Top 10 openers of all time ??

[trundler]

Genuine question: I know you rate Greenidge highly and think Barry is greatly overrated. How do you reconcile this with them playing so many FC games together for Hampshire and Barry being generally seen as (slightly) the better of the two when they were a power couple?

I think tests are tests and FC is FC. It's not really relevant to how I rate them as test batsmen. In my view picking a guy who could've been great(er) over a guy who was great is disrespectful to the guy who actually did it. I'm treating Barry Richards as a guy who had one good series against a middling attack and Greenidge as Greenidge the ATG test batsman. It ties into how I think it's only appropriate to compare careers of an equivalent length i.e I'm treating Tendulkar as a guy who averaged 58 over 160 tests when compared to his peers. If this leads me to supposedly underrating guys like Chappell and Barrington then so be it. I'm only being consistent. Also, Bond never did anything in tests to even merit consideration. Others may disagree and that's fine but I'll jeer at them at every step.

 

[ankitj]

This. Close thread.

In the 25-man ESPN "Legends of Cricket" (2001) so ignoring anyone debuting post '95, they had 5 openers:

Grace
Hobbs
Hutton
Gavaskar
B. Richards

(no Sutcliffe interestingly)

Why didn't you put them in order,?

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

I think tests are tests and FC is FC. It's not really relevant to how I rate them as test batsmen. In my view picking a guy who could've been great(er) over a guy who was great is disrespectful to the guy who actually did it. I'm treating Barry Richards as a guy who had one good series against a middling attack and Greenidge as Greenidge the ATG test batsman. It ties into how I think it's only appropriate to compare careers of an equivalent length i.e I'm treating Tendulkar as a guy who averaged 58 over 160 tests when compared to his peers. If this leads me to supposedly underrating guys like Chappell and Barrington then so be it. I'm only being consistent. Also, Bond never did anything in tests to even merit consideration. Others may disagree and that's fine but I'll jeer at them at every step.

Fair enough, and you're consistent with it. I guess I don't share your view that FC performance has no bearing at all on how good a player is. I don't find it easy to just separate 'Barry Richards the Test batsman' from 'Barry Richards the batsman'. Obviously Tests are the benchmark and primary resource for judging how good an international cricketer is or was, but I don't think FC games (or WSC supertests) are a total irrelevance. It's the same game, just a level down. FC records can add to the information that we have of players. I think e.g. Verity's amazing FC record is interesting and adds to his legacy. I also find it interesting that Barrington didn't particularly excel in FC cricket for the first half of his career and it's probably a mark against him. I give Chappell credit for his performances in WSC. I'd put WG Grace in the ATG XI although his Test record alone doesn't warrant it.

Barry Richards ...I'm not sure how to rank him, to be honest. He's a strange case. He didn't play those 4 games of cricket and nothing else - we do have other information to judge him on. A lot of people saw him play a lot of cricket. You could say without dispute that many opening batsmen in history had greater Test careers. But I don't think that all of those batsmen were better players than him. I don't think we have enough evidence to say he is one of the the top 5 openers of all time but I don't think it's crazy that people who followed his career rank him in an exercise like this.

 

[trundler]

Fair enough, and you're consistent with it. I guess I don't share your view that FC performance has no bearing at all on how good a player is. I don't find it easy to just separate 'Barry Richards the Test batsman' from 'Barry Richards the batsman'. Obviously Tests are the benchmark and primary resource for judging how good an international cricketer is or was, but I don't think FC games (or WSC supertests) are a total irrelevance. It's the same game, just a level down. FC records can add to the information that we have of players. I think e.g. Verity's amazing FC record is interesting and adds to his legacy. I also find it interesting that Barrington didn't particularly excel in FC cricket for the first half of his career and it's probably a mark against him. I give Chappell credit for his performances in WSC. I'd put WG Grace in the ATG XI although his Test record alone doesn't warrant it.

Barry Richards ...I'm not sure how to rank him, to be honest. He's a strange case. He didn't play those 4 games of cricket and nothing else - we do have other information to judge him on. A lot of people saw him play a lot of cricket. You could say without dispute that many opening batsmen in history had greater Test careers. But I don't think that all of those batsmen were better players than him. I don't think we have enough evidence to say he is one of the the top 5 openers of all time but I don't think it's crazy that people who followed his career rank him in an exercise like this.

It's likely Richards would've been an excellent batsman but it didn't happen so we can't say for sure. There does exist the possibility that he could've underachieved relative to his apparent talent in tests. How many guys in 1988 thought Steve Waugh would end up several rungs above Mark? Talented people fail more often than people realise IMO. Besides it's a ranking for the best test openers and Barry Richards did not have a full test career. What are the odds that he ends up better than Boycott, a man who was the leading run scorer in tests and the best batsman in the world at times? I think people really underestimate how good the top guys were when they automatically bracket talented guys who missed out with them. Who's to say Barry Richards wouldn't have had a career similar to Mark Waugh? Isn't that more likely than being top 5 of all time? Mark Waugh had pretty comparable FC stats despite playing in a tougher FC competition and having over a 100 grueling tests in there. We're essentially taking the best possible version of a guy and assuming that's how his career would've gone.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

There is an arrow right below the thread title.

Jump to new-watch-arrow

Click on the arrow and it lets you edit the title and also add the poll if you are an OP of the thread. I didn’t know this feature was there before.

Thanks

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Why didn't you put them in order,?

Was supposed to be chronological but put Richards and Gavaskar in the wrong order.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Barry Richards also played 5 WSC Supertests (possibly the highest standard of cricket of all time).

5 matches, 8 innings, 1 not out, 554 runs (2 100s, 2 50s) @ 79.14

Greg Chappell and Viv Richards were next in the averages at 56 and 55 respectively. The highest averaging openers behind Barry were Wessels (41.57), Greenidge (35.9), and Fredericks (34.5).

 

[trundler]

Yeah I sincerely doubt WSC was the "highest standard of cricket ever played". It was a circus and a side gig.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Mark Waugh had pretty comparable FC stats despite playing in a tougher FC competition

Barry Richards also played in the Sheffield Shield and scored 325* in a day (final score 356) for South Australia vs a WA attack with Lillee, McKenzie, Lock, and Inverarity.

Also English county cricket was stacked with pace bowlers in the 70s (full of West Indians, and all of the gun allrounders of the 70s/80s).

 

[trundler]

Barry Richards also played in the Sheffield Shield and scored 325* in a day (final score 356) for South Australia vs a WA attack with Lillee, McKenzie, Lock, and Inverarity.

Also English county cricket was stacked with pace bowlers in the 70s (full of West Indians, and all of the gun allrounders of the 70s/80s).

Must've been a hell of an FC batsman then. Viv and Warne had averages that were merely good at FC level but not otherworldly. Oftentimes test cricketers phone it in when playing FC matches. You can't replicate the intensity of a test match outside of one. As good as CC may have been, it still had 18 counties to the 6 teams in the Shield. Lots of soft sides in there. I'm sure Mark Waugh had great FC innings too.

 

[ataraxia]

Grace
Hobbs
Hutton
Sutcliffe
Gavaskar
Richards

Simpson
G Smith
Boycott
someone

 

[Coronis]

Must've been a hell of an FC batsman then. Viv and Warne had averages that were merely good at FC level but not otherworldly. Oftentimes test cricketers phone it in when playing FC matches. You can't replicate the intensity of a test match outside of one. As good as CC may have been, it still had 18 counties to the 6 teams in the Shield. Lots of soft sides in there. I'm sure Mark Waugh had great FC innings too.

Mhm, for example in FC matches excluding tests we have Steve: 13125 @ 52.71 vs Mark: 18826 @ 58.10. Funny its mostly the more aggressive strokemakers who seem to get found out to some degree.

Anyway back on topic.

Hobbs
Sutcliffe
Hutton
Gavaskar
Simpson
Boycott
Smith
Greenidge
Hayden
Sehwag

 

[Chrish]

I admit I haven’t paid much attention to this Simpson guy before. Any particular reason people are ranking him over Smith/ Sehwag/ Hayden ??

 

[Fuller Pilch]

I admit I haven’t paid much attention to this Simpson guy before. Any particular reason people are ranking him over Smith/ Sehwag/ Hayden ??

Played 38 of his 62 tests as an opener in which he averaged 55.5 (8 100s).

 

[mr_mister]

Yeah, Simpson started as a middling leg spinning all rounder batting mainly at 6, playing 20+ tests before he got his first ton. Then became an ATG opener and captain before his first retirement, then nearly a decade later had a final stint as a useful old hand middle order bat, which ended prematurely due the Windies pace quartet putting him out to pasture.

Normally it's a bit dicey not taking someone's career average and just looking at average by position but Bobby had such a distinct change in roles during his career

 

[Coronis]

Something I’m not sure about, was Simpson still consistently playing Shield cricket between his retirement and saving Australia from Kerry?

 

[h_hurricane]

Barry Richards also played 5 WSC Supertests (possibly the highest standard of cricket of all time).

5 matches, 8 innings, 1 not out, 554 runs (2 100s, 2 50s) @ 79.14

Greg Chappell and Viv Richards were next in the averages at 56 and 55 respectively. The highest averaging openers behind Barry were Wessels (41.57), Greenidge (35.9), and Fredericks (34.5).

Barry Richards certainly belongs to the best World Series XI of all time and no one will ever dispute that.

 

[Red]

Yeah I sincerely doubt WSC was the "highest standard of cricket ever played". It was a circus and a side gig.

This couldn’t be more wrong.

 

[Red]

Something I’m not sure about, was Simpson still consistently playing Shield cricket between his retirement and saving Australia from Kerry?

he was playing grade cricket (and dominating) but hasn’t played FC cricket for ten years

 

[ZK$]

Hobbs
Hutton
Gavaskar
Sutcliffe
Boycott
Greenidge
Smith
Sehwag
Hayden