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What was crickets best decade?

Mike5181

International Captain
Late '90s. Before Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Tik Tok. Limitless entertainment options meant sport in general isn't as important to people these days. Better TV/radio coverage, better commentary, more star power because there were less shows to watch. And tbh while the average sportsmen of today is probably a better human being, assholes are entertaining and sport is for entertainment.
 

Ali TT

International Vice-Captain
As an England fan, excuse me if I don't agree with the 90's. It really wasn't much fun from this angle. We even managed to lose a World Cup Final to a team that should've been knocked out in the group stages!!
I didn't have sky growing up so was saved the pain of watching England getting thumped away from home. The quality and competitiveness of test series in England that decade was actually pretty high. Ashes apart and forgetting the nadir of 1999, England fought pretty hard against them opposition - two wins over India, draw and a win v South Africa, two drawn series against the Windies.
 

Kenneth Viljoen

International Regular
The 90's , the last great decade ...Cricket was in a much healthier state in my opinion, Brilliant characters, good crowds around the world , India vs Pakistan matches on a regular basis , ODI cricket was being played all over the World from Morocco to Canada by big teams and had fun mini tournaments like Quadrangular Series and Tri Series ..The ICC failed to capitalise on the 90's ..
 

Line and Length

Cricketer Of The Year
for sheer quality the current era is the best. as it will be in other sports. simply because modern cricketers will always be better than older ones due to how technology and fitness evolves with better tactic understanding

for a competitive and nostalgia standpoint the 90s is probably the best due to the advent of good tv coverage and several teams being equally capable of winning in odis against each other in big tournaments and no team strongly dominating like West Indies in 70s and 80s and Australia in 2000s

the ATGs point is just bull****, give the current era 20 years and you will say so many wax lyrically about the current players too and have them as ATGs. nostalgia is a strong reason for rating players highly often
Dismissing past players on the basis of technology, fitness and tactical understanding is risky. Those greats from the past, if at their prime today, would be benefiting from those factors and would hold their own against current top players.
 

Line and Length

Cricketer Of The Year
I enjoyed the clashes between Australia and the West Indies in the 70s and 80s. This era includes WSC which was interesting but disruptive to traditional Test cricket.
 

OverratedSanity

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The current era (2016 onwards) is my favourite for tests, but the overall health of the game and the appeal of the limited overs format has clearly plummeted. Mid to late 90s overall had a good balance between bat and ball, tests had a ton of amazing players in all disciplines, and non world cup ODIs didn't feel anywhere near as pointless as they do now. There weren't really any actual JAMODIs.
 

Shady Slim

International Coach
Dismissing past players on the basis of technology, fitness and tactical understanding is risky. Those greats from the past, if at their prime today, would be benefiting from those factors and would hold their own against current top players.
this exactly, which is why comparing players amongst eras is a) kinda silly to some degree, but also, and arguably more importantly b) it's wiser to compare players by how they performed against their peers vs some stupid discussion on if mitch starc had a more accurate yorker than fred spofforth
 

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
As an England fan, excuse me if I don't agree with the 90's. It really wasn't much fun from this angle. We even managed to lose a World Cup Final to a team that should've been knocked out in the group stages!!
As an England fan, excuse me if I don't agree with the 90's. It really wasn't much fun from this angle. We even managed to lose a World Cup Final to a team that should've been knocked out in the group stages!!
England can hardly complain. NZ were by far the best team in the tournament and would've probably won it easily if Crowe hadn't been injured.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
The 2010s might be the most competitive. On a rules front, the referral system finally came into its own and now it’s exceedingly rare for matches to be ruined by umpiring.

We got a good WC format going and culminating in the classic that was 2019.

The rise of the Fab Four.

ATG Indian, Bangladeshi and NZ teams.

Multiple countries hitting #1 in Tests.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
I’ve got a soft spot for the 90s and 00s but I feel like there were some truly awful times that people blank out. A lot more tedious draws. A lot more umpiring gaffes. Formats of world cups that sucked.

Relatively rare occasions of high class cricket being played by both teams. Also while people fondly remember the ATGs they forget how awful the spuds were.
 

OverratedSanity

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I’ve got a soft spot for the 90s and 00s but I feel like there were some truly awful times that people blank out. A lot more tedious draws. A lot more umpiring gaffes. Formats of world cups that sucked.
Can't really lump in the 90s and 2000s like that when both decades were so different for cricket. The new wc format is great but we've also only had one of it in the 2010s so it's not really representative of the decade.

Edit: actually 2015 kinda had it too so fair enough.
 

Fuller Pilch

Hall of Fame Member
The 2010s might be the most competitive. On a rules front, the referral system finally came into its own and now it’s exceedingly rare for matches to be ruined by umpiring.

We got a good WC format going and culminating in the classic that was 2019.

The rise of the Fab Four.

ATG Indian, Bangladeshi and NZ teams.

Multiple countries hitting #1 in Tests.
Also the most gun allrounders since the 80s.
 

Flem274*

123/5
And you can't really say the spuds today are much better than the spuds of yesteryear when we have Zak Crawley and Marcus Harris around.
it's more the head scratching selections are being shared around, even to the cashed up bois.

australia used to have so many good batsmen it was hard to make a dumb call while the rest of us povos looked around and said 'guess we'll pick the cantabrian because the senior players played age group with him.' i'm guessing being a pakistani fan you'd have similar stories.

it's nice other teams are inflicting stupidity on themselves. more the merrier.
 

trundler

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it's more the head scratching selections are being shared around, even to the cashed up bois.

australia used to have so many good batsmen it was hard to make a dumb call while the rest of us povos looked around and said 'guess we'll pick the cantabrian because the senior players played age group with him.' i'm guessing being a pakistani fan you'd have similar stories.

it's nice other teams are inflicting stupidity on themselves. more the merrier.
Crawley is a head scratcher because he shouldn't even make his county's team but England did try out every competent domestic opener and they all sucked. Burns averaged high 60s before being picked but turned out he sucks too. The 2 tier CC system isn't conducive to producing test class openers imo. Australia had a golden generation from the late 90s to the mid 2000s but I'm skeptical of the quality of the back up batsmen because Lee was an automatic pick and Adam Dale played a test. Now they have way better bowling depth but limited batsmen so swings and roundabouts I guess. Marcus Harris was consistently the best Shield opener before Khawaja broke through too. I think people default to thinking the selectors are ****ing up when most of the time the options just suck. Mir Hamza sucked too.
 

Blenkinsop

U19 Vice-Captain
In the long run I think England will be fine for openers. We're still in a hangover after Cook's retirement. But there are some players coming through in the next generation who look very decent.
 

Molehill

Cricketer Of The Year
Crawley is a head scratcher because he shouldn't even make his county's team but England did try out every competent domestic opener and they all sucked. Burns averaged high 60s before being picked but turned out he sucks too. The 2 tier CC system isn't conducive to producing test class openers imo.
I've come to the conclusion that Crawley is simply the antidote to Sibley. They're both equally as crap, but at least one won't bore you senseless in the process. He's McCullum's man it seems so I guess he's here to stay, until the youngsters come through like Haines for example.

Those 2 are like Jack Hobbs when compared to many NZ openers of the 90s.
I perhaps was a bit unfair on England in the 90's. I mean we had Gooch, Atherton, Stewart etc who were decent players. I guess they were just unfortunate to come up against the best fast bowling era of Test Cricket. It could be that NZ suffered similarly.
 

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