I asked this same question to Bagapath earlier, but I'm surprised: if you've seen the likes of Willis, Underwood and Lillee, then surely you've seen Greg Chappell.
Greg didn't tour here in 81, and we never got great coverage of away matches then, so didn't see masses of him, I'm afraid.
Fundamentally disagree. Yes all over a career period all 3 average, this is why is i equated who at their "best" or "peak" was the better bowler, i'm not blinded by potential when rating Dillon - if i did i would have said i saw more potential in Reon King & Franklyn Rose as bowlers - but no i judging him based on his career.
come on man, no way was Adrian Griffith test class at whatever "best" period he had. Lou Vincent got test hundreds, that don't mean he was test class
I never really studied Gibbs career by off my head i immediately remember his hundred vs us @ Jo'Burg 04 when Hoggard was swinging it everywhere.
The only time i saw Boycott live was when Shropshire beat Yorkshire in the Natwest,i saw enough of Beefy to know he was better than Freddie.As for Gooch it is all down to preference and my feeling is that there have been better than him since.You may disagree and you are entitled to that opinion but i feel differently.
Is it because England beat the top team with Trescothick in the side as they never did with Gooch in there? Just can't really think what else it might be.
Hoggard was certainly not swinging the ball everywhere throughout that match - however superlative he was for some of the time (and more than not, let's be honest, in the second-innings); nonetheless, that was almost certainly Gibbs' best performance in a Test for my money and one he only rarely approached at other times.
Griffith strung together 4 pretty good Tests in 1999 and 1999/2000. He was certainly Test-class then. Unfortunately being Test-class for a whole 4 games over a few months isn't really good enough and is no great achievement by the standards of those who have been so for 60 or 70 games and 6 or 7 years.
Fair enough, you are certainly entitled to that opinion. Personaly, I cant imagine how it is possible to rate Tresco or Strauss as even close to the standard of Gooch.
Spot on Goughy
I may want to make some changes in that Indian side of mine after two years. Sehwag to open in place of Engineer which means dropping either Manjrekar or one of the bowlers depending upon the wicket. I also think there is merit to bring in Nawab of Pataudi Jr to lead the side (and he was a very good batsman too) which would make the 12 as below. One spinner would be dropped on most wickets.
What does it have to do with you you arrogant ****.I can pick whatever players i like and i don't have to justify myself to a pompous tosser like you.Have i had a go at you over who you have picked?But what on Earth possesses you to think Trescothick was better than Gooch?
As for Botham and Flintoff clearly his best > Flintoff's best and clearly his moderate > Flintoff's moderate, but equally Flintoff's best > Botham's moderate, and if that's what one saw that's what I'd judge on for the purposes of this thread.
At his best, Griffith was Test class though. His best was just very very rare. Hence "at his best" is never a qualification of overall quality.Fundamentally disagree. Yes all over a career period all 3 average, this is why is i equated who at their "best" or "peak" was the better bowler, i'm not blinded by potential when rating Dillon - if i did i would have said i saw more potential in Reon King & Franklyn Rose as bowlers - but no i judging him based on his career.
Taylor to date is clearly on the up regardless of his current average of 35 to date. Curreny to say he is average is way OTT - he is currently a good test bowler at least on par with /better than the likes of Umar Gul/Broad/Onions/Chris Martin.
Collins before he went Kolpak was also clearly on the up as well.
Dillon rather was crap most of the time. That 33 average flatters him as much as Hauritz averaging sub-30 for AUS ATM.
I agree that Ramnarine could be in final XI over one of Taylor or Collins, no issue with that just my preference for 4 quicks.
Just a word of advice, posts like that don't go down too well here and making them isn't very adviseable. So I'd make that your last one if I were you.
Nope. So?
Doesn't to me. Trescothick as I said was someone who depended overwhelmingly on luck to get his runs and even if he'd never had a single let-off all career and still averaged 41 with better away performances than home (not that away\home saw all that much difference for most of Trescothick's career as during it there was so much convergence on uniformity in terms of Worldwide pitches) that'd still not put him on a plane with Gooch. Number of tons is not really relevant especially given that in Gooch's day bowling was so markedly superior to Trescothick's; what matters is number of notable performances, and 70 against Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft or Marshall, Holding, Garner and Baptiste\Patterson is worth more than 150 or 250 against Ntini, Kallis, Adams etc. on a flat deck. And those knocks were some of Trescothick's best ones.
Nonetheless, Flintoff of 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2009 was probably a better bowler if not batsman than Botham 1983-1987. I've never cared too much for five-wicket hauls, 5-180 is a notably inferior performance to 3-55. Average is what really counts. Of course Flintoff comes-up a little less than ideal there for much of his career (excluding 1998-2000 which is pretty irrelevant) but it's not like Botham after 1982 was particularly outstanding.
Certainly reckon he could make the grade in time but there's no knowing how someone's going to turn-out and right now Taylor's barely been in Test cricket 5 minutes. Myself I prefer to wait until a player's career is over \ nearly over before assessing them.
In his last two years of Test cricket he's scored more runs than Fleming or Astle did at any 2 year point of their careers. So I wouldn't be adverse to rating him against players of Astle and Fleming's calibre at this stage of his career. I think he's proved that he is better than McMillan at this stage and beginning to show that he may remove the likes of Astle and Fleming from alltime XI's in the future.
Few Kiwi's could potentially take his place, however in my viewing years only Crowe would come close, so he'd probably stay there.
