Johan
Cricketer Of The Year
Ok, I'll make a final response to this considering it seems that you are rightfully wanting to finish the debate, damn @capt_Luffy for starting this.
but, the 1953-54 series was played on extremely flat wickets, the Port of Spain wicket from that series is one of the flattest wickets in history of the game, 1500 runs, just 25 wickets and the game did not remotely come close to finishing, and the one game where the wicket was decent Trueman did get 5/127 that helped equalise the series massively, I feel like the tour is very weird for him as he was actively feuding with MCC and fraternising with the Weat Indies which makes me question where his priorities really lied. Regardless, I think he also hurt his ankle somewhere on the way and that dropped his out.
isn't it fair though? he was having multiple LBW appeals and the Australian umpires refused to give it, even by the standards of that era, the English team considered the umpiring in Australia absolutely baffling, regardless he did have the back problems in that series and that's why Peter May brought him only in as the final weapon after England were obliterated in the first two tests. I don't count the series personally.
I think you're going a bit too much by the numbers regarding his tours, Yes, he averaged 26 but it came on some very high scoring flat wickets, let me put it like this, from those 10 games of those serieses, 7 were draws and only 3 games had results and Trueman won 2 of those games for England, 1 of those wins sealing the first series victory in the West Indies since the war and another putting them up 1-0 in the Ashes. Yes, raw numbers aren't brilliant, and yes, I think a plethora of ATG pacers are better away from home but it's overstated to say that winning 2 of the 3 games with results and doing well on some absolutely flat wickets (36 RPW) is not an impressive feat.
doing well on Flat wickets and being the key factors in result is something that in my eyes deserves recognition, if he had averaged 2 runs less then you'd have no issue with his output had he not won a single game, but it's the match winning effect and destructiveness that makes me rate Freddie high at the first place.
I only really have different standards for Elite ATGs, Tendulkar is one of them, Trueman to me is in the Lillee/Donald/Holding category, where I've no doubt he'd succeed away on spicy wickets considering how he did on flat away wickets, and think they're ATG but pretty obviously a level below guys like Tendulkar/Viv/Hobbs/Sobers, when compared to those guys I mention how they had better away tours and had more dominant serieses, but that doesn't mean I do not rate Sachin's work against Australia highly, that would be insane to do.
I am pretty laxxed about Freddie's away record because once I put everything into context I realised he bowled on roads and was a match winner on those roads, I think the lack of an ATG away series is a bummer but he had his other qualities to make up for it, as I've always said, no strong opinions of Lillee vs Trueman.
Anyway, Yeah we should move on.
Last edited:
