The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[kyear2]

All he said was ratings (both by peers and media) tend to reward flash over functionality.

Nobody ever mentioned a “flash in the pan”.

Touchy touchy.

And no he didn’t. The others earned the title of best batsman in the world through their test careers.

Richards was never the best bat in the world anyway.

From about 70 - 75 it's well documented by many that he was seen as the best bat in the world. Sobers was on the decline and Barry rook over the torch untile Viv emerged.

But you probaly don't think he was the best either.

 

[Coronis]

From about 70 - 75 it's well documented by many that he was seen as the best bat in the world. Sobers was on the decline and Barry rook over the torch untile Viv emerged.

But you probaly don't think he was the best either.

Well no, considering Sobers was dominant in the RoW series and afterwards Richards was definitely not the best batsman going round in county.

 

[kyear2]

Sorry but why are the likes of kallis in bold but sanga and dravid and miandad not. Even if you think kallis is better surely the difference is utterly insignificant especially for you since you rate defensive batsmen lower.

I also think Chappell and Hammond are massively overrated but that's an opinion I know most don't share with me tbf so I'll let it be.

I think Kallis is better than Waugh, Dravid and especially Miandad.

He played on much tougher home pitches, which is a differentiator for me.

Re Hammond and Chappell, yeah think that Hammond is a bit over rated, but he was one of the big three before the War and his number would have been ridiculous had he not returned there after. Chappell I give major props for how he did in WSC. Only 3 batsmen even looked comfortable far less world class and he was one of them. So that elevates him for me.

 

[kyear2]

This Barry Richards propaganda from blokes who've never watched him bat is so laughable. There's basically no statistical evidence and precious little good footage available to get a full picture of how good he really was.

If we're ready to make a judgement on how good he was from his small sample of tests, it's equally fair to say judge him by the footage we have of him batting. Quite a bit of it looks great but some like the below looks club level. Dude played an Andy Roberts bouncer about as well as Mohammad siraj would. I'm not even meme-ing, it's a genuinely embarrassing dismissal.

This is the guy were saying is better than guys like sanga dravid gavaskar etc?. give me a break. If you watched his career fair enough. If not, you have zero basis for the claim
.

Like how we watched Grace, Ranji and Barnes?

We read, we listen to historians, peers and journalists. We watch what we can, looked at how they performed vs the very best and we listen to those we trust. It's really not that hard.

 

[Coronis]

I think Kallis is better than Waugh, Dravid and especially Miandad.

He played on much tougher home pitches, which is a differentiator for me.

Re Hammond and Chappell, yeah think that Hammond is a bit over rated, but he was one of the big three before the War and his number would have been ridiculous had he not returned there after. Chappell I give major props for how he did in WSC. Only 3 batsmen even looked comfortable far less world class and he was one of them. So that elevates him for me.

Agreed.

 

[kyear2]

Ten of the best bowlers of this time were: Lillee, Thomson, Roberts, Holding, Snow, Underwood, Bedi, Chandra, Procter, van der Bijl. Two each from Australia, West Indies, England, India and South Africa. Hadlee and Imran were still developing.

Batting figures below taken from innings when one or more of these ten was bowling for the opposition. Non-Test first-class matches plus WSC Supertests. Bowler who dismissed each batsman most often in brackets.

Barry Richards 6613 runs @ 57.50. 18 hundreds. (Snow)
Boycott 3921 @ 55.22. 14 hundreds. (Procter)
Zaheer 3198 @ 54.20. 12 hundreds. (Lillee)
Greg Chappell 4656 @ 52.90. 14 hundreds. (Lillee)
Turner 3811 @ 47.04. 11 hundreds. (Procter)
Pollock 3614 @ 46.33. 8 hundreds. (van der Bijl)
Gavaskar 2315 @ 42.09. 5 hundreds. (Chandrasekhar)

Excellent as always Sir.

The man was a genius.

 

[Bolo.]

Ten of the best bowlers of this time were: Lillee, Thomson, Roberts, Holding, Snow, Underwood, Bedi, Chandra, Procter, van der Bijl. Two each from Australia, West Indies, England, India and South Africa. Hadlee and Imran were still developing.

Batting figures below taken from innings when one or more of these ten was bowling for the opposition. Non-Test first-class matches plus WSC Supertests. Bowler who dismissed each batsman most often in brackets.

Barry Richards 6613 runs @ 57.50. 18 hundreds. (Snow)
Boycott 3921 @ 55.22. 14 hundreds. (Procter)
Zaheer 3198 @ 54.20. 12 hundreds. (Lillee)
Greg Chappell 4656 @ 52.90. 14 hundreds. (Lillee)
Turner 3811 @ 47.04. 11 hundreds. (Procter)
Pollock 3614 @ 46.33. 8 hundreds. (van der Bijl)
Gavaskar 2315 @ 42.09. 5 hundreds. (Chandrasekhar)

Pollock gets a real rough deal of this. He's the only one who faced VD Bijl, and he gets Procter in the same matches. That's basically all his matches other than ROW, which were stronger than domestic attacks, and he was playing with a mashed eyeball.

 

[capt_Luffy]

Excellent as always Sir.

The man was a genius.

Did you looked at the list even??? Or are Abbas and Turner ATGs as well?

 

[peterhrt]

Pollock gets a real rough deal of this. He's the only one who faced VD Bijl, and he gets Procter in the same matches. That's basically all his matches other than ROW, which were stronger than domestic attacks, and he was playing with a mashed eyeball.

Van der Bijl bowled to all these batsmen, dismissing all except Chappell and Zaheer. He caused plenty of problems when bowling for Middlesex in 1980 and troubled Boycott on the first rebel tour. Pollock came up against Snow and Underwood in England in 1965, taking a hundred off one and scoring 203* against the other. He also faced various touring sides to South Africa that included these two and Lillee.

Richards' lack of tact ruffled a few feathers. He claimed to find county cricket easy and boring, requiring the challenge of a top bowler or tricky wicket. Sometimes he would cruise to about sixty then seem deliberately to get out. He also claimed to be underpaid. Noting this, South Australia offered him a dollar a run and he averaged over a hundred for them. In December 1966 Richards made an effortless 107 in 160 minutes against the visiting Australians and was duly selected to make his Test debut a couple of weeks later. But drunken misdemeanours after the match almost landed him in prison and he was left out of the series on disciplinary grounds. Then the 1968-69 series against England was cancelled so he had to wait till 1970 to play his first Test.

Highest scores in the matches featured in the earlier post:

Barry Richards 356 v Lillee
Boycott 261* v Roberts and Holding
Greg Chappell 246* v Roberts
Zaheer 230* (and 104* in same match) v Underwood
Turner 228* v Procter
Gavaskar 228 v Chandrasekhar
Barry Richards 224 v Snow
Barry Richards 219 v Procter
Barry Richards 207 v Lillee
Zaheer 205* (and 108* in same match) v Underwood
Pollock 203* v Underwood

 

[Coronis]

Van der Bijl bowled to all these batsmen, dismissing all except Chappell and Zaheer. He caused plenty of problems when bowling for Middlesex in 1980 and troubled Boycott on the first rebel tour. Pollock came up against Snow and Underwood in England in 1965, taking a hundred off one and scoring 203* against the other. He also faced various touring sides to South Africa that included these two and Lillee.

Richards' lack of tact ruffled a few feathers. He claimed to find county cricket easy and boring, requiring the challenge of a top bowler or tricky wicket. Sometimes he would cruise to about sixty then seem deliberately to get out. He also claimed to be underpaid. Noting this, South Australia offered him a dollar a run and he averaged over a hundred for them. In December 1966 Richards made an effortless 107 in 160 minutes against the visiting Australians and was duly selected to make his Test debut a couple of weeks later. But drunken misdemeanours after the match almost landed him in prison and he was left out of the series on disciplinary grounds. Then the 1968-69 series against England was cancelled so he had to wait till 1970 to play his first Test.

Highest scores in the matches featured in the earlier post:

Barry Richards 356 v Lillee
Boycott 261* v Roberts and Holding
Greg Chappell 246* v Roberts
Zaheer 230* (and 104* in same match) v Underwood
Turner 228* v Procter
Gavaskar 228 v Chandrasekhar
Barry Richards 224 v Snow
Barry Richards 219 v Procter
Barry Richards 207 v Lillee
Zaheer 205* (and 108* in same match) v Underwood
Pollock 203* v Underwood

Hadn’t heard this. Screwed himself out of a few more tests lol. Do we know what the “drunken misdemeanours” actually were?

 

[peterhrt]

Hadn’t heard this. Screwed himself out of a few more tests lol. Do we know what the “drunken misdemeanours” actually were?

He was in a group refused entry late at night to entertainment at a hotel. Richards allegedly vandalised property outside.

 

[peterhrt]

Adding Clive Lloyd.

3754 runs @ 43.14. 9 centuries. HS 197 v Lillee and Thomson in WSC.

Lillee dismissed him most often.

 

[Prince EWS]

Adding Clive Lloyd.

3754 runs @ 43.14. 9 centuries. HS 197 v Lillee and Thomson in WSC.

Lillee dismissed him most often.

Imagine how bad his record would be against Hoggard.

 

[Bolo.]

Van der Bijl bowled to all these batsmen, dismissing all except Chappell and Zaheer. He caused plenty of problems when bowling for Middlesex in 1980 and troubled Boycott on the first rebel tour. Pollock came up against Snow and Underwood in England in 1965, taking a hundred off one and scoring 203* against the other. He also faced various touring sides to South Africa that included these two and Lillee.

Richards' lack of tact ruffled a few feathers. He claimed to find county cricket easy and boring, requiring the challenge of a top bowler or tricky wicket. Sometimes he would cruise to about sixty then seem deliberately to get out. He also claimed to be underpaid. Noting this, South Australia offered him a dollar a run and he averaged over a hundred for them. In December 1966 Richards made an effortless 107 in 160 minutes against the visiting Australians and was duly selected to make his Test debut a couple of weeks later. But drunken misdemeanours after the match almost landed him in prison and he was left out of the series on disciplinary grounds. Then the 1968-69 series against England was cancelled so he had to wait till 1970 to play his first Test.

Highest scores in the matches featured in the earlier post:

Barry Richards 356 v Lillee
Boycott 261* v Roberts and Holding
Greg Chappell 246* v Roberts
Zaheer 230* (and 104* in same match) v Underwood
Turner 228* v Procter
Gavaskar 228 v Chandrasekhar
Barry Richards 224 v Snow
Barry Richards 219 v Procter
Barry Richards 207 v Lillee
Zaheer 205* (and 108* in same match) v Underwood
Pollock 203* v Underwood

Ah, thought you were cutting it off at an earlier date. My point still stands though- VD Bijl only played one season overseas, and Barry played on his team, so Pollock had a much rougher ride against these specific bowlers.

I also hadn't heard about that drunken story. Bacher joked that his proudest achievement in tests was keeping Barry out of the team for a series (think it may have been on ESPN legends series). Seems like he really didn't achieve much in tests .

 

[Coronis]

He was in a group refused entry late at night to entertainment at a hotel. Richards allegedly vandalised property outside.

Damn. Was hoping it’d be something more fun.

What a loser. Now I have a personal reason to dislike him.

 

[kyear2]

Did you looked at the list even??? Or are Abbas and Turner ATGs as well?

Abbas wasn't an opener and from I can glen scored quite a bit of his runs off of Underwood and the Indian spinners.

Turner averaged 47, not nearly the same.

Not to add that Barry had twice the volume of the others.

 

[kyear2]

Van der Bijl bowled to all these batsmen, dismissing all except Chappell and Zaheer. He caused plenty of problems when bowling for Middlesex in 1980 and troubled Boycott on the first rebel tour. Pollock came up against Snow and Underwood in England in 1965, taking a hundred off one and scoring 203* against the other. He also faced various touring sides to South Africa that included these two and Lillee.

Richards' lack of tact ruffled a few feathers. He claimed to find county cricket easy and boring, requiring the challenge of a top bowler or tricky wicket. Sometimes he would cruise to about sixty then seem deliberately to get out. He also claimed to be underpaid. Noting this, South Australia offered him a dollar a run and he averaged over a hundred for them. In December 1966 Richards made an effortless 107 in 160 minutes against the visiting Australians and was duly selected to make his Test debut a couple of weeks later. But drunken misdemeanours after the match almost landed him in prison and he was left out of the series on disciplinary grounds. Then the 1968-69 series against England was cancelled so he had to wait till 1970 to play his first Test.

Highest scores in the matches featured in the earlier post:

Barry Richards 356 v Lillee
Boycott 261* v Roberts and Holding
Greg Chappell 246* v Roberts
Zaheer 230* (and 104* in same match) v Underwood
Turner 228* v Procter
Gavaskar 228 v Chandrasekhar
Barry Richards 224 v Snow
Barry Richards 219 v Procter
Barry Richards 207 v Lillee
Zaheer 205* (and 108* in same match) v Underwood
Pollock 203* v Underwood

@capt_Luffy this answers the Zaheer question.

And yeah, while I wasn't aware of the averages, I was aware of some of the scores Barry had against said bowlers, there's also highlights on YouTube.

I first heard of Richards decades ago in a book called, I want to say the no. 1s. Think there was a picture of Curly's wrist on the cover, could be wrong.

Was fascinated how a cricket with four tests could make that list. So you read more, and you ask questions and then YouTube, listen to guys here who've seen him actually play.

You see someone rated highly, then you try to understand how he could make a Cricinfo all time 2nd team and it's not that hard to figure out how and why.

Lillee of all people (and for obvious reasons) rated the guy on par with Viv and Sobers as far as batsmen who he's bowled to. This isn't someone watching from mid off, this is a top 10 pacer telling us how hard he was to get out, and what he could do to him.

The numbers are obviously there, so is the talent should one care to spend a couple hours on YouTube, so is the peer rating and journalists reviews. Yeah, I think he was a top 10 batsman of all time.

 

[capt_Luffy]

Abbas wasn't an opener and from I can glen scored quite a bit of his runs off of Underwood and the Indian spinners.

Turner averaged 47, not nearly the same.

Not to add that Barry had twice the volume of the others.

So you are saying Underwood, Bedi and Chandra where less glorious as bowlers?? Ofcourse he scored double the runs, none else lines up perfectly. However you spin it, Abbas and Boycott both have very comparable records and no one in the list of batsmen Peterhrt posted lines perfectly with Barry's career. Pollock is decently senior and always rated higher in their homeland and Sunny more than quite a bit junior, infact by the time he entered his World Class stage, Barry played for 3 more years as a top tier Batsman. Not to mention his playing career basically being of a decade is a big nono, especially without the sample size. Overall, I don't doubt he was class, but severely lacks the output to be ranked ahead of someone like Dravid or Sangakkara. Also, really can't think of a single reason to rate him ahead of Trumper, not even peer review, where Trumper is eons ahead.

And ftr, Wasim Akram, a pacer better than Dennis Lillee, rated Martin Crowe higher than Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.

 

[kyear2]

So you are saying Underwood, Bedi and Chandra where less glorious as bowlers?? Ofcourse he scored double the runs, none else lines up perfectly. However you spin it, Abbas and Boycott both have very comparable records and no one in the list of batsmen Peterhrt posted lines perfectly with Barry's career. Pollock is decently senior and always rated higher in their homeland and Sunny more than quite a bit junior, infact by the time he entered his World Class stage, Barry played for 3 more years as a top tier Batsman. Not to mention his playing career basically being of a decade is a big nono, especially without the sample size. Overall, I don't doubt he was class, but severely lacks the output to be ranked ahead of someone like Dravid or Sangakkara. Also, really can't think of a single reason to rate him ahead of Trumper, not even peer review, where Trumper is eons ahead.

I'm saying that Zaheer was world class batsman against spin, he wasn't near that vs real pace, that's not a secret.

And no one brought up Sunny, just saying.

And no doubt in my mind he was a better batsman than Dravid, some though may argue for Sanga.

All I know is if I had access to a time machine and was collecting the avengers for a must win test series there's no one I'm choosing ahead of him as an opener.

 

[kyear2]

But back to the original point.

Of the three teams, the greatest variance in make up would be on the Asian unit because they don't have a genuine top 7 all rounder and everyone has a different solution to handle that, but let's say for the sake of argument.

SC XI

Sunil Gavaskar ^
Virender Sehwag
Rahul Dravid ^
Sachin Tendulkar
Kumar Sangakkara (wk)
Younis Khan ^
Imran Khan ©²
Wasim Akram ³
Ravichandran Ashwin ⁵
Muttiah Muralitharan ⁴
Jasprit Bumrah ¹

ROW XI

Barry Richards ^
Graeme Smith ©
Sir I V.A. Richards
Brian Lara
Jacques Kallis ^
Sir Garfield Sobers ^⁵
B.J. Watling (wk)
Sir Richard Hadlee ²
Malcolm Marshall ¹
Dale Steyn ⁴
Sir Curtly Ambrose ³

Ashes XI

Sir John Hobbs
Sir Leonard Hutton
Sir Donald Bradman ©
Steven Smith ^
Walter Hammond ^⁵
Greg Chappell ^
Adam Gilchrist (wk)
Alan Davidson ³
Shane Warne ⁴
Dennis Lillee ²
Glenn McGrath ¹

The Ashes team has the best batting, the ROW the best place attack and beer depth.

The SC has a chance to be very good at home, but of all the teams would struggle the most away from home imo. While I think the other two teams would at least be competitive.

Initially I was thinking that the Ashes had a big advantage, but McGrath apart, their bowling is a little unproven in the SC against this level lineup. Their batting though should be sufficient to at least carve out a few draws. While they should be dominant in England and down under.

The pace attack of the ROW would keep then in any match and all but Ambrose had success on Indian decks, and he, Marshall and Hadlee were exceptional in Australia and England. Their batting lineup is also the 2nd best of the teams selected.

Think it comes down to the Ashes vs the ROW in a final and then it's the top 4 of the Ashes XI vs the pace attack of the ROW determining that match up.