Graeme Yallop Vs Usman Khawaja

[the big bambino]

All the batsmen had a decent series against a poor SL attack, all top 6 got at least a 90+ score, but Boon retired after the third test so Law may have got another chance had a test tour been lined up soon.

Didn't SL have Vaas and Murali? Not really suited to the conditions but wouldn't say poor.

 

[mr_mister]

Didn't SL have Vaas and Murali? Not really suited to the conditions but wouldn't say poor.

A very raw and young Murali and Vaas. I suppose they couldn't have been that bad coz they were part of a WC winning side not long after(despite not taking many wickets) but looking at highlights they seemed pretty toothless in that '95/96 series. Though Murali had to deal with all the chucking drama

 

[wpdavid]

Yallop gets a lot of criticism for his brief and unsuccessful stint as captain, that seems to unfairly colour opinions of him as a batsman. Shame really

Strikes me as harsh given the circumstances. Didn't he captain the massively depleted 1978/79 side against and England team that hadn't been nearly as badly damaged by Packer?

 

[the big bambino]

A very raw and young Murali and Vaas. I suppose they couldn't have been that bad coz they were part of a WC winning side not long after(despite not taking many wickets) but looking at highlights they seemed pretty toothless in that '95/96 series. Though Murali had to deal with all the chucking drama

Fair enough. That Australian side did make quite a few quality bowlers look ordinary.

 

[quincywagstaff]

He was terrible against pace. Like, tailender bad. Which was problematic in the 80s when the Windies toured here every other year. Feasted on trash Pakistan attacks in 83/84, including s big double ton.

I don't know whether it definitely happened, but didn't Kim Hughes on the 1981 Ashes tour protect Graham Yallop from facing the pacemen at one stage? Pretty damning if true.

It's largely true that his overall record is inflated by a huge series against Pakistan which was without Imran Khan and had a pretty weak bowling lineup.

I haven't seen much of him bat except his very final Test in Perth against the West Indies in 84/85 and he looked totally at sea against them (although hardly alone in that era); even the commentators were observing during his brief stints of his noted weaknesses against pace.

 

[quincywagstaff]

I guess the other thing about Yallop is that he seemed to rub teammates the wrong way during his career. Apparently he wasn't that welcomed by the Australian team when he came in against the West Indies in 1975/76. Apparently the Oz side were disappointed that Rick McCosker had been dropped and Yallop seemed to infer that he bore the brunt of their resentment and whether that is true is hard to say. I do recall in Greg Chappell's autobiography that he found Yallop rather uppity when dealing with him in that series.

 

[trundler]

My gut feeling tells me that most of those guys would've ended up like Marcus North or Wasim Jaffer. I exclude Matthew Elliott and Stuart Law from this, again on gut feel. You just can't know until they play and some of them definitely must've benefitted from not playing. To go back to my earlier example of Chad Sayers, we can all agree that guys like him and say, Mir Hamza just do not look test standard but they've mastered the art of pwning domestic batsmen. Logically, there must also be blokes with limited skills who've learnt to deal with your average shield trundler without having a ceiling much higher than that. We can all also agree that there's a wide gulf between Martyn and Khawaja and most of these guys would fit somewhere in between.

 

[Red]

My gut feeling tells me that most of those guys would've ended up like Marcus North or Wasim Jaffer. I exclude Matthew Elliott and Stuart Law from this, again on gut feel. You just can't know until they play and some of them definitely must've benefitted from not playing. To go back to my earlier example of Chad Sayers, we can all agree that guys like him and say, Mir Hamza just do not look test standard but they've mastered the art of pwning domestic batsmen. Logically, there must also be blokes with limited skills who've learnt to deal with your average shield trundler without having a ceiling much higher than that. We can all also agree that there's a wide gulf between Martyn and Khawaja and most of these guys would fit somewhere in between.

What point are you trying to make? That Love, DHussey, Hodge weren't that good?

 

[Burgey]

I don't know whether it definitely happened, but didn't Kim Hughes on the 1981 Ashes tour protect Graham Yallop from facing the pacemen at one stage? Pretty damning if true.

It's largely true that his overall record is inflated by a huge series against Pakistan which was without Imran Khan and had a pretty weak bowling lineup.

I haven't seen much of him bat except his very final Test in Perth against the West Indies in 84/85 and he looked totally at sea against them (although hardly alone in that era); even the commentators were observing during his brief stints of his noted weaknesses against pace.

Yeah I think Hughes did do that, now you mention it.

 

[trundler]

If Moeen hadn't dropped off so badly lately, I could do a similar Trevor Bailey Vs Moeen Ali thread.

 

[trundler]

What point are you trying to make? That Love, DHussey, Hodge weren't that good?

Not Hodge but maybe Dussey. My point is that you can't really tell if they would've all been great at test level or significantly better than Khawaja as it started.

 

[Red]

They were better than Khawaja. There's no doubting that. All of Law, Hodge, DHussey and Love were better than Khawaja

 

[mr_mister]

Since it got missed earlier, was Graeme Wood considered to be Yallops level?

 

[trundler]

All I know is Wood was a terrible runner between wickets.

 

[DriveClub]

David Hussey was the least aesthetic batsman I've seen. Looked so crap whenever I saw him in ODIs, like a crab

 

[Burgey]

Since it got missed earlier, was Graeme Wood considered to be Yallops level?

Wood was probably worse tbh, but was given more chances. And yes, he was a terrible runner. He and Rick Darling together opening the batting during WSC was like a Keystone Cops movie. but yeah, Wood got nearly 60 tests averaging 31, though tbf a lot of those were vs the Windies at their best. The irony is his numbers in the West Indies are world class, albeit small sample size - six tests, a ton and five 50s for an average of nearly 47. Need to keep in mind that the 1978 tests were against non-WSC Windies players, so to that extent his record is a bit like Gavaskar's out here - looks good at first blush, but when when you look at who he played against when he made runs, it isn't that flash.

And that will be the only time Graeme Wood is ever compared with Sunny Gavaskar, I'd imagine.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Not Hodge but maybe Dussey. My point is that you can't really tell if they would've all been great at test level or significantly better than Khawaja as it started.

I reckon you can tbh. Of course you can never be 100% sure unless it actually happens but all signs point to those guys all being better players than Khawaja

 

[DriveClub]

This could go the same way as Horny Warnie's 100 greatest cricketers list he saw or something filled with all these journeymen from shield cricket that no one heard of (probably I never heard of)

 

[mr_mister]

Lol I've never seen that list. I bet he's got Darren Berry high up there

 

[morgieb]

Lol I've never seen that list. I bet he's got Darren Berry high up there

His Top 50 of his generation list (well actually it's 53):

Shane Warne's list of greatest cricketers
1 Sachin Tendulkar
2 Brian Lara
3 Curtly Ambrose
4 Allan Border
5 Glenn McGrath
6 Wasim Akram
7 Muttiah Muralitharan
8 Ricky Ponting
9 Mark Taylor
10 Ian Healy
11 Courtney Walsh
12 Mark Waugh
13 Anil Kumble
14 Rahul Dravid
15 Graham Gooch
16 Andrew Flintoff
17 Matthew Hayden
18 Merv Hughes
19 Aravinda de Silva
20 Adam Gilchrist
21 David Boon
22 Martin Crowe
23 Stephen Fleming
24 Brett Lee
25 Darren Lehmann
26 Steve Waugh
27 Jacques Kallis/ Shaun Pollock
28 Saeed Anwar/ Mohammad Yousuf
29 Shoaib Akhtar/ Craig McDermott
30 Kevin Pietersen
31 Tim May
32 Robin Smith
33 Allan Donald
34 Bruce Reid
35 Michael Vaughan
36 Andy Flower
37 Stephen Harmison
38 Sanath Jayasuriya
39 Stuart MacGill
40 Kapil Dev
41 Justin Langer
42 Ravi Shastri
43 Michael Atherton
44 Alec Stewart
45 Waqar Younis
46 Dilip Vengsarkar
47 Chris Cairns
48 Brian McMillan
49 Darren Berry
50 Jamie Siddons