Rank your 5 best bats from Australia post-Bradman

[BazBall21]

Maybe so but from my understand cricket was extremely dour and dull in the '60s with a high percentage of bore draws and few pace men of note. Not really a tough era for batting compared to the '50s and post WSC. Look at the bowling strike rates for that era. Sounds brutal to watch.

60s was a batting era. Along with 1930s and 2000s.

 

[ZK$]

Primary objective was not to lose

Name a decent pacer from 2000s

I am struggling to think of one

Shane Bond

 

[TheJediBrah]

Chaminda Vaas, Shoaib Akhtar, Shaun Pollock, Ntini, Waqar, McGrath, Gillespie

 

[BazBall21]

Smith
Chappell
Ponting/Border
Border/Ponting
Waugh

 

[subshakerz]

Chaminda Vaas, Shoaib Akhtar, Shaun Pollock, Ntini, Waqar, McGrath, Gillespie

Waqar was finished by the 2000s. Ntini and Vaas weren't that good.

Hayden to his credit did well against Pollock in Australia but struggled against Shoaib and the Ashes quartet. However, I can't rate him higher compared to other Aussies bats if he didn't do well in England.

 

[social]

Chaminda Vaas, Shoaib Akhtar, Shaun Pollock, Ntini, Waqar, McGrath, Gillespie

I suggest that you look at Hayden’s record against good bowlers at their peak

Great player of **** bowling

The ultimate ftb

 

[TheJediBrah]

I suggest that you look at Hayden’s record against good bowlers at their peak

Great player of **** bowling

The ultimate ftb

I don't care about Hayden I was just answering the guy's question

 

[trundler]

Yeah I'm fully onboard with the assessment of Hayden being an FTB and it mildly irritates me that him and Sehwag are in the top 10 openers of all time BUT I also don't think Simpson and Lawrie played against attacks that were much better or pitches that were less roady.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

All this talk of Hayden and no mention of how inferior he was to Nasser Hussain.

 

[Bitmap]

Smith
Ponting
Chappell
Border
Waugh

 

[Gob]

Tim David

 

[BazBall21]

Yeah I'm fully onboard with the assessment of Hayden being an FTB and it mildly irritates me that him and Sehwag are in the top 10 openers of all time BUT I also don't think Simpson and Lawrie played against attacks that were much better or pitches that were less roady.

I am a Hayden sympathiser on here but he did have a pretty lucky career.

 

[mr_mister]

AUS vs PAK Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Test at Sharjah, October 11 - 12, 2002

Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Test, AUS vs PAK, Australia tour of Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates 2002/03 at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium dated October 11 - 12, 2002.

www.espncricinfo.com

Is this arguably Hayden's toughest conditions/situation success? Had Shoaib, Waqar and Saqlain in a match where the temp hit 50 degrees iirc. Pakistan could only make it to 50 odd in both innings so I'm guessing batting was tough. The next highest score in the match after Hayden's 119 was Pontings 44



His very first ton in 96/97 came against Ambrose/Walsh and Bishop too right?

 

[Coronis]

Smith, Chappell, Ponting, Border, Waugh

 

[BazBall21]

AUS vs PAK Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Test at Sharjah, October 11 - 12, 2002

Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Test, AUS vs PAK, Australia tour of Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates 2002/03 at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium dated October 11 - 12, 2002.

www.espncricinfo.com

Is this arguably Hayden's toughest conditions/situation success? Had Shoaib, Waqar and Saqlain in a match where the temp hit 50 degrees iirc. Pakistan could only make it to 50 odd in both innings so I'm guessing batting was tough. The next highest score in the match after Hayden's 119 was Pontings 44



His very first ton in 96/97 came against Ambrose/Walsh and Bishop too right?

Very good. Think that was the match where the temperature was in excess of 50C? He took a long time to recover.

 

[Slifer]

In no particular order :

Smith
Ponting
Chappell
Border
Waugh

 

[Slifer]

In order:

Smith
Chappell
Ponting
Border
Waugh

 

[Slifer]

AUS vs PAK Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Test at Sharjah, October 11 - 12, 2002

Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Test, AUS vs PAK, Australia tour of Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates 2002/03 at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium dated October 11 - 12, 2002.

www.espncricinfo.com

Is this arguably Hayden's toughest conditions/situation success? Had Shoaib, Waqar and Saqlain in a match where the temp hit 50 degrees iirc. Pakistan could only make it to 50 odd in both innings so I'm guessing batting was tough. The next highest score in the match after Hayden's 119 was Pontings 44



His very first ton in 96/97 came against Ambrose/Walsh and Bishop too right?

Ambrose missed that test (4th test) and Hayden was literally dropped at least 6 times.

 

[Slifer]

Understandable recency bias in this thread so will give my take on some of the older guys

Greg Chappell: averaged 50+ in an era where that was incredibly rare, played against the greatest fast bowlers in history in pace friendly conditions and on full sized grounds using a toothpick

Border: see Chappell but with no support

Simpson: averaged 47 in an era with many uncovered decks and 50 in his comeback series after having been retired for a decade

Smith, etc are great players & you can’t time travel to another era but averaging 60 today is very different to averaging 60 against peak Windies and others

There are more protection for batsmen now and pitches are relatively flatter but Smith has faced very good/great bowling from time to time. Examples would be:
RSA (a) 2014: Steyn, Morkel, Philander
IND (a) 2017:Jadeja, Ashwin,Yadavs, Sharma, Bhuvi
RSA (a) 2018: Philander, Rabada, Maharaj, Morkel
Ashes (a) 2013: Anderson, Broad, Swann etc etc

And that's not even counting the good to very good attacks he faced from NZ or the attacks he faced at home.

 

[Xix2565]

pitches are relatively flatter

Even this is a much harder sell considering we actually get more results compared to back then.