Greatest Team to never play a test

[jimmy101]

I ****ing hate the Big Botch League.

 

[Starfighter]

'Big botch' is a good description of the fielding on display.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Well I thought you Australians support bashy bashy teams?

well they have cheerleaders and fireworks so yeah

 

[GoodAreasShane]

The Big Bash can be fun, was happy the Adelaide Strikers came out on top, but it wouldn't mean anywhere near as much as a Shield victory. All in all, being a South Australian cricket fan is a somewhat masochistic endeavour.

 

[TheJediBrah]

The Big Bash can be fun, was happy the Adelaide Strikers came out on top, but it wouldn't mean anywhere near as much as a Shield victory. All in all, being a South Australian cricket fan is a somewhat masochistic endeavour.

Probably the only state whose players are unjustly ignored by Aus selectors even more than Victoria. Ferguson getting 1 Test on a horrible greentop, getting run out, then dropped for Nic Maddinson who gets 3 Tests like lmao wut is that. Sayers dropped from the squad after 1 Test for Ben Doggett (like rofl) and no one's even talking about it. I mean he'd probably be useless in the UAE but technically he was the incumbent and I haven't even seen a single mention in a single bit of media about him being left out.

Doesn't explain why Travis Head keeps getting selected though. Maybe his parents were from NSW or he roomed with a Marsh brother at the academy?

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Probably the only state whose players are unjustly ignored by Aus selectors even more than Victoria. Ferguson getting 1 Test on a horrible greentop, getting run out, then dropped for Nic Maddinson who gets 3 Tests like lmao wut is that. Sayers dropped from the squad after 1 Test for Ben Doggett (like rofl) and no one's even talking about it. I mean he'd probably be useless in the UAE but technically he was the incumbent and I haven't even seen a single mention in a single bit of media about him being left out.

Doesn't explain why Travis Head keeps getting selected though. Maybe his parents were from NSW or he roomed with a Marsh brother at the academy?

The treatment Ferguson received from the selectors was absolutely dreadful, he deserved a proper run to prove his worth, especially with the next test being at his home ground.

 

[Bolo]

Yeah by the 80's Richards, Pollock, Proctor and van der Bijl would all have been past it, that probably turns themselves into their 90's team where they have a lot of grit but lack the true class to be consistently #1.

Proctor was passed it for the whole of the 80s. Richards and Van Der Bijl retired in 83, Van Der Bijl to get a job while still at his peak, which he probably wouldn't have needed to do if RSA had test status. Pollock was passed it for pretty much the whole of the 80s, but played his last rebel tour in 87 and averaged 65 across the tours. Guy was an absolute beast.

I reckon RSA in the early 80s would have still been one of the notable historical sides if they had everyone available and experienced, but mediocre by the end of the decade.

 

[AndrewB]

Not really if you put club over country (like a lot do with premiership football). England are constantly grabbing players for international duty which annoys a lot of county fans.

County fans bitch about it both ways; I remember around 2000, when Glos kept winning one-day trophies, all the Glos fans I knew complaining because their players weren't getting picked in ODIs.

 

[wpdavid]

It's also worth noting that even if SA had retained test status the two sides would probably have never met anyway. None of WI, Pakistan or India played SA until readmission, refusing to play them in the 25-odd years between the war and the beginning of the boycott.

It's also worth mentioning that SA weren't interested in playing against those sides anyway. Never had been, and still squealing when faced with a few Maoris when touring NZ in the 1970s. I think it was Learie Constantine who said they couldn't cope with being in a position where they could potentially lose to a non-white side.

 

[vcs]

I once watched a final (when Gujarat won?) and there were even less spectators than the Sheffield Shield. Does England have the only domestic first-class competition which actually has fanbases and teams people follow?

There is plenty of inter-state rivalry in India in general, but I don't know anyone who gives much of a crap about the Ranji Trophy. I think the IPL has generated a few rivalries like Chennai-Bangalore, Chennai-Mumbai etc. but I don't know any hardcore IPL fans, and I don't know if there is much overlap between them and people who follow FC cricket closely.

Basically I don't know much lol

 

[jimmy101]

Admittedly the local rivalries in the BBL these days have eclipsed any first class/list A rivalries here in Oz. The media coverage of the hit & giggle stuff here is much more diligent than for any other type of cricket (save for maybe Tests against the rest of the big 4).

Gonna take a stab in the dark and guess the same thing is pretty much happening everywhere.

 

[Flametree]

If assessing the potential South African sides of the 70's and 80's you probably have to add back Tony Greig, Allan Lamb and Robin Smith (plus Wessels) who would have played for their home country had it been on the cards.

 

[jimmy101]

I second that

 

[wpdavid]

If assessing the potential South African sides of the 70's and 80's you probably have to add back Tony Greig, Allan Lamb and Robin Smith (plus Wessels) who would have played for their home country had it been on the cards.

Good point, but I wonder whether Greig would even have made the early 1970s SA team.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Good point, but I wonder whether Greig would even have made the early 1970s SA team.

Greig was probably the best of those players mentioned tbh

 

[morgieb]

If assessing the potential South African sides of the 70's and 80's you probably have to add back Tony Greig, Allan Lamb and Robin Smith (plus Wessels) who would have played for their home country had it been on the cards.

Good point. Thought IIRC Greig was already playing for Sussex by the time the boycott started.

 

[jimmy101]

Greig was probably the best of those players mentioned tbh

Indeed, but WPD was talking about Greigy's chances of getting into an early 70's Saffer side. Considering they had Barlow, Procter & Rice as all rounders too, Big Tone would have by no means been a certainty.

 

[OverratedSanity]

The second innings was played against Commonwealth XI in 1950. The Ceylon team was all out for 153 runs, with Sathasivam scoring 96 of them. The innings of Sathasivam came against West Indians Frank Worrell, Geo Tribe, Fred Freer and GeoPope who were considered invincible then. Frank Worrell, the former West Indian captain, led the applause of his team as Satha walked to the pavilion. Not often would a batsman be given an ovation, while marching back to the pavilion. Worrell publicly proclaimed that if he was to pick a World XI, “Sathasivam from Ceylon” would be the first choice. Later, Warrell confided about Satha to Sir Garfield Sobers before Sobers came to Ceylon for a coaching spell. Later Garfield Sobers would call Sathasivam "the greatest batsman ever on earth".

https://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/mahadevan-sathasivam-forgotten-prince-sri-lanka-cricket

Most foreign players who played against him thought he was ridiculously talented. He was involved in a high profile case where he was accused of murdering his wife too... One of the most interesting players to never get a test cap for sure.

This one's a pretty famous innings of his too: South India XI v Ceylon Cricket Association at Madras, 2-4 Feb 1947

There's another SL batsman called de Saram who was considered almost as good. 128 out of a total of 216 against a spin attack of Grimmett and Fleetwood Smith, both of whom took 5fer that game must have been pretty special.

Oxford University v Australians at Oxford, 19-21 May 1934

Probably the best batsman ever to lead an attempted military coup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrick_de_Saram#Coup

 

[AndrewB]

Good point. Thought IIRC Greig was already playing for Sussex by the time the boycott started.

Yes, in 1966. According to Wikipedia: "After Greig scored 156 in 230 minutes against a strong Lancashire attack in his first game for Sussex, his future direction changed irrevocably. He wrote a brief note to his father, telling him he would not be coming back to go to university. Greig set a goal of making the England Test team in six years"

 

[AndrewB]

The second innings was played against Commonwealth XI in 1950. The Ceylon team was all out for 153 runs, with Sathasivam scoring 96 of them. The innings of Sathasivam came against West Indians Frank Worrell, Geo Tribe, Fred Freer and GeoPope who were considered invincible then.

That's one West Indian batsman who bowled a bit, and three (non-West Indian) bowlers who played a handful of Tests between them, leaving me wondering how accurate the rest of this article is.