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Just How Good Was Barry Richards?
- Thread starter fredfertang
- Start date
Migara
International Coach
Argument is good. But, then you have to put them on Indian and Pakistani soil with spinners bowling at them. And many many many south africans have just capitulated against spin.
Northerner
School Boy/Girl Captain
Barry Richards was a great first class cricketer and i have no doubt he would have been a great test player too, the same applies to Graeme Pollock.
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Mark Waugh too.
Graeme Hick was also called the best bat since Bradman before having to play 7-8 years of county cricket that killed his game for Test cricket...
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Barry Richards deserves to be recognized as a great of the game. But not an ATG.
Arachnödouche2.0
School Boy/Girl Cricketer
He's an ATG, just not an ATG Test bat. His legend and reputation ensures a place for him in the pantheon. Assuming both he and Tendulkar were holding forth on the art of batting, would you give Richards any less credence than Sachin?
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
I would. Because he's unproven in the highest form of the game.
kyear2
International Coach
That's the thing. You change your criteria based on who it is.
You've said that once a batsman van lay claim to the best in the world, they are automatically in the upper tier.
Barry played 9 tests (5 were only retracted after) and 4 WSC matches. All of his non tests were against higher quality of bowling than Pollock's and possibly even Headley's tests. Twenty two is good enough, but fourteen isn't?
O'Reilly is ranked even higher, 27 tests, 19 vs England.
Anyways.
Greatest batsmen in the history of the test game. (Will hope to get this one right)
Hobbs - Hammond - Bradman - Hutton - Sobers - Richards - Richards - Tendulkar / Lara - Smith
Bowlers
Barnes - O'Reilly - Lindwall - Lillee - Marshall - Ambrose - Akram - McGrath - Steyn - Bumrah
Coincidentally, both lists have 10 names.
Think Hammond had the shortest reign (if at all) someone can correct me if wrong.
For a long time there was no one set of Test or first-class stats. Different publications did their own thing. Wisden defied the ICC and carried on counting the E v RoW 1970 games. Here is an excerpt from a match report from the 1954-55 series in Australia. The series had been decided in England's favour before the fifth and final Test at Sydney. England batted first.
Compton's last 62 runs came in 80 minutes, after which interest centred on whether Lindwall could get his 100th wicket. After he had dismissed Evans, Bailey gave him his wicket, and Hutton then declared. Lindwall thus became the only fast bowler to achieve this distinction.
Bailey had deliberately left a straight ball and allowed himself to be bowled. It was Lindwall's hundredth wicket against England. The fact that he had taken another 72 wickets against four other countries seems not have been of consequence. Many statisticians still only counted England v Australia matches in their records. They would not have credited Headley with any Tests.
When Hutton established a new highest Test innings at The Oval in 1938 he believed he had beaten Bradman's record of 334, not Hammond's 336* against New Zealand. And when Bradman walked out to bat for the last time on the same ground ten years later, he had no idea he needed four runs to average 100. If he had known, he said, he reckoned he would have got them.
Bradman retired with an average of 89 in Ashes Tests. At the time the next highest averages were Paynter 84, Morris 79, Barnes 70, Sutcliffe 66 and Hutton 61. All bar Sutcliffe had played far fewer innings, but purely on average The Don was not as far ahead as might be assumed now. In any case folk were more likely to have been aware of his number of Ashes centuries: 19, with Hobbs (12), Hammond (9) and Sutcliffe (8) following.
Statisticians started taking more interest in matches involving other countries with the 1958 series between West Indies and Pakistan. First Hanif played the longest innings ever recorded in first-class cricket, then Sobers scored 365* to beat Hutton's record. Six years later Trueman's 300th Test wicket was accompanied by much fanfare, with nobody caring that only 78 of them had come against Australia.
Last edited:
Migara
International Coach
I would. Richards never proved himself on square turners like Lara, Richards, Sobers or Barrington.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Pollock played 7 years. That's a fair amount.
Barry just not enough for me.
Imran was the best between Lillee and Marshall. Donald between Akram and McGrath.
Do you consider WSC for all cricketers?
OverratedSanity
Request Your Custom Title Now!
Richards scored 2 tons in WSC and both look like excellent knocks from the scorecard but the attacks in those games was good, but nothing extraordinary, or "above test level" like people portray. It was some mix of Lillee/Walker/Gilmour/Bright. Scorecards below:
vs Cricket Scorecard, Final at Sydney, February 02 - 04, 1979
Live Cricket Scoreboard: Get WSC Australia vs WSC World XI Final, cricket scorecard, World Series Cricket Supertests 1978/79 dated February 02 - 04, 1979.
www.espncricinfo.com
vs Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Match at Perth, January 27 - 30, 1978
Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Match, vs , WSC World XI tour of Australia 1977/78 at Gloucester Park, Perth dated January 27 - 30, 1978.
www.espncricinfo.com
I assume the 5 retracted tests you're talking about is the 1970 row tour of England? Barry Richards averaged 36 in those 5 games with 1 fifty in 8 innings.
Most runs - Rest of the World XI tour of England, Jun-Sep 1970
Check out detailed most runs, revealing player performances and key metrics from the Rest of the World XI tour of England, Jun-Sep 1970 on ESPNcricinfo
www.espncricinfo.com
OverratedSanity
Request Your Custom Title Now!
Am I missing some WSC games of his? I assumed he smashed around the great Windies pacers a few times the way people go on about his WSC exploits. I only did a casual search though, so glad to be proven wrong.
govinda indian fan
State Regular
Richards is atg but unfortunate he could not play truning pitches of india and sri lanka reverse swing of pakistan. It is shame south africa didnt play in india and pakistan in 70s whether reason maybe would have been great for cricket
govinda indian fan
State Regular
Would have been great to see barry richards and grame Pollock face chandra bedi and prasanna in mumbai and Kolkata imran and safraz in lahore and karachi. Unfrounately it was crickets lossRichards is atg but unfortunate he could not play truning pitches of india and sri lanka reverse swing of pakistan. It is shame south africa didnt play in india and pakistan in 70s whether reason maybe would have been great for cricket
kyear2
International Coach
This indirectly ties into one of my observations while taking a deep dive into Barry.
1. While the quartet presented their unique challenges, and while not minnows, as is oft portrayed when discussing one of the names above. The SC wasn't the ultimate challenge of batsmen during that era, and spin is never quite the measuring stick for opening batsmen. The real challenges at the time would have been England, Australia and South Africa, conditions and bowlers. But he did face his fair share of Underwood and I would presume, on a sticky or two.
2. Forget Pollock for a second, the second best player on those teams was probably Procter. The challenge with rating him that highly though was his lack of exposure to the SC conditions, and he played his trade in the most helpful conditions of the era. But yeah, he was elite and box office. He also has more competition as a bowling all rounder from Imran and Hadlee and the like, but he was up there.
kyear2
International Coach
Yes, that was the attack. It was a test standard attack, a pretty decent one actually, including the best bowler in the world and the gentleman who was seen as the GOAT at the time. And again, better than the equivalent ones that were being simultaneously plundered in the official tests.Richards scored 2 tons in WSC and both look like excellent knocks from the scorecard but the attacks in those games was good, but nothing extraordinary, or "above test level" like people portray. It was some mix of Lillee/Walker/Gilmour/Bright. Scorecards below:
vs Cricket Scorecard, Final at Sydney, February 02 - 04, 1979
Live Cricket Scoreboard: Get WSC Australia vs WSC World XI Final, cricket scorecard, World Series Cricket Supertests 1978/79 dated February 02 - 04, 1979.
vs Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Match at Perth, January 27 - 30, 1978
Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Match, vs , WSC World XI tour of Australia 1977/78 at Gloucester Park, Perth dated January 27 - 30, 1978.
I assume the 5 retracted tests you're talking about is the 1970 row tour of England? Barry Richards averaged 36 in those 5 games with 1 fifty in 8 innings.
Most runs - Rest of the World XI tour of England, Jun-Sep 1970
Check out detailed most runs, revealing player performances and key metrics from the Rest of the World XI tour of England, Jun-Sep 1970 on ESPNcricinfo
Re the England series, yeah, he was 24, hurt his back in the 4th test I believe and scored 14 twice in the last test.
You have ups and downs, that's why we look at averages. But first tour to England as an opener vs an, again pretty good attack.
He also proved himself against Lillee and all of the best bowlers of his era countless times during his career.
I don't get the point that you're trying to make.