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Greatest batting/bowling styles in the world.

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Apart from Robin Smith, I'd never seen as good a player of the cut-stroke as Campbell - until I first set eyes on Greenidge.
 

Burgey

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Yea maybe Greenidge, not seen enough of Smith to judge & well don't know how Campbell fits in TBH seen a lot of him & can't remember him being a great exponent of the cut shot.
Hit his cut shot to slip a fair bit, iirc.

Nah, seriously, he played that shot very well when he was on song.
 

bunny

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Cut: Robin Smith, Dravid
Pull: Greendige, AB de Villiers
Hook: Fredericks, Kapil
Widwicket Slog: Yuvraj, Boucher
Square drive: Ganguly, Martyn
Flicks: M. Waugh, Attapattu, Laxman
Cover drive: Richardson, Aravinda
Back foot punch: Tendulkar
Back foot drives: Lara, S. Waugh
Straight drive: Tendulkar, Hooper
Lofted shots: Richards, Dean Jones

Back foot defense: Dravid
Front foot defense: Kallis, Tendulkar

Leg side play against spin: Azhar
Off side play against spin: Lara
Defense against spin: Gavaskar
Lofted shots against spin: Ganguly, Hooper
Sweep: Hayden,

Overall: Lara, Richardson, M. Waugh

Fast bowling: Marshall
Spin bowling: Warne
 

Redbacks

International Captain
VVS - Poetry in Motion is his other name.
Flintoff - when he was bowling fast, hostile and swinging the ball both ways during the 05 Ashes. Haven't seen a more brilliant display of bowling.
 

shortpitched713

International Captain
I'm convinced that the next Donald Bradman will be a mixture of the styles of Sobers, Gavaskar, and Gilchrist. Such guns with such insane perfection in their individual batting qualities.
 

Migara

International Coach
BATTING
Pull - Ponting, easily
Not that easily. Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva and Inzamam Ul Haq reduced pacemen with blistering speeds to trundlers with their pulling.

Cover Drive - Hussey's is a thing of beauty
Marvan Atapattu and David Gower have lot to say about that.

Sweep - Hayden (albeit he got out from it yesterday)
Almost all Indians play sweep as well as Hayden. Honarary mention of rolly polly Ranatunga too.

Reverse Sweep - Heard a lot about Jonty Rhodes, so he gets an honourable mention, otherwise Hussey again
Once more terribly biased. Rhodes, Andy Flower, Pietersen play reverse sweeps much better than Hussey.

Power Batting - Chris Cairns, Matty Hayden and Andrew Symonds, Lance Kluesner
Intentionally or not, failed to mention Viv Richards, Jayasuriya, Afridi and Virender Sehwag

Facing Spinners - Michael Clarke
Who is Clarke? See NS sidhu tearing apart Warne and Murali over after over, match after match. Also see Ganguly in his youth too, hitting spinners out of the park. And did I missed mentioning Brian Lara?

Overall - Bradman obviously, Gower, Slater, Martyn, M Waugh, and Langer seemed somewhat appealing when in form, in addition to all mentioned above.
Uhh, only one non-Australian

BOWLING
Pace - Donald, Lindwall (from what I've read), Lillee, Lee, McGrath, Bracken, Hadlee, Akram
Bracken? definietly agree with others.

Spin - Warne, Vettori, Chawla from what I saw yesterday, Panesar. (I hate Harbhajan's action, looks to dodgy and cluttered for me)
No Murali, Kumble, Saqlain, Mushtaq Ahmed, Abdul Qadir, Bedi, Chandra or Erapali Prasanna ?

WICKETKEEPING

Technically - Healy, Boucher, Knott, Tallon
Knott, gun choice. Should add Jack Russel too.

Visually (spectacular catches/stumpings) - Gilchrist, Healy, Boucher
Stumpings? why not a sub continet wicket keeper? You'll get an ample sample to watch with them.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Not that easily. Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva and Inzamam Ul Haq reduced pacemen with blistering speeds to trundlers with their pulling.

Never seen Richards, I rated de Silva more as a driver than puller, also haven't seen much of him

Marvan Atapattu and David Gower have lot to say about that.

Atapattu, when I have seen him, seems stronger square of the wicket, and always seems to be scratching around alot (AUS v SL 2007)

Almost all Indians play sweep as well as Hayden. Honarary mention of rolly polly Ranatunga too.

Don't Like Ranatunga, I haven't seen massive amounts of Indian cricket, but point taken

Once more terribly biased. Rhodes, Andy Flower, Pietersen play reverse sweeps much better than Hussey.

Forgot Flower, never seen Rhodes play the shot, and should have mentioned Pietersen

Intentionally or not, failed to mention Viv Richards, Jayasuriya, Afridi and Virender Sehwag

Completely un-intentional

Who is Clarke? See NS sidhu tearing apart Warne and Murali over after over, match after match. Also see Ganguly in his youth too, hitting spinners out of the park. And did I missed mentioning Brian Lara?

Navjot Sidhu, never seen anything from him. I only know Post 2000 Ganguly

Uhh, only one non-Australian

I am surprised that I didn't mention Chappell, G , And all others mentioned in other areas...

Bracken? definietly agree with others.

Bracken has a simple action that isn't over the top or cluttered, for a top look at that, see Steve Harmison

No Murali, Kumble, Saqlain, Mushtaq Ahmed, Abdul Qadir, Bedi, Chandra or Erapali Prasanna ?

Don't like his action (i am NOT saying that he is a chucker, it is proved to be within the rules) but I wouldn't like to be watching it for hour after hour.

Saqlain,Mushie Qadir, Bedi and Chandra I have never seen bowl, and who is Erapali Prassana, if you don't mind me asking


Knott, gun choice. Should add Jack Russel too.

Thanks, Russel does deserve a mention

Stumpings? why not a sub continet wicket keeper? You'll get an ample sample to watch with them.
Sangakkara is good, and I clean forgot P Jayawardene's stumping of Ponting, but Rashid Latif is an @$$, never saw Moin Khan and India (recently) can't keep a keeper for more than 2 series in a row (bar Dhoni)
Just to sum up, it is very hard to cover every player that plays shots well, and my cricket knowledge of facts is better than my knowledge of bowling actions and batting styles, due to my strong dislike of Youtube, and not being able to really access footage from elsewhere I was just giving my 2 cents
 

Migara

International Coach
Erapali Prasanna was probably the second greatest off spinner behind Murali. Was a treat to watch. I've seen him bowling in video footage, and feeling comes as he has attached the ball to a string and pulls it back when batsman come down the track, or push it when they go back. Boy, he was a champion.
 

Migara

International Coach
Navjot Sidhu, never seen anything from him. I only know Post 2000 Ganguly
sad, he was the best player of spin I have ever seen, followed by Lara, Ranatunga and Kapil Dev.
 

Migara

International Coach
Never seen Richards, I rated de Silva more as a driver than puller, also haven't seen much of him
You tube a bit and you'll see clips that Richards pulling and hooking Thompson even without a helmet!

De Silva and Inzi in their youth were better pullers than ponting. De Silva pulled even stump high balls fom speedsters like Donald,Wasim, Waqar and Schultz. Once I saw him hitting Malcom Marshall inside out for a six (probably a FC match)
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
sad, he was the best player of spin I have ever seen, followed by Lara, Ranatunga and Kapil Dev.
I haven't hated anyone like I hated Andy freaking Flower as he was laughing at our spin bowlers and hitting them out of the park on Indian pitches. :@

In all seriousness, it was one those times where I just forgot that India were playing against him and just watched the beauty of his play. He was dominance personified. Sidhu was gold too obviously, but foreign players aren't supposed to dominate like Flower did.
 

bagapath

International Captain
here is a stylists XI - from players i've seen

greenidge
anwar
gower
lara
m.waugh
a.flower (wk)
kapil dev
akram (c)
warne
qadir
holding
 

R_D

International Debutant
I haven't hated anyone like I hated Andy freaking Flower as he was laughing at our spin bowlers and hitting them out of the park on Indian pitches. :@

In all seriousness, it was one those times where I just forgot that India were playing against him and just watched the beauty of his play. He was dominance personified. Sidhu was gold too obviously, but foreign players aren't supposed to dominate like Flower did.
hahah yeah.. it wasn't pretty back than.
He use to dominate all the spin bowlers so much... was ranked no1 in batting for a while after dominating in India.
 

bond21

Banned
Brett Lee has an awesome action, I have modelled my bowling action from his.

You know that if there was a meeting where all the biomechanists met and discussed biomechanics, Brett Lee's action would be the perfect sample.
 

Debris

International 12th Man
Batsmen I liked to watch not already mentioned. Great stylists, not necessarily great batsmen.

Michael Vaughan, Stephen Fleming, Carl Hooper, VVS Laxman

Bowlers

Waqar Younis, Curtley Ambrose, Allan Donald, Darren Gough

Did not mentioned any Australian because I am too biased. :)
 

Migara

International Coach
Brett Lee has an awesome action, I have modelled my bowling action from his.

You know that if there was a meeting where all the biomechanists met and discussed biomechanics, Brett Lee's action would be the perfect sample.
Except for the elbow bend.
 

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