Great domestic sides of the past

Place a team picture (if you can) and list the squad of any team you rate as a great domestic side of the past.

Will start with Eastern Province winning their first First-class title in their history in 1988/89 after joining SA domestic cricket in the 1893/94 season. In so doing ended Transvaal's dominance of the 1980s by beating them in the final.

St George's Park - EP beat Tvl to win Currie Cup for the first time

Final: Eastern Province v Transvaal at Port Elizabeth, 10-14 Mar 1989




Players used.
Phil Amm
Adrian Birrell
Dave Callaghan
Ant Hobson
Rod McCurdy (Australia)
Ken McEwan
Brett Matthews
Vlam Michau
Meyrick Pringle
Dave Richardson
Christiaan Roelofse
Mark Rushmere
Tim Shaw
Greg Thomas (England)
Kepler Wessels

They would go on to share the 1989/90 season title with WP and win the the 1991/92 title again where players like John Maguire (Australia), Brett Schultz, Rudi Bryson, Louis Koen, Paul Rayment & Eldine Baptiste (West Indies) were in those squads on top of most of the above.

Check out the 1980-81 Western Australian team that played the Queensland team in the Sheffield Shield final.

Western Australia v Queensland at Perth, 7-10 Mar 1981

Some of the players

D Lillee
A Border
G Chappell
K Hughes
R Marsh
J Thompson
T Alderman
G Wood
B Yardley
C Rackerman
G Richie
R Phillips
G Dymock
K Wessels
C Serjeant

The Wessels/Border/Chappell teams really should have done better for Queensland than they did.

stephen said:

The Wessels/Border/Chappell teams really should have done better for Queensland than they did.

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Crazy poaching as many players as you did yet still sucking.

No idea who else was there at the time, but Somerset with Botham, Richards and Garner must have been a pretty handy side.

1997 Canterbury team:

GR Stead
DJ Murray
SP Fleming
CZ Harris
CD McMillan
NJ Astle
CL Cairns
MW Priest
+MEL Lane
WA Wisneski
SE Bond

FINAL: Canterbury v Otago at Christchurch, 29 Mar - 1 Apr 1997

Every player in the team except for Lane played for NZ at some point.

The sides in this match were handy:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...a-vs-new-south-wales-sheffield-shield-1995-96

WA had Hussey, Langer, Martyn, Moody, Gilchrist, Julien, Angel and Reid.

NSW had Taylor, Slater, S Waugh, M Waugh, Bevan, Matthews, S Lee and McGrath.

One and a half test sides between the two sides.

At the same time, these two sides were playing:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...eensland-vs-victoria-sheffield-shield-1995-96

Queensland had Hayden, Love, Law, Border, Maher, Seccombe, Kasprowicz, McDermott and Rackemann.

Vic had Elliot, Jones, Hodge, Reiffel, Warne, Fleming and Williams.

Pretty strong 4 sides.

stephen said:

The sides in this match were handy:

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...a-vs-new-south-wales-sheffield-shield-1995-96

WA had Hussey, Langer, Martyn, Moody, Gilchrist, Julien, Angel and Reid.

NSW had Taylor, Slater, S Waugh, M Waugh, Bevan, Matthews, S Lee and McGrath.

One and a half test sides between the two sides.

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I remember we used to get a channel called Australia Network on cable around then. They had this school gameshow thing called "Amazing" but they also showed highlights of some of the Shield games.and I do remember seeing some NSW games around this time. Found it weird that they had Steve Waugh at 3 and Mark at 4, but when they played for Aus, Steve moved down to 5 but Mark stayed at 4.

Seems like Mark Waugh was Tendulkar before Tendulkar himself was, in refusing to bat outside a particular number.

honestbharani said:

I remember we used to get a channel called Australia Network on cable around then. They had this school gameshow thing called "Amazing" but they also showed highlights of some of the Shield games.and I do remember seeing some NSW games around this time. Found it weird that they had Steve Waugh at 3 and Mark at 4, but when they played for Aus, Steve moved down to 5 but Mark stayed at 4.

Seems like Mark Waugh was Tendulkar before Tendulkar himself was, in refusing to bat outside a particular number.

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Amazing was amazing. My school got to go on it one year after I graduated primary school.

From the South African 1995/96 season:

Natal v W.Province at Durban, 26-29 Jan 1996

Nine of the Natal side and ten of the Western Province side played international cricket (and that's Malcolm Marshall and Desmond Haynes lining up on opposing sides), while Natal also had Jonty Rhodes and Shaun Pollock on their books at the time, and Western Province had Herschelle Gibbs.

Dendarii said:

From the South African 1995/96 season:

Natal v W.Province at Durban, 26-29 Jan 1996

Nine of the Natal side and ten of the Western Province side played international cricket (and that's Malcolm Marshall and Desmond Haynes lining up on opposing sides), while Natal also had Jonty Rhodes and Shaun Pollock on their books at the time, and Western Province had Herschelle Gibbs.

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Can add Symcox for Natal.

Even Rundle and Dawson were internationals for WP on top of Gibbs who missed out.

Used to love this WP team. Watching Dessie Haynes as the overseas Pro is some of the stuff that made me such a big WP supporter. Of course later on WP had another juggernaut team.

Klusener specializes in big hauls I guess. Its either 6 or 7 or 8-fer or nothing

honestbharani said:

I remember we used to get a channel called Australia Network on cable around then. They had this school gameshow thing called "Amazing" but they also showed highlights of some of the Shield games.and I do remember seeing some NSW games around this time. Found it weird that they had Steve Waugh at 3 and Mark at 4, but when they played for Aus, Steve moved down to 5 but Mark stayed at 4.

Seems like Mark Waugh was Tendulkar before Tendulkar himself was, in refusing to bat outside a particular number.

Click to expand...

I remember Amazing. I used to shout at my TV cause the kids would always miss finding those letters when they crawled through the maze.

jimmy101 said:

I remember Amazing. I used to shout at my TV cause the kids would always miss finding those letters when they crawled through the maze.

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Yeah and it was cool watching them play Mario Kart on live TV to win points. Such a good show.

Plus that weird SNES game where they raced unicycles, or something like that.

I remember the Mario Kart and the letters and then that insane find the word then jump and type it out on the keyboard on the floor thingy they had. Don't recall unicycles though, for some reason. Which network had it over there originally?

Adders said:

No idea who else was there at the time, but Somerset with Botham, Richards and Garner must have been a pretty handy side.

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I think your first bit is key. The rest of the side was OK but no great shakes; Rose, Denning, Marks, Roebuck, Dredge and a bunch of guys not even as good as them. So they were good enough to win a few one-day cups, but rarely even close to winning the CC.

Middlesex had a more than handy side in the early 1980s. Certainly a very strong attack (Daniel, Van de Bijl, Edmonds, Emburey etc.), and better than average batting too.

Surrey had an outstanding line-up in the 1950s; May, Barrington, Loader, Laker, Lock et al. I've probably forgotten several very fine players there.
Ditto Yorkshire in the 1960s; Boycott, Sharp, Close, Hampshire, Trueman, Nicholson and several others who escape me right now.

I remember Surrey had a host of international players even in the mid to late 90s. Were insanely strong in whatever county games I saw.

honestbharani said:

I remember Surrey had a host of international players even in the mid to late 90s. Were insanely strong in whatever county games I saw.

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Yeah, we had a really fine side then. A first choice XI plus first reserve would have included Butcher, Ward, Stewart, Thorpe, Brown, Hollioake A, Hollioake B, Batty (the keeper, not the offie), Bicknell, Tudor, Saqlain and Salisbury.
I know that Salisbury was out of his depth in test matches, but he was more than good enough in the county game. Ditto Ward. Batty the only one not to have played international cricket, but he did a great job for us, especially when some of the top 5 were on England duty.