Who won these battles?

[kyear2]

Richards
Donald
Sobers
McGrath
Botham
Holding

Without digging too deep these would be my choices as well.

Not too sure about the Botham one though.

 

[kyear2]

with WSC Viv easily beats Lillee but it was seen as the IPL of the time and a circus by many really so it deserves to be as devalued and ignored as possible, in regards to all of the participants. but anyway, refer to the signature below from now on when considering tagging me.

Oh wow, so really not to be taken seriously going forward.

Acknowledged.

 

[subshakerz]

- Sure, but my point was that WSC is different to Test Cricket, as in, inherently biased against slow batting, biased against spin bowling, biased against medium pace and so forth. Therefore, not exactly 1:1 translateable to Test Cricket.

- Only thing they really gave was giving a pace bowling guide to Windies, not sure how that changes Cricket as it effected 2 of the 6 playing nations, and then Windies sent Australia back to stone age. Like, if we're talking pure and hard fast pace bowling tactics, Windies did that since their conception in 1928, England did that in the 30s and the 50s, Australia did that when they got Lindwall/Miller/Johnston and so forth. I mean, do you really think West Indies making a pace quaret inspired by Australia's lillian thomson changed Cricket when Windies would cease to be a superpower just 15 years later, and then cease to be a power 25 years later?

- I'm sure, what does that prove other than what we know IE Lillee Inspiring people? how does Imran being a fast bowler change Cricket?

- even Later half Lillee was quicker, and again, Hadlee saw Lillee as his inspiration, same way people from past saw Larwood as their inspiration, that's common and doesn't revolutionise Cricket, especially since Hadlee was not some aggressive HTD bowler like peak Lillee.

- Winning instinct is natural when you have a great team, just ask Australia. Australia convinced Lloyd to give up on spin and go full pace, but sadly that does not change Cricket as Australia reverted to the same old in 80s and none of the other countries were even impacted.

- No, you argued WSC was carnival cricket and inferior in quality. Different perhaps but certainly achievements there should be considered meritorious.

- The pace battalion itself is just a manifestation of the ultra aggressive winning mindset that the 70s Aussies had that passed to the WI, not just a tactic. That next level of competitiveness and hard edge is what changed cricket and had a lasting impression.

- It was Lillees aggression that inspired Imran and he wanted to emulate that as a paceman, and Chappell was his captaincy inspiration too. Imran's aggression changed Pakistan cricket.

- Hadlee still drew from Lillee is the main point.

- Again, Lloyd himself points out that there were gifted WIs teams of the past of the Calypso.cricket sort that were inconsistent and the approach he took for his side inspired by WSC and the Aussies took his team to the next level

 

[kyear2]

I don't reckon I should waste my last couple posts on this site degrading World Series Cricket but here we are. It cannot be taken seriously because they were practically exhibition matches, both sides were paid by the same person, the same person chose how the games would be played, the same person also put down nonsensical rules such as no slow batting or no spinners and yada yada because he thought they were boring (spinners are). It's a monetized version of test cricket that only existed to fatten pockets and the main intent was to entertain, not to win, and this showed as none of the players wanted to rusk injuries. Simply put, it's below even some first class club games that took place in England, let alone on par with proper Test Cricket, it should be rated like IPL.

If one wants to count World Series Cricket as equivalent to Test Cricket, they are allowed to do so, I'm not going to stop people from thinking what they want to think, I just disagree.

You're leaving the community?

I hope all is ok.

 

[kyear2]

Don’t tell me this is cos of that thing yesterday

What happened in Wednesday?

 

[kyear2]

I’m not sure there were journos who said that and if they did they’d be quickly corrected or ignored for their idiocy.

The players thought it was the toughest cricket they played and I recall being at a dinner featuring Max Walker who emphasised the challenges for batsman and bowlers as unrelenting due to the uniform quality of the players involved.

Bruce Laird was congratulated by the WI for his century against them on a minefield .., the list of performances are extensive.

The standard of player would never let the game’s degenerate to mere exhibitions - they were too proud for that. Plus they were being well paid and Packer wasn’t likely to accept sub standard play from them. These guys were fighting for their cricketing lives and knew they couldn’t fool a sceptical public with exhibition standard cricket.

It was real and intense. The pitches did favour fast bowling it is true. In that regard it was unfair but consequently made for harder play as well. I can understand why Packer wanted it that way. A weakness of the contracted player system was lack of deprh. He couldn’t afford to have his fast bowlers going down to injury bowling on batting pitches and ordered pitches for pace bowling accordingly.

All true, and whey the batting performances of the top 3 guys really stand out.

And as I've said, it has to be rated higher than the substandard tests that were concurrently being played at the time.

 

[Johan]

- No, you argued WSC was carnival cricket and inferior in quality. Different perhaps but certainly achievements there should be considered meritorious.

- The pace battalion itself is just a manifestation of the ultra aggressive winning mindset that the 70s Aussies had that passed to the WI, not just a tactic. That next level of competitiveness and hard edge is what changed cricket and had a lasting impression.

- It was Lillees aggression that inspired Imran and he wanted to emulate that as a paceman, and Chappell was his captaincy inspiration too. Imran's aggression changed Pakistan cricket.

- Hadlee still drew from Lillee is the main point.

- Again, Lloyd himself points out that there were gifted WIs teams of the past of the Calypso.cricket sort that were inconsistent and the approach he took for his side inspired by WSC and the Aussies took his team to the next level

- Yes, I did, because that's what it is, they were all paid by the same guy and the main intent was to entertain, not to perform and win, sadly, that's just how things are.

- But... it's not? the pace batallion was developed because he had Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Wayne Daniels. They came to England in 1933 with a pace batallion and deployed body line tactics which led to the MCC free lighting ban for it. What actually happened is the Australia series and then Port of Spain humiliation convinced Lloyd that pacers are the way forward and then he just happened to have the perfect weaponry to create his batallion, pace dominant attacks are not uncommon.

- You literally argue that post Imran the Pakistan team underachieved because of mentality, and now we're saying they had aggressive mentality from the Australians??

- Sure, but that doesn't prove anything.

- Yeah, they were inconsistent because they always lacked something, in the 50s they had exceptional batting but their batters toured poorly and their bowling was lacking, in the 30s they had world class bowling but lacked the batting, I'm sure the balance of team helped them having the winning mindset.

 

[Johan]

You're leaving the community?

I hope all is ok.

I was considering to but was mostly asked not to so decided against it.

 

[kyear2]

Overall, it was watered down WI vs Australia with a very biased type of bowling, and a pretty strong case of conflict of interest of what the owner wanted.

This is really a ridiculous post.

Which was more watered down, the travesty of what was passing for tests during that period? Or where the vast majority of the great players were?

Logic has to kick in at some point for you doesn't it?

 

[subshakerz]

- Yes, I did, because that's what it is, they were all paid by the same guy and the main intent was to entertain, not to perform and win, sadly, that's just how things are.

- But... it's not? the pace batallion was developed because he had Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Wayne Daniels. They came to England in 1933 with a pace batallion and deployed body line tactics which led to the MCC free lighting ban for it. What actually happened is the Australia series and then Port of Spain humiliation convinced Lloyd that pacers are the way forward and then he just happened to have the perfect weaponry to create his batallion, pace dominant attacks are not uncommon.

- You literally argue that post Imran the Pakistan team underachieved because of mentality, and now we're saying they had aggressive mentality from the Australians??

- Sure, but that doesn't prove anything.

- Yeah, they were inconsistent because they always lacked something, in the 50s they had exceptional batting but their batters toured poorly and their bowling was lacking, in the 30s they had world class bowling but lacked the batting, I'm sure the balance of team helped them having the winning mindset.

- That's where you are wrong and you have given no evidence that they had any less desire to perform when there is plenty of player evidence to the contrary.

- The idea definitely started with the 75/76 Aus WI series for Lloyd, you yourself admitted it and Lloyd has said it on countless occasions.

- Imran was definitely influenced in his captaincy by Chappell and the aggressive brand for Pakistan last for a long time. You are acting like my argument is that all teams forevermore are going to be aggressive, I just stated that general aggression and competitiveness and professional spirit became more normalised.

- Just the indelible influence or the 70s Aus side but sure you can argue it's more Lillee specific here.

- Balance is one thing but you are ignoring Lloyd himself talking about a new and different approach he took this team to get them to be ruthless and consistent.

 

[subshakerz]

This is really a ridiculous post.

Which was more watered down, the travesty of what was passing for tests during that period? Or where the vast majority of the great players were?

Logic has to kick in at some point for you doesn't it?

I don't get how picking the best players from a national team leaves you with a watered down side, lol.

 

[kyear2]

Now we can safely discard Hutton saying Gavaskar was better than Viv...

So what he actually said was



Is there another reference that you're referring to?

Plus we all know Hutton preferred the slower stuff.

 

[kyear2]

That I take into account more for a particular skill. For example, Murali and Warne both talk about Sachin as probably the best they bowled to. I factor that in his spin playing skill. But Sachin faced them in about 10% of his overall games. What about the rest of the 90%? We get a lot of anamolies in peer rating because of this. Some people perform at their best against certain guys, who in turn end up rating them highly. Doesn't mean they were this good against everyone else.

Didn't Murali rate Lara higher while Warne went with Sachin?

Going on memory here.

 

[Johan]

- That's where you are wrong and you have given no evidence that they had any less desire to perform when there is plenty of player evidence to the contrary.

- The idea definitely started with the 75/76 Aus WI series for Lloyd, you yourself admitted it and Lloyd has said it on countless occasions.

- Imran was definitely influenced in his captaincy by Chappell and the aggressive brand for Pakistan last for a long time. You are acting like my argument is that all teams forevermore are going to be aggressive, I just stated that general aggression and competitiveness and professional spirit became more normalised.

- Just the indelible influence or the 70s Aus side but sure you can argue it's more Lillee specific here.

- Balance is one thing but you are ignoring Lloyd himself talking about a new and different approach he took this team to get them to be ruthless and consistent.

- Again, it could've the same level, even then it wouldn't be the same thing as it was biased against things that have been essential to Test Cricket in the 150 year history – slow batting, medium pacers and spin bowlers.

- Like for the West Indies? sure, they went back to their roots and earlier strengths due to the failiure of spinners and the 1975-76 Australia tour, how does that transform Cricket? for 15 years they had a great pace quaret, Okay, that in no sense effects any other side. For example, under Kohli India became obsessed with making a pace battery, and they managed to, did that transform Cricket? obviously not.

- For aggressiveness you need results and the results come from good teams, it's not a coincidence that after Imran the team declined and became underachievers under the fixer and then became an afterthought, because they stopped getting results, they couldn't be aggressive anymore.

- It's all Lillee, but I still don't see what that has to do with intensity of Cricket being completely changed from what was before all around.

- the approach was only viable due to having an excellent and well balanced team.

 

[subshakerz]

- Again, it could've the same level, even then it wouldn't be the same thing as it was biased against things that have been essential to Test Cricket in the 150 year history – slow batting, medium pacers and spin bowlers.

- Like for the West Indies? sure, they went back to their roots and earlier strengths due to the failiure of spinners and the 1975-76 Australia tour, how does that transform Cricket? for 15 years they had a great pace quaret, Okay, that in no sense effects any other side. For example, under Kohli India became obsessed with making a pace battery, and they managed to, did that transform Cricket? obviously not.

- For aggressiveness you need results and the results come from good teams, it's not a coincidence that after Imran the team declined and became underachievers under the fixer and then became an afterthought, because they stopped getting results, they couldn't be aggressive anymore.

- It's all Lillee, but I still don't see what that has to do with intensity of Cricket being completely changed from what was before all around.

- the approach was only viable due to having an excellent and well balanced team.

If you accept WSC is same level but not interchangeable with tests, that is fine, it just means we don't ignore WSC record.

Reading your post I realise your problem is that you don't even think aggressiveness in cricket is a thing at all. Matches are simply products of teams playing of different quality without a style of play.

Hence why you state nothing really changes. But the reality is that it is very hard to prove to you a change in sport psychology if you just look at scorecards.

You can check Imran at 1:45 talking about Chappells teams influence across the game. It's not going to be uniform and even but the effect is definitely there.

 

[capt_Luffy]

I will just say if you want to count WSC as Test equivalent, you have to do with a bunch of other tour matches as well.

 

[Johan]

If you accept WSC is same level but not interchangeable with tests, that is fine, it just means we don't ignore WSC record.

Reading your post I realise your problem is that you don't even think aggressiveness in cricket is a thing at all. Matches are simply products of teams playing of different quality without a style of play.

Hence why you state nothing really changes.

You can check Imran at 1:45 talking about Chappells teams influence across the game. It's not going to be uniform and even but the effect is definitely there.

Same level as the runs that were scored in tour games, take that or leave it, I'm not going to go above that, not even a horrible deal but it's a lot more comfortable for them to be grouped with tradional "first class" Cricket rather than with international test cricket, to which only the so called "unofficial tests" should be directly applicable.

My view on aggression is simple, it works when a team is good, it falters when a team is bad, individual to individual mindset is more relevant, some players are naturally aggressive (Viv, Lillee, Fred) and those usually achieve more, that much I recognise but that's more of a natural element rather than something that can be artificially applied to entire teams. Aggressive teams drop less winnable games but they also generally lose more saveable games, the opposite is true for more cautious teams.

Generally, the reason I don't agree with the idea that the WSC changed Cricket is because simply put, I'd argue the modern mindsets are more similar to those before WSC than the West Indies team that emerged with the pace battalion or the 1975 Australia team, once in a while you'd have a hyper aggressive team like that, especially when ATG sides but the majority of sides were not impacted by either the 1975 Australian side or the WSC, and even Australia regressed to being more docile, then aggressive against under Waugh, and then docile after their greats left.

current Australia is a lot less intense and a lot calmer than the 1975 Australian team, that just doesn't tell me much, it's not like every team became hyper aggressive after 70s, a few teams had golden eras like Pakistan and Windies and they had a ruthless mindset, but it's not remotely true for everyone.

 

[subshakerz]

Same level as the runs that were scored in tour games, take that or leave it, I'm not going to go above that, not even a horrible deal but it's a lot more comfortable for them to be grouped with tradional "first class" Cricket rather than with international test cricket, to which only the so called "unofficial tests" should be directly applicable.

My view on aggression is simple, it works when a team is good, it falters when a team is bad, individual to individual mindset is more relevant, some players are naturally aggressive (Viv, Lillee, Fred) and those usually achieve more, that much I recognise but that's more of a natural element rather than something that can be artificially applied to entire teams. Aggressive teams drop less winnable games but they also generally lose more saveable games, the opposite is true for more cautious teams.

Generally, the reason I don't agree with the idea that the WSC changed Cricket is because simply put, I'd argue the modern mindsets are more similar to those before WSC than the West Indies team that emerged with the pace battalion or the 1975 Australia team, once in a while you'd have a hyper aggressive team like that, especially when ATG sides but the majority of sides were not impacted by either the 1975 Australian side or the WSC, and even Australia regressed to being more docile, then aggressive against under Waugh, and then docile after their greats left.

current Australia is a lot less intense and a lot calmer than the 1975 Australian team, that just doesn't tell me much, it's not like every team became hyper aggressive after 70s, a few teams had golden eras like Pakistan and Windies and they had a ruthless mindset, but it's not remotely true for everyone.

- No, tours games are clearly less high stake than WSC which given the player pool and compeititeness is intl class, just different if you like.

- Sorry but aggressive teams will win more games, period, regardless of their quality. Unlike you can provide actual examples.

- You problem if you haven't properly characterized pre 70s cricket which undoubtedly had a Victorian residue to it. So modern iterations may be more or less aggressive but that have graduated from that generally genteel standard. You just don't want those era cricketers to look bad which is not necessarily the case.

 

[kyear2]

- Again, it could've the same level, even then it wouldn't be the same thing as it was biased against things that have been essential to Test Cricket in the 150 year history – slow batting, medium pacers and spin bowlers.

- Like for the West Indies? sure, they went back to their roots and earlier strengths due to the failiure of spinners and the 1975-76 Australia tour, how does that transform Cricket? for 15 years they had a great pace quaret, Okay, that in no sense effects any other side. For example, under Kohli India became obsessed with making a pace battery, and they managed to, did that transform Cricket? obviously not.

- For aggressiveness you need results and the results come from good teams, it's not a coincidence that after Imran the team declined and became underachievers under the fixer and then became an afterthought, because they stopped getting results, they couldn't be aggressive anymore.

- It's all Lillee, but I still don't see what that has to do with intensity of Cricket being completely changed from what was before all around.

- the approach was only viable due to having an excellent and well balanced team.

I really hope this whole thing isn't based on the slow batting thing.

Like for Luffy I know that his whole thing against it has at least a little to do with Sunny not being invited and trying to legitimize his record in the tests that were being played against scrubs.

It's crazy how a few weeks ago there were many who were saying that Packer deserved to be on the mount Rushmore of cricket, not it's being discredited in the most ridiculous of ways. It pushed and professionalized cricket, introduced safety equipment and was among the highest levels of the game ever played. It's literally where the best players of the era was.

For someone who's also watched a decent amount of it, I can say that it was cricket, real proper cricket, not Bazball, nor just endless bouncers, or agricultural shots.

Yes, aggressive play, fast blowing and superb fielding were prioritized, some would argue that's how the game should be played, and the template that subsequently the West Indies, Australia and South Africa successively followed to being the best teams in the world.

I don't know what point you've been trying to make of late, but the inconsistencies are wild and making it not only harder to take you seriously, but taking away from who was once seen as among the better posters on the forum.

 

[Thala_0710]

Didn't Murali rate Lara higher while Warne went with Sachin?

Going on memory here.

He has spoken about both as being the best at different points of time. He rates Sehwag as the toughest he's bowled to but I'm pretty sure he rates Sachin higher than Lara as a cricketer.