Precisely. England as much as possible saw off Walsh and Ambrose, then milked King and Rose. Had at least an 90% fit Ian Bishop been present, that might have made some difference. Then again, WI did get bowled out for sub 70 twice. So yeah the batting...yikes!!!
Sounds about right, though you could argue that they were still great between ~87-90. The 1991 home series vs Australia and away vs England must have seemed to suggest cracks were beginning to develop. The 1992 test vs South Africa (around the time I just started getting into cricket) is pretty instructive IMO; though the West Indies won this one, the batting lineup (first since the retirement of Viv/Dujon/Greenidge) - Haynes, Simmons, Lara, Richardson, Arthurton, Adams, Williams - though pretty good on paper underperformed against a solid but all-debutant attack, and it needed the bowlers to bail them out. Seemed to set the tone for much of the decade.
The 92 World Cup and that moment probably brought that home for me as well. Henry Blofield was commenting and couldn't believe Greatbatch had just hit Marshall for six over cover. I had only hazy memories of their 87 tour to NZ but read about the exploits of Haynes, Greenidge, Marshall and Garner. I knew that Viv Richards was the 'Master Blaster', he had the highest ODI score (I'd seen highlights of this on a rented VHS tape of great cricket moments), the fastest test century. Without Richards, Garner and Greenidge they didn't seem as formidable and Marshall was past his best.
Don't see why that would have been much of a factor. During our dominance the closest we came to an all rounder was Marshall. Doesn't seem that all rounders have ever been a great determinate of successful teams.
hit the nail on the head there dude!
Isn't this simular to what the middlesex director got accused of being racist for
The emergence of Warne in that 92/93,l series seems to have been a crucial development which changed the balance of power towards Australia over the decade. Did read in that the 80s the Windies had their problems against Abdul Qadir and you had guys like Bob Holland and Narendra Hirwani who starred in one-off wins against them (even Border took a ten-for once?). It seems to have been a possible achilles heel, but i think the decade was too unkind to spin bowling for it to be used as a genuine weapon against them. That pretty much changed in the 90s though - the 1994 Jimmy ‘Pad’ams series against India from memory was the last time they were competitive in Ind/Pak/SL.
yes indeed my friend.it is not racist,it is fact!
WI toured SL for the first time in 1993. Other than for Lara and Hooper, even the greats like Haynes and Richardson found batting against a young Muralitharan very tough (even Lara did not sort him out in that test). Simmons, Arthurton et al were sitting ducks. West Indies even at their peak would have got devastated by yop class spin bowler like Murali or Warne. Only time they encountered something close to that was Chandrashekar and Qadir. Chandra was at the end of his career and Qadir was not good enough. Still they managed to create massive dents,.
Somewhat true but to say some of the greatest batsmen would have been beaten repeatedly just isn't true. WIs were a great all condition team...obviously helped by some favourable home umpiring. Having said that, they had to face outright criminal umpiring in places like NZ (the 80 tour was the worst), Eng and Aus. The fact that they kept winning just showed how great they were.
And you can add to that argument the guys who briefly made an impact because batsmen generally didn't have a clue against them; Hirwani and Sivaramakrishnan spring immediately to mind. Even Nick Cook, who is no-one's idea of an ATG, enjoyed some stellar returns in his first few tests.
Not really much to do with anything, but a side story to Nick Cook. He was the cousin of my next door neighbour in the early 80's and had enough influence to get her a meeting with her hero Steve Davis.
The umpiring they had in England was the fairest anywhere at that time. The NZ series was probably no worse than their standard home fare by most accounts, they just behaved like petulant children when the shoe was on the other foot.
The Windies players of that era such as Holding always have a dig at umpires when it comes to series they lost or drew. He had a sook about decisions he said he copped in 75/76. They got dicked 5-1 ffs. He’s a bit of a petulant child about it tbh