Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Except that there was absolutely nothing at stake in World Series Cricket. It didn't matter - you weren't playing for anything. Except money, obviously. The standard was only perceived - there is no way to prove it one way or other.Matt79 said:You keep bagging him out for choosing to play World Series Cricket like doing so was a bad thing. Cricket would not be what it is today if people, like Lillee, hadn't taken the decision to vote with their feet. The fact that doing so earnt them fair recompense for their efforts doesn't detract from the fact that today's cricket fans owe World Series Cricket a hell of a lot. Plus it was a much higher standard of cricket than most of the Test cricket at that time. AND if you add in Lillee's stats from those matches to his test averages, an even better and fairer picture of his comes out.
IMO cricket WOULD be what it is today if World Series Cricket hadn't happened. World Series cricket did a few good things for cricket, which almost certainly would've happened anyway, while doing one very bad thing. IMO that makes it bad - full-stop. And players deserve to be thought of as slightly lesser for joining it.