OverratedSanity
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Has there been any other cricketer who can be considered top 25 of all time in two major disciplines? No one comes to mind... Greatest all rounder ever?
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Watson's All-Time-Great Ashes Contest
- Thread starter watson
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OverratedSanity
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Arguable... He would definitely sneak into my top 25, though
watson
Banned
Australia's No.1: Bob Simpson
Bob Simpson in style and character minds me of a 1960s version of Steve Waugh. Both were stubborn and tenacious in the extreme, and both rarely played the hook-shot due their risk-free approach to batting;
In some respects they also had parallel careers due their respective slow starts. After 29 Test matches Bob Simpson averaged just 35.93, and had not one century to his name. However, after 7 years of trying he finally broke through during the 4th Test of the 1964 Ashes series with a triple century. From that point onwards Simpson never looked back, and managed to average an excellent 63.53 till his initial retirement in 1968. He retired again in 1978 at age 42 after returning for 16 months to Captain Australia during the World Series Cricket fiasco. An innings of 176 runs against Bedi, Chandrasekhar, and Venkataraghavan in Perth during that brief return underscores his inherent skill against spin bowling. In a similar act of patience and determination Steve Waugh took 27 Tests to score his first century, and then slowly increase his average from 35.44 to over 50.
Admittedly, Bob Simpson was not an easy choice as Australia’s No.1 because it’s difficult to split any of the great opening batsman from the pack due to their similarity in effectiveness. However, by all accounts it is clear that Bob Simpson was one of the most brilliant slips fieldsman of all time. And so this skill tips the scales in his favour over more fashionable openers. I am sure that any Australian bowler would be very pleased to see Simpson standing next to the keeper as he begins his run up, and that has to be a big plus.
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The Battlers Prince
International Vice-Captain
So true, decent part time bowler like Tugga too, though leg spinner. Great choice.
Eds
International Debutant
Not sure about Ames being a "minnow basher". Perhaps slightly harsh. Not sure too many batsmen (let alone wicket-keeper bats) would have done particularly well against an attack consisting of O'Reilly, Ironmonger and Grimmett [and McCabe]. However, tbf, he still managed an average of 43 against the aforementioned attack in the '34 Ashes.
Plus, I find it difficult to believe he wasn't an absolutely outstanding wicketkeeper. Holds a fair number of English records; most dismissals in a county season, most stumpings in a season, most career stumpings, one of two wicketkeepers to get 1000 runs and 100 dismissals in a season (he did it three times out of the four total it's been achieved, ever). Feel he's been a bit hard done by here.
Plus, I find it difficult to believe he wasn't an absolutely outstanding wicketkeeper. Holds a fair number of English records; most dismissals in a county season, most stumpings in a season, most career stumpings, one of two wicketkeepers to get 1000 runs and 100 dismissals in a season (he did it three times out of the four total it's been achieved, ever). Feel he's been a bit hard done by here.
marc71178
Eyes not spreadsheets
Top 20 batsman of all time? Really?
watson
Banned
During my piece on Alan Knott I wrote;
I don't think that Ames is that far short of Knott when it comes to the skill of wicket-keeping ('possibly comparable'). However, I do think that the batsmanship of Ames has been overstated on the whole. It's not that he's a bad batsman, it's just that Knott is obviously, and significantly better IMO. In other words, it was the Ames' batting that I was questioning, not his keeping.
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bagapath
International Captain
I love Bob Simpson making it to the opening slot. Fantastic batsman. Even better fielder. Useful bowler. Great guy to have in your team overall. But this also means two of Morris, Trumper and Hayden would be left out for sure, and that is sad.
In my books yes. In yours top 30, may be. But on average he is likely to be very very close to that no. 20 if you compile every true cricket fan's list of favorite batters.
NUFAN
Y no Afghanistan flag
If I know how Watson thinks, it is short odds that all three will be left out for William M Lawry with the major factor being his terrific opening partnership with Simpson.
watson
Banned
England's No.1: Jack Hobbs
There’s a lot that could be said about Jack Hobbs because so much has been written by so many authors, but I only want to make three points.
The most important point was highlighted by his opening partners Herbert Sutcliffe and Andrew Sandham– that on ‘bad’ wickets Jack Hobbs is probably the best batsman of all time;
The second point is the consistency of Jack Hobbs. Consider his Test batting record (average) on a series by series basis;
1907-08 V AUS: 43.14
1909 V AUS: 26.40
1909-10 V SA: 67.38
1911-12 V AUS: 82.75
1912 V SA: 40.75
1913-14 V SA: 63.29
1921-21 V AUS: 50.50
1924 V SA: 71.00
1926 V AUS: 81.00
1928 V WI: 106.00
1928-29 V AUS: 50.11
1929 V SA: 31.00
1930 V AUS: 33.44
From those numbers we can see that it took Hobbs about 2 years to settle into Test cricket, and that his 2 final series played after his 46th birthday were unremarkable by his standard. This means that over the course of 20 years he failed to average 50 in a series only once!
The last point is his skill against fast bowling. Unfortunately this is often overlooked because Hobbs tended to bat in era of spin and swerve bowlers due to uncovered wickets. However, his sequence of scores from the 1920/21 Ashes series would indicate that he was able to score good runs against fast bowling even when his colleagues couldn’t;
49
59
122
20
18
123
27
13
40
34
Jack Gregory, Kelleway, and Ted McDonald were of course the pace-bowling stars of that series, although they were significantly aided by the leg-spin of Arthur Mailey who took 36 wickets every 41 balls. Thanks largely to these four gentlemen the England team were hammered in each of the five Test matches. Obviously it is difficult to know the exact speed of a bowler like Jack Gregory, but we can still get a reasonable idea of his pace from available black and white footage. (I recommend the ABC video, ‘The Cricket Archives. Australian Cricket Films 1905-1961’). Judging by his action, and the distance of the wicket-keeper and slips from the striker, I reckon that a bowling speed of 150 kph wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Although, as I said, we can only really guess as to how quick bowlers from the 1920s really were.
In short, Jack Hobbs was absolutely brilliant on ‘bad’ wickets, absolutely brilliant against slow bowling, remarkably consistent, and in all probability damned good against genuinely fast bowling. I don’t think that you can ask any more of an opening batsman?
bagapath
International Captain
without derailing this thread i would love to hear your list of 10 batsmen between 1999 and 2008 who were better than gilly.
watson
Banned
Incidently, the Adam Gilchrist playing in this Ashes team will be the Gilchrist circa 2003. By then he had played nearly 50 Tests, was averaging about 60 odd, had toured England very successfully, and had perfected his keeping technique with McGrath and Warne. Yep, the Gilchrist of 2003 will fit very nicely into this side.
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Red
The normal awards that everyone else has
Not true at all. Of course they can be. Every team needs a wicketkeeper. If they're an excellent batsman as well, they're an all rounder.
No different to every team needing bowlers and if they can bat as well they're all rounders.