Do you know that!

[Swervy]

But shouldn't Andrew Flower be in these sides ahead of Viv Richards??

on a semi serious note...in a team full of aggressive players like Greenidge,Richards, Botham,etc....could there be an arguement for replacing the explosive Gilchrist for the more steady Flower, esp if playing against a top class spinner like Warne or Murali....

 

[C_C]

By the way, as far as 'effect on the team' goes, there are very few in history of cricket who could rival Imran Khan.
Without him, Pakistan looked ordinary and fractured. With him, Pakistan looked hot on the heels of West Indies.
His captaincy was brilliant on field and the sheer weight of his personna kept all internal squabbling that is common in Pakistani cricket to a minimum.

 

[Swervy]

just one point regarding Imran..maybe I am a bit biased....to be honest, although I do think Imran at his best was a great great bowler, for me he is clouded by the whole bottletop controversy....

 

[Swervy]

By the way, as far as 'effect on the team' goes, there are very few in history of cricket who could rival Imran Khan.
Without him, Pakistan looked ordinary and fractured. With him, Pakistan looked hot on the heels of West Indies.
His captaincy was brilliant on field and the sheer weight of his personna kept all internal squabbling that is common in Pakistani cricket to a minimum.

I do agree to some extent...but not entirely...I think when Qadir was at his best, I think it was he you pushed Pakistan to a level where they could compete vs WI for top slot (although some of that was due to the WI's performances not being as good in the late 80's as in the early to mid 80's)..of course Imran had a good effect when captain of a turbulant side, they were a lot more settled then.

It must be remembered that Pakistan did have some incredible talent..so much so that it could be questioned as to why they didnt actually become THE number one team in the world

 

[C_C]

Here's an idea.
Instead of comming up with one all conquering team from the last 30-35 years, why don't we come up with two well balanced teams that would take on each other for a titanic fight in eutopia ?

Here's my choices ( note: goal is not to form a world XI and a world 'B' team, but two teams who can take on each other and are extremely close):

Team 1:

Gavaskar
Langer
Viv
Tendulkar
Border
Gillchrist+
Imran Khan*
Malcolm Marshal
Ambrose
Muralitharan
Lillee

Team 2:
Boycott
Greenidge
Lara
Greg Chappell
Steve Waugh
Kapil Dev
Alan Knott+
Richard Hadlee
Akram
Warne
McGrath



Team 1 has stronger batsmen up to #8 but team 2 has a much longer tail with only McGrath as a genuine bunny with the bat.
Team 1 and team 2 are pretty well balanced in bowling.

Anyone wanna call the match ?

 

[C_C]

It must be remembered that Pakistan did have some incredible talent..so much so that it could be questioned as to why they didnt actually become THE number one team in the world

Since the mid 60s, Pakistan has always been strong on talent but weak on planning and coherence in the team.
Even if you look through the 90s, you are left scratching your head as to how come Pakistan didnt dominate that decade. An excellent keeper in Rashid Latif, Akram, Younis,Akhtar,Mushie and Saqlain were all top class bowlers, Inzy, Anwar, Malik were quiete good and Ijaz was pretty decent as well.

As per Imran's bottle-top controversy- its a controversy allright but it shouldn't take away from his bowling- particularly since the allegations pertain to a First Class game and not test game.

Imran was always a big mover of the ball. What vaulted him to superstar status was when he massively upgraded his speed. To my knowledge, only Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall have gone from being medium fast at the start of their careers to superfast.

 

[vic_orthdox]

'Tails' says "Team 1".

 

[Swervy]

Since the mid 60s, Pakistan has always been strong on talent but weak on planning and coherence in the team.

As per Imran's bottle-top controversy- its a controversy allright but it shouldn't take away from his bowling- particularly since the allegations pertain to a First Class game and not test game.

Imran was always a big mover of the ball. What vaulted him to superstar status was when he massively upgraded his speed. To my knowledge, only Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall have gone from being medium fast at the start of their careers to superfast.

Imran was ceratinly very fast in the late 70's, and probably peaked speed wise around 82 or 83, for what I can remember.

As for Marshall, I dont think he could have been called superfast (like your Shoaibs or Thommos or Lees)...through the air, Marshall probably was about Gillespie pace a few years ago..so around 90mph..the thing with Marshall was that the ball was delivered low (short guy, although not as short as some people make out....and not much jump in his delivery stride)...so the ball came off the pitch faster than a taller bowler. Marshall for me though was at his very best when he slowed down a touch, then he could move the ball around like nobodies business. In 1988, he was just incredible...but he was not much more than a medium fast (fast medium??? never know the one which is faster..hehehehe)

 

[Swervy]

Since the mid 60s, Pakistan has always been strong on talent but weak on planning and coherence in the team.
Even if you look through the 90s, you are left scratching your head as to how come Pakistan didnt dominate that decade. An excellent keeper in Rashid Latif, Akram, Younis,Akhtar,Mushie and Saqlain were all top class bowlers, Inzy, Anwar, Malik were quiete good and Ijaz was pretty decent as well.

As per Imran's bottle-top controversy- its a controversy allright but it shouldn't take away from his bowling- particularly since the allegations pertain to a First Class game and not test game.

Imran was always a big mover of the ball. What vaulted him to superstar status was when he massively upgraded his speed. To my knowledge, only Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall have gone from being medium fast at the start of their careers to superfast.

its not an allegation...he admitted it...he admitted to cheating in a first class game!!!!

The allegations are whether he did that in test matches....maybe we will finally get to know sometime in the future

 

[Swervy]

Here's an idea.
Instead of comming up with one all conquering team from the last 30-35 years, why don't we come up with two well balanced teams that would take on each other for a titanic fight in eutopia ?

Here's my choices ( note: goal is not to form a world XI and a world 'B' team, but two teams who can take on each other and are extremely close):

Team 1:

Gavaskar
Langer
Viv
Tendulkar
Border
Gillchrist+
Imran Khan*
Malcolm Marshal
Ambrose
Muralitharan
Lillee

Team 2:
Boycott
Greenidge
Lara
Greg Chappell
Steve Waugh
Kapil Dev
Alan Knott+
Richard Hadlee
Akram
Warne
McGrath



Team 1 has stronger batsmen up to #8 but team 2 has a much longer tail with only McGrath as a genuine bunny with the bat.
Team 1 and team 2 are pretty well balanced in bowling.

Anyone wanna call the match ?

I honestly couldnt pick between the two..although I really wouldnt have Dev in there above Botham...you can have Imran in the first team over Botham...but no way can Dev be above Botham

 

[vic_orthdox]

Where's Andy Flower?

 

[C_C]

Well some of the players who've played against Marshall at his fastest claim that he was around the same speed as 'superfast guys' like Lillee, Bishop, Roberts, etc.
True, he might've been short of the '99mph' list of bowlers like Holding,Thommo,Akhtar,Lee,Waqar, etc. but he was easily over 90mph on a consistent basis from early 80s to late 80s.
Based on what the batsmen say, Marshall's air speed was likely in the low 90s zone but he was almost as fast as anybody after pitching(due to the skid factor, like you mentioned). The 'slowest' amongst the West Indies pace quartet was Garner, who was apparently usually in the mid-high 80s zone but got such disconcerting bounce and had such a pin-point accuracy that he was deadly. Although it must be mentioned that Garner had a series in Australia in the early 80s when he was bowling seriously fast. Alan Border i am sure, remembers.

As per the difference between medium fast and fast medium, i am not 100% sure but i think the former means someone who usually bowls at around 85mph zone but has a spell every now and then in the high 80s/low 90s zone, like Kapil while the latter is a guy who usually bowls in the low 90s but has a spell every now and then in the mid 80s zone...like Gillespie.

 

[C_C]

Where's Andy Flower?

Drinks boy.

 

[C_C]

I wouldn't mind someone picking Botham over Dev or vice versa.They are both very very close in their career statistics though personally, i think Dev was superior due to his considerably superior performance against the best of the best- west indies.

 

[Swervy]

Well some of the players who've played against Marshall at his fastest claim that he was around the same speed as 'superfast guys' like Lillee, Bishop, Roberts, etc.
True, he might've been short of the '99mph' list of bowlers like Holding,Thommo,Akhtar,Lee,Waqar, etc. but he was easily over 90mph on a consistent basis from early 80s to late 80s.
Based on what the batsmen say, Marshall's air speed was likely in the low 90s zone but he was almost as fast as anybody after pitching(due to the skid factor, like you mentioned). The 'slowest' amongst the West Indies pace quartet was Garner, who was apparently usually in the mid-high 80s zone but got such disconcerting bounce and had such a pin-point accuracy that he was deadly. Although it must be mentioned that Garner had a series in Australia in the early 80s when he was bowling seriously fast. Alan Border i am sure, remembers.

As per the difference between medium fast and fast medium, i am not 100% sure but i think the former means someone who usually bowls at around 85mph zone but has a spell every now and then in the high 80s/low 90s zone, like Kapil while the latter is a guy who usually bowls in the low 90s but has a spell every now and then in the mid 80s zone...like Gillespie.

kapil bowling at 90mph...sure about that?

 

[C_C]

Actually Flower deserves mention but i decieded to have one keeper who is an awesome batsman and decent at keeping (Gillchrist) versus another who is an awesome keeper and a decent batsman(Knott).

I guess if there was a way to see a match like this in real life, it would put to rest the neverending question of which skill is the primary one for a wicketkeeper, provided he is atleast decent at both aspects.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Drinks boy.

Thank god we got that sorted. Does a drinks boy need a special armband to signify his role? Because I believe Andy has some of them lying around somewhere. Pre-loved though...

 

[C_C]

kapil bowling at 90mph...sure about that?

Well since there were no speedguns in that era, i cannot claim with any certainty one way or another but according to Gavaskar and Imran in their books, there were a few matches were Kapil bowled genuinely fast. But suffice to say that was a very rare occurance for Kapil and hence he fits the medium-fast bracket(if my understanding of its definition is correct) quiete aptly.

 

[Swervy]

on the subject of speed..an interesting article:
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/231103/sport.html

love the bit about the Aussie slips and Rod Marsh standing 36 meters back when Thomson was bowling

 

[Swervy]

and another:

http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/STATS/FC/BOWLING/BOWLING_SPEEDS_OTHER.html

with that 1979 study, I think maybe they have underplayed the speeds by about 5mph...Len Pascoe was faster by a fair distance than what it says there