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    Greatest Test Match

    1994 SCG match. SA won, thanks to Fanie De Villiers, another very good bowler for South Africa in 1990s, who played very few Test matches. SA should have won the match more easily though. Australia collapsed from 50/1 to 75/8 while chasing only around 120. As usual SA became neagtive-minded when...
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    Greatest Test Match

    I remember watching live on TV, the tied Test match in Madras between India and Australia in 1986. Insane drama throughout the match. Very under hyped match, given that it was only the second tied Test match so far in Test cricket history. The match had pretty decent cricketing stars (Allan...
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    Curtly Ambrose vs Dale Steyn

    4 of Steyn's 10 away-5W-hauls came in Zimbabwe, West Indies and Sri Lanka (relatively minnows). And in one of the Sri Lanka innings where Steyn took 5 wickets, he went for 6+ runs per over (at one point Steyn's figures were 8 overs 0 maidens 64 runs and 1 wicket - and this was a Test match). Sri...
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    Curtly Ambrose vs Dale Steyn

    Steyn's success in the SC was mainly in Bangladesh & India (didn't play much in Pak, mixed results in Sri Lanka). He wasn't particularly outstanding against Australia or England either (only 2 Test series out of 9 where he averaged below 25 against the two). In general, although he had a...
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    Brian Lara vs Sunil Gavaskar

    As far as subject of the thread is concerned, the answer is pretty straightforward as you have given in your above post. But beyond a point, classifying someone as a genius or not, does become vague and subjective. For example - would Sachin (not Gavaskar) rank as a genius in the same category...
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    Curtly Ambrose vs Dale Steyn

    Ambrose, before his rotor-cuff shoulder surgery in 1994, was simply something else. He was phenomenal everywhere then (Asia/Australia/England). His first couple of series in Australia, he was about as unplayable as I have seen a fast bowler be. The combination of pace, trajectory of the...
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    Brian Lara vs Ricky Ponting

    I could be way off here, or maybe it's just me, but I often felt that because of Ponting's instinct to play the pull shot against short pitched deliveries, I found him to be pretty vulnerable against well directed short-pitched bowling at high pace. I mean, against well directed short pitched...
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    ODI : Glen McGrath vs Sachin Tendulkar

    McGrath was part of 4 ODI World-Cup teams in his career, his team won 3 and came to the final in the remaining. His contribution to his team's success in those 3 won ODI World-Cups was immense - 65 wickets at an average of 15.9, an economy rate of less than 4 RPO, and a strike-rate of a wicket...
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    Wasim Akram vs Brian Lara

    For me, Lara as an ATG batsman ranks slightly better than Wasim as an ATG fast bowler, however, if I have to choose one of the two to have in my team, I would go with Wasim because of my bias towards great fast bowlers (shaped by watching live of the utter domination of West Indies team in the...
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    Symonds vs Klusener vs Flintoff

    For a couple of years, after that his pace dropped sharply. Mohammed Azharuddin gave him nightmares though.
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    Symonds vs Klusener vs Flintoff

    I would take Flintoff in ODIs just for his bowling skills alone. I remember his spell to Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag in WC 2003. They (particularly Tendulkar) were in full flow, absolutely ripping apart the English attack of Caddick and Anderson, when Flintoff came into bowl in the...
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    Young Lara vs Old Lara

    Very hard to split. Lara had a 50+ innings in 11 of his first 13 Test matches and this included Test matches in Australia, Test matches against peak Wasim-Waqar in 1993 and a one-off Test match against Donald in 1992. Very decent consistency against great attacks. He missed it by a whisker in...
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    Young Lara vs Old Lara

    He broke his right forearm few weeks before India toured in early 2002. He used the matches against India to build back strength in his long rested forearm. He did pretty decently against New Zealand later that year. His upswing back to his earlier super-consistency actually started from the...
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    500+ Runs in a Test Series on 2+ Occasions

    5 of the 7 times Lara scored 500+ runs in a series, he did it in a Test series with 4 matches or less (and 6 of the 7 times, he batted 8 innings or less in the series - basically equivalent of batting in 4 matches). And the one time when he batted more than 8 innings in a series where he scored...
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    Viv vs Lara vs Smith: Who has the best series performances?

    Personally I put Lara's 2003, 500+ run series performance against Aus (533 runs in a 4 match series) on par with his much more famous 99 series performance against the same Aus team. While the 1999 series was almost like a God-scripted "Rise from the Ashes" story from Lara's perspective, I felt...
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    Curtly Ambrose vs Dale Steyn

    Ambrose for me. Rarely, if ever, seen a batsman thrash him around in Test match cricket. Even the best opposition batsmen were almost in awe of him, particularly before his shoulder surgery in 1994. Relatively speaking, saw Steyn getting mauled a lot for my liking (albeit Steyn bowled in a much...
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    When did the 'great' West Indies team(s) stop being great?

    I don't think West Indies were close to winning the last Test in the 90-91 series. It was a dead 5th day wicket with nothing in it for West Indian pace bowlers. Unless one knew how to reverse swing at high pace (which then West Indian bowlers didn't), they posed little threat to batsmen on that...
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    When did the 'great' West Indies team(s) stop being great?

    Pak drew with them again in 1990-91 (after their 4-0 against England). In fact, 3 of the 5 Test series they played against Pak from 77 to 91 were drawn 1-1. The other two WI won by a very slim margin of 1 Test [2-1 in 77, and 1-0 in 80]. They always struggled against Pak even throughout their...
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    When did the 'great' West Indies team(s) stop being great?

    Rot set in a few years earlier, it came into effect as a series loss in 1995. But yes, the fact that the WI team lost just 1 Test series all the way from 1976 till 1995 (almost 2 decades) is an astonishing record. On a different note (not on this WI being weak against spin thing), Pakistan...
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    Brian McMillan

    McMillan was one of the best slip catchers. I don’t recall him dropping many catches.

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