Even in the last series which brought down his average; Kohli had a great start in the first match first innings which he failed to convert, was India's sole batsman in the second innings and only got out as he ran out of partners and played a brilliant knock in the first innings of the second Test.
I’d slightly put Viv over Tendulkar in Australia cause of the former’s 1979 series(and even 1975, where he was the only one to step up to Lillee and Thommo on some really bouncy pitches), and high SR. Don’t think Tendulkar had that good a series in Aus(in 99, only Mcgrath was in form, Warne was in the worst phase of his career)
Tendulkar slightly more consistent there but yeah Viv had an ATG tour and was born to bat in Australian conditions.
Imo, Viv's 76 tour is a bit overrated..... He was WI's second best bat after Lloyd and Fredericks and Kallicharan also scored around the same runs at a similar average. 79 is GoATed though.
It wasn’t ATG, but pretty good. And Viv was the 2nd highest scorer with 426 runs for WI, and in the second half of the series properly dominated the Aussie attack.
Dravid also played some pretty mid WI attacks. Gooch is closer, probably even ahead of Gavaskar.
Viv was the second highest scorer behind Lloyd.
Did you miss that WI lost 5-1 due to Lillee and Thommo dominance, so a young Viv Richards stood up well. 1979/80 was great but other than Lillee he faced a post injured Thonmo (was never the same after shoulder injury) and an oldish Pascoe, Hogg, Walker and Dymock.
Thommo was pretty good even till 1979, Lillee was amazing , and he also faced Rodney Hogg who was one of the best bowlers in the world then(he had destroyed England in the Ashes prior). Lillee, Hogg and Thommo made an amazing attack
Yeah when I did a trio for each I included Hutton for Aus.
I never said he did bad, but it wasn't certainly ATG stuff or even the best from WI.
He was pretty good against a strong attack of Holding and Roberts in 76 though; 2 centuries and a hard fought 66, averaging 55. But yeah, he failed in the 83 series, that's why I think Amarnath was better there than him.
On paper and on the ch9 TV commercials yes. I remember being so excited that Lillee, Thommo, Hogg and Pascoe would blitz the opposition, and they did in the 3 Test series vs England. Other than Lillee they didn't do so well against the mighty Windies though which is understandable in hindsight given that was the start of the Windies 16 years of total dominance over world cricket
A reason they didn’t do as well probably was cause they were against a great team, but doesn’t make the attack any less brilliant. It was Viv who made them look ordinary
... and his batting in India was pretty special too. He was possibly one of the best batsman away from home in so many countries.Barrington is the best tourer of South Africa
5 matches, 793 runs, 4 centuries (including a double), 2 half centuries, average 99.
G Smith faced weaker attacks on flatter pitches I think. Never had a series like S Smith in 2019 or Dravid in 2011
Think he really only performed at Bourda and the QPO though.