Rank these 5 Test openers in order ( Boycott, Greenidge, Hayden, Sehwag, G Smith )

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Without thinking too much I wanna say:

Greenidge
Boycott
Smith
Sehwag
Hayden

But I think they're all on the same tier. Wouldn't be outraged by any ranking of them really.

 

[The Sean]

So there's 2 things that brought this on, the first is a bit of a gripe at the CW "consensus", and in particular about a certain cricketer who grinds my gears, Geoff Boycott. How can we downgrade the accomplishments and abilities of Kallis, a player with incredible longevity and basically impeccable record in a variety of conditions, as being a "slow" player? Then at the same time rate Boycott is rated at or even above ( he's above all of these 4 if you go by the last 2 Vanillaish drafts, looking at you @Line and Length , and @Bitmap ) all non Gavaskar modernish (like Sobers and after basically, played a majority of their careers after the early 60s) openers? This is a guy who got run out by his own teammate, and generally rubbed his own side the wrong way, unlike Kallis who teammates have defended throughout his career as a rock of their order, regardless of what we the peanut gallery say.

So yeah, the other thing is I was trying to make a consensus CW XI out of said "modernish" players, and the only really wild card spot is the second opener. The rest of the team shakes out thusly:

01. Gavaskar
02. ??
03. Lara / S. Smith
04. Tendulkar / S. Smith
05. V. Richards / S. Smith
06. Sobers
07. Gilchrist
08. Hadlee / Khan
09. Marshall
10. Warne/Murali
11. McGrath

My pick is Hayden of course, but I'm not going to pretend there's a consensus on this. Looks like Greenidge is leading for now, but I think the spot certainly has competition.

I don't think I really disagree with your selections, but I reckon the words modern/modernish are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Sobers retired nearly 50 years ago, and the chronological midpoint of Test cricket history came just four years before his debut.

 

[Prince EWS]

So there's 2 things that brought this on, the first is a bit of a gripe at the CW "consensus", and in particular about a certain cricketer who grinds my gears, Geoff Boycott. How can we downgrade the accomplishments and abilities of Kallis, a player with incredible longevity and basically impeccable record in a variety of conditions, as being a "slow" player? Then at the same time rate Boycott is rated at or even above ( he's above all of these 4 if you go by the last 2 Vanillaish drafts, looking at you @Line and Length , and @Bitmap ) all non Gavaskar modernish (like Sobers and after basically, played a majority of their careers after the early 60s) openers? This is a guy who got run out by his own teammate, and generally rubbed his own side the wrong way, unlike Kallis who teammates have defended throughout his career as a rock of their order, regardless of what we the peanut gallery say.

So yeah, the other thing is I was trying to make a consensus CW XI out of said "modernish" players, and the only really wild card spot is the second opener. The rest of the team shakes out thusly:

01. Gavaskar
02. ??
03. Lara / S. Smith
04. Tendulkar / S. Smith
05. V. Richards / S. Smith
06. Sobers
07. Gilchrist
08. Hadlee / Khan
09. Marshall
10. Warne/Murali
11. McGrath

My pick is Hayden of course, but I'm not going to pretend there's a consensus on this. Looks like Greenidge is leading for now, but I think the spot certainly has competition.

So even your thread about five openers is also actually about Kallis.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

So even your thread about five openers is also actually about Kallis.

Clearly about Kallis. The giveaway is the lack of Jadeja in the poll.

 

[shortpitched713]

So even your thread about five openers is also actually about Kallis.

Well, if you read most of my posts in this thread, it turned into a "**** Geoff Boycott" thread,which is kind of on topic.

 

[shortpitched713]

I think it's weird how we just downgrade the 2000s openers as FTBs.

All 3 of their runs won matches for their teams, just like Greenidge. Don't know why they all would be rated so far below him. They didn't choose the era in which to be so dominant.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I think it's weird how we just downgrade the 2000s openers as FTBs.

All 3 of their runs won matches for their teams, just like Greenidge. Don't know why they all would be rated so far below him. They didn't choose the era in which to be so dominant.

Unlike Boycott, two of them had very ordinary overseas records and the one who didn't, kinda sucked at home which was the most bowler friendly country of that era.

 

[shortpitched713]

Well obviously he'd do worse on the tracks designed to highlight SA's significant fast bowling strengths. Don't see any reason that should be held against him.

That's like saying water is wet or poop is smelly, well no **** players do better in conditions that suit them.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Well obviously he'd do worse on the tracks designed to highlight SA's significant fast bowling strengths. Don't see any reason that should be held against him.

That's like saying water is wet or poop is smelly, well no **** players do better in conditions that suit them.

-Why didnt these players do that well in conditions that didnt suit them?
-Why didnt these conditions suit them?
-Did they have technical failings that let them down in certain conditions?
- Why did Boycott not suffer the same statistical drop off in conditions he wasnt used to?

 

[Coronis]

-Did they have technical failings that let them down in certain conditions?
- Why did Boycott not suffer the same statistical drop off in conditions he wasnt used to?

-Yes
-Cos he better than them

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yes, but I wanted him to answer ffs.

 

[BazBall21]

Attempt at a top twenty openers of the past 50 years...

1) Gavaskar
2) Greenidge
3) Boycott
4) Gooch
5) Hayden
6) Smith
7) Kirsten
8) Anwar
9) Sehwag
10) Slater
11) Langer
12) Fredericks
13) Stewart
14) Cook
15) Taylor
16) Amiss
17) Haynes
18) Gibbs
19) Turner
20) Vaughan.

Didn't include Boon because he batted a lot more at 3. I will have inevitably forgotten someone...

 

[OverratedSanity]

Sehwag could get 300 in a day against bowlers like Murali and Steyn. Ranking him below Kirsten and Anwar is dubious af.

 

[BazBall21]

Sehwag could get 300 in a day against bowlers like Murali and Steyn. Ranking him below Kirsten and Anwar is dubious af.

Better overall batsman than Kirsten probably. As an opener, I have my qualms. Record against the moving ball is really bad. I still have him top ten in spite of that because of his Asian dominance which extends to several hundreds against ATGs.

 

[Coronis]

Better overall batsman than Kirsten probably. As an opener, I have my qualms. Record against the moving ball is really bad. I still have him top ten in spite of that because of his Asian dominance which extends to several hundreds against ATGs.

Makes sense considering they were both almost exclusively openers.

 

[shortpitched713]

Attempt at a top twenty openers of the past 50 years...

1) Gavaskar
2) Greenidge
3) Boycott
4) Gooch
5) Hayden
6) Smith
7) Kirsten
8) Anwar
9) Sehwag
10) Slater
11) Langer
12) Fredericks
13) Stewart
14) Cook
15) Taylor
16) Amiss
17) Haynes
18) Gibbs
19) Turner
20) Vaughan.

Didn't include Boon because he batted a lot more at 3. I will have inevitably forgotten someone...

Khawaja

 

[BazBall21]

Khawaja

Not his biggest fan personally mate. I'd have Warner or Gayle in before him.

 

[shortpitched713]

-Why didnt these players do that well in conditions that didnt suit them?
-Why didnt these conditions suit them?
-Did they have technical failings that let them down in certain conditions?
- Why did Boycott not suffer the same statistical drop off in conditions he wasnt used to?

My reasoning in general as to why some more modern players have greater variance in their averages in different conditions compared to players of a different time, is that those older players were likely facing more homogenous conditions to begin with. In times past, a foreign pitch was judged to a large extent by how much it replicated an English one, in terms of whether it was "good" to play cricket on. It wasn't a terrible standard, because for newer Test nations there had to be some blueprint, and one which had supported 5 day Tests for decades beforehand seemed as good as any.

Anyway, in more recent times countries will go to extremes to highlight strengths and mitigate weaknesses of their team through pitch preparation. So the earlier standard of "probably should support close to 5 days of cricket, seam in the first days, flatten, then support spin only towards the end" started to become abandoned. India is the obvious example of this. They, like other teams prepare pitches to suit their side (spinning from earlier on), and I believe this is a good thing, mind. Pakistan make flat ones. SA make fast bowling tracks, etc. (Thankfully the days of absurdly flat subcontinent pitches as some kind of default seem to be behind us).

The upshot of this is that I would expect that players would have more ups and downs in their condition averages in more modern days than in days past. It would be good to account for those, rather than simply expect every newer player to conform to an impossible standard.

 

[shortpitched713]

Not his biggest fan personally mate. I'd have Warner or Gayle in him before him.

I'd have Warner above him too, but I'd personally rank him over the likes of Gayle or Gibbs. There's a lot of leverage he can have in this later part of his career too, as he's getting to the point where you can't just consider his disparity between middle order struggle and opening excellence to be flukey. He genuinely seemed misplaced in the middle order and seems suited to the harder new ball.

 

[BazBall21]

I'd have Warner above him too, but I'd personally rank him over the likes of Gayle or Gibbs. There's a lot of leverage he can have in this later part of his career too, as he's getting to the point where you can't just consider his disparity between middle order struggle and opening excellence to be flukey. He genuinely seemed misplaced in the middle order and seems suited to the harder new ball.

He's a good player but I think he's a FTB and I penalise him for that. Warner and Gayle are too but with the more explosive upsides.