Snipped to leave space for my tome.
The first thing to say that, for me, this is all about conversation. I really don't gaf about 'winning' any sort of argument or nit-picking over individual words. But I found it interesting looking at those series that the WI played over the two years before they toured England in 1988. Granted the cut-off point is slightly arbitrary, as going back slightly further to include their 5-0 win at home to England in 1985-86 would improve most of their statistics, but I was interested in how they went against opponents other than England. And two years sounds about right if we’re thinking about their form before the 1988 series. So we’re looking at Pakistan, New Zealand and India (all away) and finally Pakistan at home.
The first thing to say is that we need to be careful about making lazy generalisations about matches in Pakistan and India. The obvious assumption is that the former series was dominated by Abdul Qadir being aided and abetted by Pakistani umpires. Obviously those factors were relevant, but the man of the match in the test that the hosts won was actually Wasim Akram (although Qadir did clean up in the second innings). The other thing about the series in Pakistan and India is how well the WI quicks performed in conditions that we wouldn’t expect to suit them. Marshall actually did better in Pakistan than in the New Zealand series that followed it. Make of that what you will. Walsh did very well in both series, which I hadn’t expected.
As for Pakistan, most of the WI batsmen also struggled in the home series that immediately preceded the tour of England. Greenidge averaged 23, Haynes 13, Logie 21 and Hooper 26. The exceptions were Richardson, Richards and Dujon, who all excelled. Again, something that I hadn’t expected was how well Richards’ stats held up in this stage of his career. His overall figures for the whole two year period aren’t so much lower than his career average, and his performances in the home series against Pakistan were outstanding. He had missed the first test, which Pakistan won, and it’s almost as if he came back even more determined than usual to maintain the WI’s unbeaten run. His runs in the second test ensured that Pakistan didn’t establish a 2-0 lead, and, to a slightly lesser extent, he helped set up a narrow win the WI in the final test. If memory serves, the Pakistanis weren’t happy with some of the umpiring in that test, but that’s hardly surprising. It’s a shame that there’s hardly any footage of that series; it really was a classic.
Anyway, moving onto the numbers, which I’ll list in a bit. What you’ll see is that most of the batsmen are a bit below their career average in the two years before the 1988 series. Now obviously people can interpret that however they want, but what I think you see from the older guys is some outstanding innings surrounded by a larger number of relative failures. Once they got in, they tended to go big but, at that stage of their career, there were lots of times when they were dismissed relatively cheaply. Hooper, btw, wasn’t averaging 137. I think you forgot the series at home to Pakistan and only included the tests in India. Maybe you did that with all of them? Perhaps that’s why you had no stats for Ambrose, who debuted during the home series against Pakistan.
As for the bowlers, Marshall was at the peak of his powers and Walsh had done much better at that stage of his career than I had thought. Ambrose was very new, although he found his feet pretty quickly in England and subsequently in Australia a few months later. Patterson was fine but hadn’t maintained his ATG figures from the start of his test career. He only actually played in the first two tests of the 1988 England series before being replaced by Winston Benjamin. Again, a fine bowler, but not really in the same class as the guys who had preceded him.
Anyway, here are the numbers.
Batting
Greenidge = 871 runs at 39.6
Haynes = 585 runs at 25.4
Richardson = 748 runs at 34.0
Richards = 825 runs at 45.8
Logie = 438 runs at 29.2
Hooper = 303 runs at 33.7
Dujon = 453 runs at 28.3
Bowling
Marshall = 40 wickets at 21.0 (only 40 because he missed the India series)
Ambrose = 7 wickets at 52.1
Walsh = 54 wickets at 21.7
Patterson = 24 wickets at 27.4
Benjamin = 14 wickets at 27.6
EDIT
Here are the highlights of the final day's play in the 1988 series when WI beat Pakistan by 2 wickets to level the series. Accompanied by some wonderfully biased hometown commentary.