Best Test Team Ever?

[Swervy]

Sorry, got mixed-up with Loxton and McCool.
Meant McCool - an all-rounder too often forgotten in the shadow of Miller - is hardly ever mentioned alongside Harvey.
I certainly don't think Loxton was shabby, though - not as good as Harvey, obviously - but certainly more than "only in the team until something better came along".

i will let you off then

 

[C_C]

With regards great teams, you can only adapt if you're given things to adapt to - the team I'm referring to played a handful of games at most together.

That team got a fair fight from the International wanderers and later on by the rebel WI team.
I consider the Saffie team from late 60s/early 70s as a team that MIGHT'VE given the Windies a run for its money or be the clear #2 team like the saffies in mid-late 90s......but the fact remains that what they MIGHT'VE done is a speculation and speculation can never match up to raw hard facts which are the achievements of various other teams and individuals.
I think Rice, Pollock(both of em), Barry Richards, Cook, Jennings, Le Roux etc. could've been extremely successful test players but fact remains we dont know and for all we know a few of them could've been underachievers like many talented cricketers.
talent doesnt equate to performance.

 

[LongHopCassidy]

The Windies in 1975/6 (counts as mid 70's, no?) were hammered 5-1 by the Australians of that time.

 

[C_C]

The Windies in 1975/6 (counts as mid 70's, no?) were hammered 5-1 by the Australians of that time.

And that was the last series they lost till they got robbed in NZ 79/80....so the last serie they lost was almost after 20 years to the same foe.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

And that was the last series they lost till they got robbed in NZ 79/80....so the last serie they lost was almost after 20 years to the same foe.

False.

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Series/SeriesStats.asp?SeriesCode=0216

6 tests against India without a win, and with a loss in the 4th.

And yes, it was a weakened side, but it was still a loss.

 

[wpdavid]

Looking back at the 2nd half of the 1970's it really should have been a great era for test cricket but for the loss of players to Packer. I know we all look back at our teen years as being golden eras, but in 1976/77 we had the rare sight of three very strong sides at the same time, which really hasn't happened very often. We all remember Aus, and WI really picked up in that season with the emergence of Garner & Croft, but the side that's easily forgotten is Pakistan, who had some titanic struggles with the other two. Aus were a great side, but their batters clearly didn't fancy Imran in the drawn series. Happy days!

 

[Richard]

And, for once, England weren't a shoddy outfit either.
As it was, they looked even better than they were due to the Packer schism.

 

[wpdavid]

And, for once, England weren't a shoddy outfit either.
As it was, they looked even better than they were due to the Packer schism.

True. By 1977, we were OK, especially once Boycs deigned to make himself available again. Our bowling was rather better than our batting though.
And yes, Packer helped our results enormously against Pakistan & Australia, even if we had lost a few players too. One of my "what if's" is whether Woolmer would have replaced Brearley captain in 1980 if he hadn't gone missing with Packer, and what our side would have been like if that had happened. Pure conjecture, of course ........

 

[Richard]

How would Australia have fared in The Ashes if Warne and McGrath were missing instead of Gough and Thorpe... interesting thought, I think.
Cricket is full of what-ifs, but, sadly, Packer "Supertests" happened and we'll never know what'd have gone differently if they hadn't. Same thing with if Apartheid had never been... or if it'd been stamped-on 20 years earlier.

 

[wpdavid]

How would Australia have fared in The Ashes if Warne and McGrath were missing instead of Gough and Thorpe... interesting thought, I think.
Cricket is full of what-ifs, but, sadly, Packer "Supertests" happened and we'll never know what'd have gone differently if they hadn't. Same thing with if Apartheid had never been... or if it'd been stamped-on 20 years earlier.

Well of course. But there is a bit more to the possible consequences of my Woolmer musings than just one series - we wouldn't have had Botham as captain, Brearley's return in '81 and possibly the Willis years either. But I do appreciate that sort of conjecture is more interesting to those of us who were there at the time (some of us, anyway) and utterly irrelevant to those who weren't.

 

[Richard]

True - I'd never even thought about the possibilities of Bob Woolmer being captain!

 

[wpdavid]

True - I'd never even thought about the possibilities of Bob Woolmer being captain!

Well, it wasn't talked about at the time, so I am being wise after the event. But he was a fixture in the side in 1977, not with world class performances, but good enough to have taken 2 or 3 hundreds off the Australians in 1975 & 1977. It's now obvious that he has a pretty good cricketing brain, so I reckon he'd have got the job instead of Beefy in 1980 assuming he'd stayed in the side. But as we said, it's all if's and maybe's.

The other interesting one, FWIW, is the story that Boycott had been offered the vice captaincy to come back under Greig in the 1976/7 Indian tour. If he'd accepted it, Brearley wouldn't have even been in the side and Boycs would have taken over from Greig after Packer hit the fan. I'll leave it to you to rewrite 1981 and all that ...

 

[Richard]

Precisely - the consequences of our actions are so diverse, so intertwinable, that you can never talk about things for very long.
Looking back from a historical POV, I'd simply say I'd not change a thing.

 

[Tom Halsey]

That is like saying averages are the ONLY way to judge a batsman.

Alan Border was better than Viv Richards.

Erm, don't know how you can come to that so definately. There is more than your opinion that counts, you know.

 

[Richard]

THB I thought amz had a point.