Is Viv Richards an Overrated Test Batsman?

[Top_Cat]

The biggest problem for English bowlers in the 90's was staying on the park and just about all of the good ones were cut down by injury and came back as lesser bowlers. Don't think they were poor bowlers at all.

Would have been interesting to see the progress of the attack which did so well in the WI in 1990, especially with guys like DeFreitas, Foster, Dilley, Bicknell as back-up.

 

[kingjulian]

I tend to rate people based on their performances relative to their peers in the same generation as it is the closest to a common denominator as you can get. With that being said, Viv Richards is pretty much universally rated as the best batsman of his generation by anyone who has bowled to him. With the exception of Bradman, I dont think the same could be said about any other batsman.

Whether Lara, Tendulkar or chimpface is a better batter than Viv Richards is something that will be the source of constant argument, but its hard to see how big Viv is 'overrated'.

To be perfectly honest, that is a strange logic to back your conclusion.

Post retirement comments are always going to be favorable for batsmen they bowled to or bowlers they faced. Sobers thought Subash Gupte was a better bowler than Shane Warne. This is the Shane Warne who terrorized most batsmen of his time. If you take India out of the equation, you will see just how strong his record has been.

If you asked bowlers who played in the 80s about Allan Border - they will definitely say, he was one of the best ever players. There is an element of nostalgia that hypes up players of their era...it is very natural. If you are going to use that as the only evidence, then your argument is very very tenuous. Although there may be truth behind it, we will still have to use a clearer evidence than that to reach a conclusion.

Statistically and qualitatively the 90s was a more competitve decade as far as bowlers were concerned. Furthermore, Richards had the advantage of never having to face the strongest bowling unit of his time. There was some distance between the westindies bowling attack and the next strongest bowling attack of the 80s. Although the westindies still had great bowlers in the 90s, others had caught up and in some cases overtaken the windies. Yet he averages less than what Lara (go ahead and remove Zimbabwe from the records if you need to), who played in a tougher era.

You may like Richards' style of play more, and it could be a personal choice. But there is more than solid evidence backing Lara's performance to push him ahead of Richards in the pecking order.

 

[tooextracool]

To be perfectly honest, that is a strange logic to back your conclusion.

Post retirement comments are always going to be favorable for batsmen they bowled to or bowlers they faced. Sobers thought Subash Gupte was a better bowler than Shane Warne. This is the Shane Warne who terrorized most batsmen of his time. If you take India out of the equation, you will see just how strong his record has been.

If you asked bowlers who played in the 80s about Allan Border - they will definitely say, he was one of the best ever players. There is an element of nostalgia that hypes up players of their era...it is very natural. If you are going to use that as the only evidence, then your argument is very very tenuous. Although there may be truth behind it, we will still have to use a clearer evidence than that to reach a conclusion.

Statistically and qualitatively the 90s was a more competitve decade as far as bowlers were concerned. Furthermore, Richards had the advantage of never having to face the strongest bowling unit of his time. There was some distance between the westindies bowling attack and the next strongest bowling attack of the 80s. Although the westindies still had great bowlers in the 90s, others had caught up and in some cases overtaken the windies. Yet he averages less than what Lara (go ahead and remove Zimbabwe from the records if you need to), who played in a tougher era.

You may like Richards' style of play more, and it could be a personal choice. But there is more than solid evidence backing Lara's performance to push him ahead of Richards in the pecking order.

If it appeared from my post as though I said Richards was a better batter than Lara, then my apologies because that was not the intention. My point is that he was the undisputed best batsman of his generation. I dont like comparing people across eras in general not just because I wasn't born for and therefore never watched most of Richard's best feats but also because there is no real method to comparison when the bowlers, pitches, conditions etc were so completely different.

 

[Xuhaib]

Had them wrong way round tbh. Will edit.

EDIT: Though patriotic umpire had a good strike rate last I heard.

not much too dissimilar to any NZL patriotic umpire or say a patriotic umpire from any other country btw Pakistan the only side that actually conducted home tests with both neutral umpires in the 80's.

 

[vcs]

From what I've read and know (very little), every country had patriotic home umpires in the '80s.

 

[Flem274*]

not much too dissimilar to any NZL patriotic umpire or say a patriotic umpire from any other country btw Pakistan the only side that actually conducted home tests with both neutral umpires in the 80's.

I think you missed the

 

[Xuhaib]

From what I've read and know (very little), every country had patriotic home umpires in the '80s.

yes that true comparitivley Aus and Eng umpires were least biased and even then I remember watching the highlights of a test between Aus and Pak where 6 LBW were given in an innings with atleast half debatable.

On most occasion all home teams atleast featured one cheerleader during the home tests.

 

[Migara]

Okay, so the 70-80's obviously had poor bowlers like Snow, Willis, Lillee, Thomson, Garner, Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Croft, Botham, Hadlee, Sarfraz, Imran, Dev, Akram, McDermott, Hughes....etc

Fail to see a spinner that would got in to SL, PAK, AUS or IND teams of late 90s.

 

[Migara]

Let's take into some things into account. He played in an era of fantastic bowlers and a bit of hometown umpiring. Who was around? DK. Lillee. The greatest pace bowler of all time. Jeff Thomson. Fastest bowler of all time. Botham, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee etc.
Plus wickets weren't this no grass garbage you see today.

I've never seen one batsmen scare bowlers like he did.

Test record - not over rated at all. I saw him hit a double century in Melbourne in 1984 on TV. Great innings.

DWTA. Viv never face the best pacemen of all time. That gentleman was in his team, and a short bloke was called Marshall. He didn't face the fastest either. Six years after the retirement of Viv there came a tall lanky bowler named Mohammed Zahid, and till he got injured six months later he bowled the quickest stuff cricket world as ever seen, reducing Lara on form to ducking, plodding and weaving.

Viv did scare fast bowlers, but never heard that he scared good spinners like Chandra or Qadir. Would not expect a legendary spinner like Murali or Warne to give a rats arse that Viv terrified fast bowlers if they were bowling to him. The bottom line is Viv naver played a legendary spinner, and his weakness was against spin, and incidentally that was not an era of spin bowling too.

 

[Migara]

lol.

On attacks of 80s vs 90s, here's my opinion fwiw:

WI 90s < WI 80s
Aus 90s > Aus 80s
Eng 90s < Eng 80s
NZ 90s = NZ 80s (More rounded attack of Nash, Cairns, Doull, Vettori mk I, balances out the Hadlee factor, though it's very close)
Pak 90s > Pak 80s
India 90s = India 80s (tricky one)
SL 90s > SL 80s
SA > than not playing at all

Aus of 90s >> Aus of 80s. Both McGrath and Warne at their best.
SL 90s >> SL of 80s. Murali + Vaas factor was transforming SL attack.
Ind 90s > Ind 80s. Srinath was as good a bowler than Kapil in tests. Kumble simply was unplayable in 90s.

 

[vcs]

yes that true comparitivley Aus and Eng umpires were least biased and even then I remember watching the highlights of a test between Aus and Pak where 6 LBW were given in an innings with atleast half debatable.

On most occasion all home teams atleast featured one cheerleader during the home tests.

England probably had the least biased umpires.. after all they did get tonked 5-0 at home a couple of times by the W. Indies. Surely an umpire could have prevented it?

I've heard Aussie umpires in the '80s were as biased as anybody TBH. Mostly I'm speaking from what I read in Holding's autobiography. There was one series where NZ beat WI at home and the bowlers virtually gave up because they were not getting even the most obvious decisions.

 

[weldone]

DWTA. Viv never face the best pacemen of all time. That gentleman was in his team, and a short bloke was called Marshall.

Regardless of what I or you or CW thinks (I too think Marshall > Lillee, btw), Lillee might be considered arguably the best fast bowler by some. Besides a highly impressive test record, Lillee's best years was spent playing World Series cricket which was arguably the highest form of cricket ever played. Lillee was the most successful bowler in WSC by a HUGE margin.

But yes, according to test performance Marshall > Lillee (but according to test performance Abey Kuruvilla > Mike Procter, too. Just kidding )

 

[Flem274*]

England probably had the least biased umpires.. after all they did get tonked 5-0 at home a couple of times by the W. Indies. Surely an umpire could have prevented it?

I've heard Aussie umpires in the '80s were as biased as anybody TBH. Mostly I'm speaking from what I read in Holding's autobiography. There was one series where NZ beat WI at home and the bowlers virtually gave up because they were not getting even the most obvious decisions.

Threw a tantrum would be more accurate.

How much footage is there of umpring calls from back in the day? Every team moans about every other team, but the home team defends their umpires from every other team (though some calls are louder than others e.g. Pakistan at home, NZ vs WI in the early 70s, and Ian Smith claims Crowe rarely got out lbw in domestic cricket).

Who has videos to prove this stuff? Genuinely curious.

 

[Flem274*]

Aus of 90s >> Aus of 80s. Both McGrath and Warne at their best.
SL 90s >> SL of 80s. Murali + Vaas factor was transforming SL attack.
Ind 90s > Ind 80s. Srinath was as good a bowler than Kapil in tests. Kumble simply was unplayable in 90s.

Does how much better matter? I wasn't measuring by how much ffs, just by who was better. No need to start dissecting things.

Fair call on India.

 

[fredfertang]

Richards did have an excellent record in WSC - in the first year he scored 862 runs in ten completed innings - worth remembering too that that was on those drop in pitches as well which, whilst they seem to have been OK, were certainly not roads

 

[Top_Cat]

England probably had the least biased umpires.. after all they did get tonked 5-0 at home a couple of times by the W. Indies. Surely an umpire could have prevented it?

I've heard Aussie umpires in the '80s were as biased as anybody TBH. Mostly I'm speaking from what I read in Holding's autobiography. There was one series where NZ beat WI at home and the bowlers virtually gave up because they were not getting even the most obvious decisions.

From accounts I've seen from Rod Marsh, Lillee, etc. the big problem with the NZ umps of the 80's wasn't that they were biased but that they were incompetent. True or not, that was the perception.

As for the Aussie umpires, eh who knows. I do remember a lot of carping by the Indian side in '92 about some decisions they got. Remember Channel Nein having to do a special highlights package showing the poor decisions against both teams. Got the feeling it was just to shut bloody Gavaskar up because he was pissing and moaning even more then usual but went very quiet from that point.

 

[weldone]

Richards did have an excellent record in WSC - in the first year he scored 862 runs in ten completed innings - worth remembering too that that was on those drop in pitches as well which, whilst they seem to have been OK, were certainly not roads

AWTA.

And against a very high quality bowling attack as well. I guess while judging the records of players of that era, their performances in WSC should be kept in mind. Suddenly, if anyone has any doubt about the greatness of players like Richards or Lillee, it won't do him any harm to take WSC stats into perspective as well.

 

[Top_Cat]

DWTA. Viv never face the best pacemen of all time. That gentleman was in his team, and a short bloke was called Marshall. He didn't face the fastest either. Six years after the retirement of Viv there came a tall lanky bowler named Mohammed Zahid, and till he got injured six months later he bowled the quickest stuff cricket world as ever seen, reducing Lara on form to ducking, plodding and weaving.

You say that with a certainty it doesn't warrant, tbh. Zahid was super fast, no doubt but quicker than Thommo? I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

 

[Flem274*]

As for the Aussie umpires, eh who knows. I do remember a lot of carping by the Indian side in '92 about some decisions they got. Remember Channel Nein having to do a special highlights package showing the poor decisions against both teams. Got the feeling it was just to shut bloody Gavaskar up because he was pissing and moaning even more then usual but went very quiet from that point.

18 years later, and it feels like nothing has changed....

Oh...

 

[morgieb]

Over-rated? Probably. Stats can't tell the full story though, when he was in form, he was in form. Just ask Brian Lara.