, like Hughes, like McDermott, like Reid, like Boon) were players who were mediocre for a time - sometimes a long time - but turned the corner and ended-up huge players in Australia's revival as a good Test team then their assault on and reaching of the summit. And that it'd not be all that surprising if each of these took someone (maybe many) by surprise somewhere.
Waugh was the equivalent of Michael Clarke with only Allan Border in support

McDermott was the equivalent of Brett Lee without McGrath, Gillespie and Warne

Boon was a talent that was persevered with because there was no-one else

Reid was, on his day,one of the world's best bowlers but injury prone

Only Hughes was scoffed at
 

Precambrian

Banned
Two lefties completely proved me wrong.

Vinod Kambli - When he burst into the scene with two 200s, I thought he would go and become the greatest leftie of all time. And better than Sachin Tendulkar.

Saurav Ganguly - Take 2005, no 2007 ODI drop, nah 2008 Irani Trophy omission, many times I predicted his retirement was imminent, he has come back. And when I learnt from my mistakes and predicted he has atleast a good year in front of him, he announces his retirement!
 

Precambrian

Banned
Also I predicted a good career for Joginder Sharma post his FC exploits in 2003, going by stats alone (Ikki, you there?), as an allrounder. Only when I saw him in action, realised he's no where near test class, maybe an option in ODIs. Though just when I started giving up on him, he got selected into 20-20 WC side and boy!
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Vinod Kambli - When he burst into the scene with two 200s, I thought he would go and become the greatest leftie of all time. And better than Sachin Tendulkar.
I imagine Kambli's case dumbfounded more people than not who watched it unfold. Not everyone would neccessarily have thought he was destined to be one of the best batsmen in history, but most I imagine were thinking, after the opening couple of series', that his Test career would last longer than 2 years. :wacko:
 

Precambrian

Banned
I imagine Kambli's case dumbfounded more people than not who watched it unfold. Not everyone would neccessarily have thought he was destined to be one of the best batsmen in history, but most I imagine were thinking, after the opening couple of series', that his Test career would last longer than 2 years. :wacko:
Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel he got done in by selectors. An avg of 50+ that still stands to his name, makes me think like that. Although he did play in ODIs till 99-00. Just wonder, had we been a bit more patient on him considering his vast talent.
 

G.I.Joe

International Coach
Also I predicted a good career for Joginder Sharma post his FC exploits in 2003, going by stats alone (Ikki, you there?), as an allrounder. Only when I saw him in action, realised he's no where near test class, maybe an option in ODIs. Though just when I started giving up on him, he got selected into 20-20 WC side and boy!
Fluked his way through the key moments of the competition to be honest.
 

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
Joginder Sharma is not an awful bowler. Sure, he is slower than your average Test bowler, but he must have a fair bit of guile if he is to earn such a FC record.
 

archie mac

International Coach
Enjoying reading this thread:laugh:

It has jogged my memory; when Mark Taylor played his first Test against the WI was bowled by a yorker off a no-ball, and was very late on it. A few runs later he was bowled by another yorker and again he was very late on it. I wrote him off for the 1989 Ashes tour

I think he scored 800+ runs:wacko:
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Haha, I thought of this song when I saw it the first few times. Wasn't happy either because it often gets stuck in my head when I hear it and I don't particularly like it at all.
The Scooter "remix" from 2001 is even worse from that POV. Damn thing.

Don't particularly like or dislike either version but the Scooter one has troubled me in "stuck on repeat" terms on more than 1 occasion in the last 7 years.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Enjoying reading this thread:laugh:

It has jogged my memory; when Mark Taylor played his first Test against the WI was bowled by a yorker off a no-ball, and was very late on it. A few runs later he was bowled by another yorker and again he was very late on it. I wrote him off for the 1989 Ashes tour

I think he scored 800+ runs:wacko:
Given England's gutter standards that summer I'd not have been surprised if no-one ever tried so much as a single Yorker to him all series. :mellow:
 

archie mac

International Coach
Given England's gutter standards that summer I'd not have been surprised if no-one ever tried so much as a single Yorker to him all series. :mellow:
At the start the press dubbed (one B or two?) them the worst Aust. team to ever tour England, half way through they changed it to the worst ever England team:laugh:
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Welll, it was certainly the latter. :dry:

Before the tour, the assumption that they were the worst Australian team ever wouldn't have been completely stupid. But Boon had already turned the corner several years before; Merv Hughes turned the corner at the same time the tour commenced; Stephen Waugh had a false dawn that 3-and-a-half years later became a true dawn; Alderman and Lawson were just back in the team and no-one could've guessed quite how good Alderman was going to (albeit briefly) be; and Taylor had played just 2 (unsuccessful) Tests.

But it turned-out that the summer (or winter) of 1989 was a few months when the side went from being bottom of the pile to 2nd-best in The World, in a flash.

And yes, it's dubbed, not dubed. :laugh:
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I said McGrath would not play another test when he hurt his ankle in about 2002 or 2003. Oops. There hav ebeen plenty of others but that one sticks out as a doozy on my part.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I said McGrath would not play another test when he hurt his ankle in about 2002 or 2003. Oops.
On that note I'd be surprised if anyone was honestly expecting Simon Jones to play any serious county cricket again in the early part of this year (ie, before the cricket season started). I certainly wasn't, and I know for certain that many others on here weren't.

As I said earlier I try not to write anyone off completely but Jones S is surely one of the most unlikely, and hence unexpected, comebacks of recent times and will surely have surprised plenty of people. If he should play Tests again that'd make things more remarkable still.

McGrath's ankle injury happened right at the very end (talking the last week) of 2002 BTW. And he missed most of 2003 and the first half of 2004 because of it.
 
Last edited:

Top