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West Indies and Australia - Comparing The Dynasties

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
The West Indian Cricketing Dynasty
by Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Windies Cricket, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
The West Indian Cricketing Dynasty
by Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Windies Cricket, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Random. :laugh:
Yes I get the reference.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Interesting article. I think all you can say about the contest between the "Best of Windies late 70s-80s" team and a "Best of Australia late 90s-00s" team is that it would be an absolute cracker.

Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lara, Lloyd, Richardson, Dujon, Marshall, Holding, Ambrose, Garner

vs

Hayden, Langer, Ponting, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee/Fleming/Kasprowicz, Gillespie, McGrath
 

bagapath

International Captain
Interesting article. I think all you can say about the contest between the "Best of Windies late 70s-80s" team and a "Best of Australia late 90s-00s" team is that it would be an absolute cracker.

Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lara, Lloyd, Richardson, Dujon, Marshall, Holding, Ambrose, Garner

vs

Hayden, Langer, Ponting, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee/Fleming/Kasprowicz, Gillespie, McGrath
I would bring in mcdermott or reid to bowl with mcgrath, warne and gillespie. i also like mark taylor more than langer.
 
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The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
I would bring in mcdermottor reid to bowl with mcgrath, warne and gillespie. i also like mark taylor more than langer.
The Australian XI is for the period starting in WI in 95 though. McDermott was all but finished by then and Reid had already played his last Test. Taylor is the only debatable one and many would argue his best years as a batsman were behind him.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Interesting article. I think all you can say about the contest between the "Best of Windies late 70s-80s" team and a "Best of Australia late 90s-00s" team is that it would be an absolute cracker.

Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Lara, Lloyd, Richardson, Dujon, Marshall, Holding, Ambrose, Garner

vs

Hayden, Langer, Ponting, M.Waugh, S.Waugh, Martyn, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee/Fleming/Kasprowicz, Gillespie, McGrath
It'd be a cracker indeed. But I don't think Lara would qualify as he was from a slightly later era. Anyhow with or without Lara I think I prefer the Windies bowling (just) and the Australian batting (just).
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Think both sides have better bowling attacks than batting line ups tbh... I'd say the Aussies bowling is stronger than the Windies batting, esp. if Lara isn't in.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
It'd be a cracker indeed. But I don't think Lara would qualify as he was from a slightly later era. Anyhow with or without Lara I think I prefer the Windies bowling (just) and the Australian batting (just).
Yeah, nor would Ambrose TBH. Ambrose debuted after and Lara long after West Indies' invincibility was finished.

West Indies' was between '76 and '86; Australia's was between '89 and '06/07. West Indies were more invincible - far more - than Australia were, but Australia kept-up their near-invincibility for quite a bit longer.

(I won't mention the fact that I'd absolutely love to see what West Indies' bowlers and batsmen would do to Hayden, Martyn and Lee, obviously...)
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
(I won't mention the fact that I'd absolutely love to see what West Indies' bowlers and batsmen would do to Hayden, Martyn and Lee, obviously...)
Worst non-mentioning ever. It was the mentioning part that let you down.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah, nor would Ambrose TBH. Ambrose debuted after and Lara long after West Indies' invincibility was finished.

West Indies' was between '76 and '86; Australia's was between '89 and '06/07. West Indies were more invincible - far more - than Australia were, but Australia kept-up their near-invincibility for quite a bit longer.

(I won't mention the fact that I'd absolutely love to see what West Indies' bowlers and batsmen would do to Hayden, Martyn and Lee, obviously...)
CBF to do the research but my recollection was that the Windies were pretty invincible in the late 80s too. Certainly when they came to England in 1988 with a team which included Ambrose (and a young Ian Bishop in the squad showing that the production line was still working) there was no sense that this team was vulnerable or in decline. And they duly exterminated England in the Tests.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Yeah, they munted the Aussies in 88 as well, showing that the 87 WC was, if not a false dawn, not quite the commencement of a new era just yet either.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
West Indies weren't beaten between '86/87 and '91, no, but a) they could've been very easily and b) they were only good at thrashing the rubbish teams (like England, who were in '88 at their lowest ebb ever, and Australia, who in '88/89 were still exceptionally weak and not yet on the road up in Test matches, which would begin in the '89 Ashes). Against the stronger teams (Pakistan; New Zealand; and India in India) they were no longer capable of winning. Holding and Garner were basically gone after the 1986 Blackwash, and said series marked the high-tide of Caribbean dominance. After that, it was a gradual retreat.

West Indies between '76 and '86 were notably different to West Indies between '86/87 and '97/98. The latter team was damn good, but the former was virtually unbeatable in a Test, by even the second-best, never mind a series.

The only time anyone really stood toe-to-toe with West Indies in the '76 to '86 decade was Australia in '81/82, when Dennis Lillee and Kim Hughes produced their greatest performances to win a Test. New Zealand did so in '79/80 with, it's apparently accepted, the considerable help of their own Umpires. It's difficult to conceive there's ever been a side who ever came closer to essentially having victory guaranteed before they stepped onto the park for so long.
 
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The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
The only time anyone really stood toe-to-toe with West Indies in the '76 to '86 decade was Australia in '81/82, when Dennis Lillee produced his greatest performance to win a Test. New Zealand did so in '79/80 with, it's apparently accepted, the considerable help of their own Umpires.
As did Kim Hughes.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah, they munted the Aussies in 88 as well, showing that the 87 WC was, if not a false dawn, not quite the commencement of a new era just yet either.
Yep. And frankly an ODI cup competition is a pretty poor measure of who's the best team in the world anyway. (Otherwise England came within a whisker of being crowned the best team in the world in 1991/2 which would have been ludicrous.)
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Australia were certainly not a dominant number 1 team from '89 onwards.
After '89, the only time Australia were beaten convincingly was by West Indies in '91, and even that was closer than the scoreline suggested. They were certainly dominant of all other teams, and the only place they ever struggled until the 2007/08 season was India.

Outside India, they lost one series in Sri Lanka under similar circumstances in '99/00, and the defeat in West Indies in '91 was the only other time apart from the '05 Ashes where they were genuinely outplayed. They lost another series or two, Pakistan in '94/95 and West Indies at home in '92/93, but neither of these losses accurately reflected the cricket played.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
I don't think even at the time in 87 anyone thought that winning the WC meant that we were the best team in the world, although it would have been considered that we were the most professional, and hence one of the best ODI teams. It was however taken as a great sign of encouragement that the dark days of 84-86 were ending and that we would be a good cricket team again - that didn't really happen until the 89 Ashes...
 

bagapath

International Captain
The Australian XI is for the period starting in WI in 95 though. McDermott was all but finished by then and Reid had already played his last Test. Taylor is the only debatable one and many would argue his best years as a batsman were behind him.
got it. i am going to define the windies era of world dominance from right after the nz tour of early 80s till the eng tour of 1991 when the greats richards, marshall and dujon retired together; greenidge had left in the earlier series.

the aussie era for me started with the 1995 windies tour and ended with india's tour of 2007-8.

i would go for the following teams;

greenidge
haynes
richardson
richards
gomes
lloyd (c)
dujon (wk)
marshall
holding
ambrose
garner

hayden
taylor (c)
ponting
hussey
martyn
s.waugh
gilchrist (wk)
warne
gillespie
fleming
mcgrath
 

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