Finding out the best decade for test cricket: The tournament thread! 12 ATG XIs duke it out.

[Pokitren]

That was a ****ing brilliant 188*. One of the ATG innings. Without that, Pakistan would have easily lost that match. Instead they won it by 46 runs. More painful memories for 90s indian fans .

Not all fans like that game

 

[mr_mister]

00s beats 60s 13-4
40s beats 70s 11-5

Don't know how I got 17 votes for one and 16 for the other... but the margins are big enough that it doesn't matter... lol. I'll be more accurate with the Semis


Semi final 1 is the 30s vs the 80s
Semi final 2 is the Noughties v the 40s!


1930s:

Len Hutton
Bruce Mitchell
Don Bradman *
George Headley
Wally Hammond 5
Stan McCabe 6
Les Ames +
Harold Larwood 1
Hedley Verity 4
Bill O'Reilly 3
Manny Martindale 2


1980s:

Sunil Gavaskar
Gordon Greenidge
Viv Richards
Javed Miandad
Allan Border
Imran Khan 3 *
Jeff Dujon +
Kapil Dev 5
RichardHadlee 2
Malcolm Marshall 1
Joel Garner 4





and

2000s:

Matthew Hayden
Graeme Smith *
Ricky Ponting
Rahul Dravid
Jacques Kallis 5
Kumar Sangakkarra
Adam Gilchrist +
Shaun Pollock 3
Dale Steyn 2
Muttiah Muralitharan 4
Glen McGrath 1


1940s:

Len Hutton
Arthur Morris
Don Bradman *
Denis Compton 5
Dudley Nourse
Everton Weekes
Keith Miller 2
Don Tallon+
Ray Lindwall 1
Jack Cowie 3
Bill Johnston 4

 

[mr_mister]

I'm gonna go the 30s, that batting is just insane really. It's got 4 of the top like, 8 batsman ever in it. That lack of spinner finally hurts the 80s for me in an analysis, as it means both bowling units are kind of equally missing something (pace for the 30s, spin for the 80s)

And I'm gonna have to go the 00s just because they also miss a frontline spinner and Bill Johnston(though statistically he looks pretty deserving) and Jack Cowie were shy of ATG status so the bowling quality gap is too great to make up for Bradman

 

[mr_mister]

Anyone know how effective Compton's leggies were?

 

[The Sean]

Gah, I was hoping for 30s v 40s and 80s v 00s so we had one set of golden oldies against one (relatively) modern combination in the final!

 

[srbhkshk]

80s and 00s, the newer teams seem to have much better bowling line ups to me.

 

[smash84]

80s and 00s

 

[The Sean]

Yeah, feels like in both cases the older teams win on batting but the newer teams on bowling - and the bowling differentials seem more pronounced.

 

[mr_mister]

Yeah, feels like in both cases the older teams win on batting but the newer teams on bowling - and the bowling differentials seem more pronounced.

going down the batting order 1-7, player for player, you'd have to give it the 30s batsman over the 80s batsman in every single matchup though

 

[smash84]

going down the batting order 1-7, player for player, you'd have to give it the 30s batsman over the 80s batsman in every single matchup though

I think with the kind of firepower that 80s have in their bowling, it seems almost impossible that any batting side would last too long. At least that is why I am going with 80s. Marshall and Hadlee to open. If you get to see them out then in comes Imran at first change and the other bowling change throws up Joel Garner. Even the 5th bowler is Kapil. There is just no let up in the pressure. None of these bowlers are easy to score off either.

 

[sunilz]

80, 00

30 simply doesn't have the bowling fire power of 80s.

 

[honestbharani]

80s, 40s

 

[_00_deathscar]

Again, how the **** is the 00s side making the final while 90s got knocked out early. What the ****?

 

[smash84]

Again, how the **** is the 00s side making the final while 90s got knocked out early. What the ****?

Because the 90s came up against the 80s

 

[kyear2]

The 1980's and the 2000's.

Bowling wins matches and both of those bowling attacks are ridiculous

 

[bagapath]

One of those was the 188* which was, to me, as good as any double century. Its not his fault his team mates got bowled out around him. Remember it was a 188 in a game where teams were scoring only 200.

That was a deadly knock. Sealed the game for Pak. An all time great knock.

12 short of a double hundred though.

 

[Slifer]

The gap between Marshall/ Ambrose/ Garner/ Donald/ Hadlee/ McGrath/ Wasim/ 90s Pollock is pretty damn small. The 90s did have more gun bowlers though. As an example, the top two wicket takers from Australia in the 80s were a geriatric Lillee and a guy averaging 30. The only top sides in the 90s without a truly gun bowler were England and India. And even then, India had Kumble and England had a string of very good bowlers (Gough, Fraser etc...). The 80s had a lot of awful bowlers, way more than the 90s.

This means that Greenidge really didn't face high calibre attacks in the era, given half the good bowlers played for his own country. It's the same situation Hayden was in in the 00s. I rate both openers very highly in spite of this. It's also why I rate 90s openers a bit more highly than their raw averages suggest. I'm not going full Richard and asserting that Atherton was the bestest evar, but it's not unreasonable to say that 90s openers had a tough time of it having to face ATG bowlers from nearly every side.

Stephen in the 80s Greenidge's Achilles heel was Pakistan, and they had : Imran, Wasim, Qadir and Qasim. Obviously, not all always at the same time and 80s akram wasn't as good as 90s akram. Still was a very very good attack. Greenidge would have also faced Willis, and young Botham and Hendrick several times and that English attack was better than anything they had in the 90s. My point, yeah WI had by far the best attack in the 80s but the notion that other teams didn't have quality bowling is a fallacy. Oh Hadlee and Chatfield weren't bad either. Better than anything NZ has had until the current team.

 

[Slifer]

80s and 00s.

 

[OverratedSanity]

30s and 2000s.

80s team is great but no spinner is a legitimate hole, and the 30s team has the best non Murali/Warne spinner ever. Also Bradman.

 

[ataraxia]

00s

Really not sure with the first matchup. The average game would probably yield 30s: 300 and 350, 80s: 400 and 250-7 or 80s: 450 and 300, 30s: 450 and 300-5.