Deja moo said:
I find it hard to believe that Gavaskar played a second string attack everytime he made a century vs the WI.
For goodness' sake , he made 13 100's vs them .
Assuming that he must have made as many 50's vs them as he made 100's , thats 26 good innings's vs the top team of the 70's and 80's .
And assuming that he played a good innings only every alternate innings , thats still 26 good tests he had vs them .
I find it hard to believe that he faced weak attacks for those 26 tests ,while the rest of the world faced the top WI bowlers.
( I know thats a lot of assumptions , but they are all within reason. )
here you go...after a bit of looking I found something that I post a few months back (apparently a similar thing had been on cricinfo last year as well):
'Lets just look at Gavskar vs WI a bit more in depth:
in 1970/71 Gavaskar scored 65,67*,116,64*,1,117*,124,220
I remarkable run granted...but look at the bowling..this wasnot a good WI bowling line up: Sobers (well past his bowling prime),Dowe (WI's supporters once put up a banner with the eleventh commandment Dowe shall not bowl...nuff said),John Shepard (a good first class player,not test standard),Noriega,Boyce(ok, but not exactly Holding),Shillingford (erm...) and Gibbs (a legend)......so a very weak bowling line up truth be told.
Next series in India in 74/75 only played two tests
Scores of 14,0,86,8
Not so successful..his 86 came on an obvious batters delight of a pitch (WI scored 604/6 dec (oddly enough Richards out for 1) and 205/3 dec)...but the bowling attack of the WI's was still not all that good,although the emergance of Andy Roberts was starting.
Next,75/76 in WI (4 tests)
37,1,156,26,102,66,2...a pretty good series..first test Holding and Roberts,Julien,Holford bowling, so a developing opening pair..overall an average attack (WI had just been beaten 5-1 vs Australia)..later on Daniel replaced Roberts, the final test was the famous India chucking in the towel test (probably justified)...so again not the strongest WI bowling attack, but starting to come on...but note that Gavaskars scores arent as good as that first series, getting a bit trickier now the bowling is improved....hey Sunny
Next in India 78/79
Scores:205,73,0,107,182*,4,1,120,40...looks good..then you see this was the Packer weakened WI team with one very decent bowler,Clarke, who struggled to get into the WI normally..this bowling attack was very poor...not worth talking about.
Next 83 in WI
Scores:20,0,1,32,147*,2,19,18,1...nothing of note apart from 147* in the third test..no chance of a result on a batsmans paradise which had two days called off , but fair enough he scored the runs in that game...not anywhere else though..a shocker. Look at the bowling...for the first time, he faces a top class WI attack..holding, Roberts,garner,Marshall,and then occassionally Winston davis and Eldine baptiste, and he does poorly.
Next in India in 83/84
Scores:0,7,121,15,90,1,12,3,0,20,236*...saves his best till last innings,236 coming in at number 4 although the score was 2 down for 0 when he came in..he had struggled on the whole opening in this series vs Marshall etc.
So when you say he destroyed the WI attack, yeah he did, the crap ones, he was a lot less effective vs what we all consider THE WI's attack...see averages dont tell the full story
). To save me a little trouble, I assumed both the innings closed (b'men out).Then for this modified data set, I calculated the avera ge and calculated the drop in average from the original data. the results are:
