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Greatest Ever Test XI
- Thread starter roseboy64
- Start date
Swervy
International Captain
Well I wouldnt really diss the SA spinners like you appear to be doing...a pretty unique set of bowlers, considering most of them used the newly invented googly and to a very high degree of skill by a lot of accounts...any batsmen coping with that, on below standard pitches, has to get credit...and that is what Hobbs did.C_C said:
Any batsman who could average mid 50's before the war was a supreme talent...no matter if he didnt face top of the range pace, he did what he had to do..and anyone who could cope with those pitches could quite easily in my opinion have dealt with pretty much anything on the well prepared (in comparison) pitches of our times..to compare that SA spin quartet to Zimbabwe is a joke!!!!!
Of course the fitness levels may not have been so good back then, but the latent talent was still there...and if those players were playing now, they would have been brought up with the current day training regimes etc.....in all probability if a player like McGrath had have played in the 20's or whenever,he would have been playing with his beer gut etc..doesnt make McGrath a worse bowler though.C_C said:As per his FC record...oh yes... a brilliant record produced in a day and age where the domestic scene had overseas players, players who went through rigorous coaching and spent their whole days practicing cricket, since thats where their breads are buttered...
oh i forgot..we are talkin about the 'good old great times'....times when people were of herculean intellect and callibre...where one could play till they were 50 because afterall, they were insanely superior genetic models to what we are and makes the likes of Matty hayden seem like a couch potato with a beer belly...people who could hold a 9-5 job and put a few hours in the weekend and evenings to produce the quality of these '4-5 hours a day cricket of only ' effort put by the nincompoops in today's generation.
Oh how can i forget that!
You can only measure a player from the past in comparison to those who were playing around them...Hobbs' career ended not too much before Huttons and so is is possible to compare the two....Huttons career almost crosses with Boycotts, Boycotts crosses with Gavaskar, gavaskars crosses with Greenidge, and so on...thats the best you can do, that and actually listen to people who actually watched them or played with them....but to outright dismiss the abilities of a player like Hobbs is just foolish
Swervy
International Captain
C_C said:
Well you are insulting two of the great players of all time by comparing them unfavourably to good but not great player like Vaas.
Those to players played at a time when the bat ruled probably more than it does today, and there record matches quite nicely with Vaas'
C_C
International Captain
Look...if we are gonna say 'if he was born now then blahblahblah', then everyone is a great and no one is ordinary.....take the way Hobbs played exactly and the skills he had and fast-forward 40 years. Now you tell me how well would one, adept at opening against good/mediocre spinners,have done against the thunderous pace bowling of Lillee,Thommo,Imran,Marshall,holding,Garner etc.
Bad pitch this, bad pitch that. Fact of the matter is, the dew-factor for uncovered pitches are negligible in reality- the covering is done as a precaution for overnight rain when some pitches are turned into sticky goo. I've lived in England for 3 years, around Manchester and i never saw any dew past 10am on the ground on a summer day. Too much is made of uncovered pitches but fact of the matter is, unless it rained or was heavily overcast, it was of insignificant difference.
And yes, give me 10 Arshad Khans and Tim mays on a marsh-bed pitch over Warne or murali/ on a patch of ice any day of the week.
C_C
International Captain
sorry. wouldnt call someone who lasted about half the period and a fifth of the tests Vaas has with easy pickings against a mediocre field as 'great'. That is devaluing the word 'great' in my books.
I put the likes of Lohmann/Barnes in the modern day equivalent of 21-25 average category.
For someone averaging 21-22 after a handful of matches, i wouldnt bother rating them anything more than an upstart Brett lee or kaspa category.
Swervy
International Captain
dew has absolutely nothing to dewC_C said:
with it....the way the pitches were prepared before the first world war does...pitches were barely better than the ones I play on from what i can gather. the fact of the matter is that there was no real need for great pace back then, the pitch did the work ...lack of express pace doesnt make it any easier for batsmen back then to do their job
Swervy
International Captain
although Barnes and Lohmann didnt even play 50 tests between them and when they did play, average scores were probably about 120 runs per innings lower, due to the extremely bowler friendly conditions back then.C_C said:
The two Aussies in question performed brilliantly in times when the game was totally tilted towards the batsman, the effect they had on the game at the time was huge....certainly when compared to the likes of the massively inconsistant Vaas', a bowler who really can bowl effectively when the conditions are well in his favour
FaaipDeOiad
Hall of Fame Member
Lohmann and Barnes are not in the least bit interchangable, and for you to claim that they are shows your lack of understanding of cricket in the period and what it was like.C_C said:
The fact is, when Lohmann played his feat was not so remarkable. He was clearly among the best bowlers of his era, but with pitches being so outrageously bowler friendly the fact that he had an amazingly low average and took wickets so regularly doesn't mean all that much. Contemporaries of his who managed similarly well in the same period are Ferris, Briggs, Peel and of course Charlie Turner. You will also note that he is rarely discussed as anything stunningly remarkable by commentators from the period in the way Spofforth and Barnes are, simply as a good bowler. His statistical record is also somewhat inflated by the fact that he had possibly the greatest ever single series for a player in test history when he took 35 wickets @ 5 with a strike rate of 14 against an extremely modest South African side. South Africa by the time Hobbs or even Barnes played were not anywhere near as bad as they were in their earliest days, when they struggled to break triple figures in the 19th century, and taking a third of your test wickets against them in one phenomenal series is not such an astonishing feat.
Barnes was a different thing altogether. He was quite simply the greatest bowler of his era hands down. The only players who came close to him in terms of wicket tacking ability or average in his career are Hugh Trumble and Colin Blythe, both of whom are spinners and the former of which played most of his career before Barnes. Barnes was widely recognised as the first pace bowler capable of moving the ball in both directions both in the air and off the wicket, and was revered both at the time and since by all who saw him as a bowler of awesome, stand-out ability. He did also not have his statistical record inflated by any particular performance, instead having big series against both of the major opponents of his time (the second of which was vastly improved from Lohmann's era) and over the whole length of his career. He played in a time of flattening pitches which were improvin constantly from the state they were in in Lohmann's era to sheets of glass that would dominate from the 30s through to the 50s. He also thrived against the greatest batters of his era, boasting the greats Victor Trumper and Clem Hill as his most regular victims, and specialising in running through the top order of the far from weak Australian team at the time. He is quite simply one of the all-time great seam bowlers, and the fact that he played in an era that you do not rate does not reduce at all the fact that few if any bowlers have single handedly dominated an entire era in the way that Barnes did. What Hobbs, Bradman and Sobers did in owning the time in which they played completely, Barnes also did with the ball.
Slifer
International Captain
My WI first team and 2nd team:roseboy64 said:
1st
Haynes
Greenidge
Headley
Lara
Richards(c)
Sobers
Dujon(k)
Marshall
Holding
Ambrose
Garner
2nd
Hunte
Fredericks
Weekes
Walcott(k)
Worrell(c)
Kanhai
Lloyd
Bishop
Croft
Gibbs/Hall (depending on nature of pitch)
Walsh
What do u guys think???
C_C
International Captain
so hang on a sec. Barnes played in an oh-so batsman friendly era against oh so dominating batsmen like the so-called great Victor Trumer ( in my books- and i've certainly read a LOT about him- he is nothing more than the original mark waugh).....who in turn averaged below 40 with the bat.
Oh so great batsman dominated era indeed.
Like i said, if you fail to see the disparity in the field standard, its YOU who lack understanding of that era, my friend.
I've explained it a million times and i am not gonna beat a dead horse. But to say RSA were competitive in that era, losing by an innings and 400+ runs and so forth, it only shows your denial of the fact that south africa was the bangladesh of that era. Period.
You obviously have your mind set by the so-called 'paragons and pillars' of cricket...and no amounts of reasoning can change your mind to the fact that bradman would be nothing more than a 65-70 ave. batsman and the likes of Hammond would do well enough to just match Graham Thorpe, let alone the greats...
I guess its akin to your standpoint against technology in the game, when it can be categorically proven that in certain cases technology is FAR superior to the eye...
Like i said before 'Tradition!!! tradition!!!!!!!...without tradition, our lives would be as empty as the fiddler on the roof'. You in my opinion really symbolise that.
Oh so great batsman dominated era indeed.
Like i said, if you fail to see the disparity in the field standard, its YOU who lack understanding of that era, my friend.
I've explained it a million times and i am not gonna beat a dead horse. But to say RSA were competitive in that era, losing by an innings and 400+ runs and so forth, it only shows your denial of the fact that south africa was the bangladesh of that era. Period.
You obviously have your mind set by the so-called 'paragons and pillars' of cricket...and no amounts of reasoning can change your mind to the fact that bradman would be nothing more than a 65-70 ave. batsman and the likes of Hammond would do well enough to just match Graham Thorpe, let alone the greats...
I guess its akin to your standpoint against technology in the game, when it can be categorically proven that in certain cases technology is FAR superior to the eye...
Like i said before 'Tradition!!! tradition!!!!!!!...without tradition, our lives would be as empty as the fiddler on the roof'. You in my opinion really symbolise that.
FaaipDeOiad
Hall of Fame Member
I never said his era was dominated by batsmen, in fact it clearly was not, but it was a lot more batsman friendly than Lohmann's. Lohmann was a good but not particularly spectacular bowler and several in his era matched him, Barnes was simply awesome and left everybody in his era in his wake by a mile. He faced the best batsmen of his era (and Victor Trumper and Clem Hill WERE great batsmen) and mauled them, and in fact Barnes may be a significant reason WHY Trumper averaged under 40, dismissing him in 16% of his test innings, and in those innings Trumper scored two 50s, a 28, a 16 and a 10, and the rest were single figure scores.C_C said:
Once again, you misquote me. South Africa were not of the same standard of England or Australia in that period by any means, but they were significantly better than they were in Lohmann's period when he took 35 wickets @ 5 against them.C_C said:
On the contrary, I oppose technology only in cases where it can NOT be proven that it is superior to the eye in coming up with a conclusive decision. Because technology removes the human element from the decision making, it must be conclusive (eg in run outs) or it is of no use at all. At least an umpire can make an educated assessment based on his initial opinions when it comes to a lineball decision, if a technological device comes back with an inconclusive reading it can't do anything of the sort. And of course predictive technology has no place in cricket, and the whole idea is ludicrous on the face of it. I do however think that once technology that can be used to assist the umpires can be certain to provide a conclusive result say 90-95% of the time like video replays on run-outs do, it should be implemented. Starting with a cyclops type machine for no-balls.C_C said:
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howardj
International Coach
Im not having a chop at you, SJS, specifically. But, in general, I can not for the life of me understand why people would omit Adam Gilchrist from their team. In the case of Bob Taylor for example, Gilly averages 40 more runs per innings!SJS said:This is the umpteenth time one seems to be posting this and likely to be different from earlier ones
1. Hobbs
2. Hutton/Gavaskar
3. Bradman
4. George Headley
5. Walter Hammond
6. Garfield Sobers
7. Imran Khan
8. Bob Taylor
9. Dennis Lillee
10. Grimett/Orielly
11. SF Barnes
Just because he is a master batsman, I think people like to chop him down by saying his keeping is sub-standard etc. Truth is, I doubt he missed that many more chances than keepers in the past, it's just that every match Austalia plays is now televised and scrutinised.
The difference between his keeping and other so-called 'great keepers', is so small so as to be absolutely overwhelmed by the massive chasm between his batting and the rest of the field.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
The answer is simple Howard.howardj said:
I was choosing who , in my humble opinion, was the better keeper. I gave no consideration to the batting. When you have the greatest batting side in the world, presumably, and the gretaest all rounder/s, presumably, surely one would not compromise on the keeper, to further bolster the batting. If the greatest keeper in the world was a totally incompetent batsman and needed to bat at number 11. I would have still chosen him. Just like while choosing a spinner, I have thought of Murali and Grimmett and not Benaud or Mankad, or while choosing a fast bowler, it is not Miller.
The logic is the same.
If batting has to be a criteria for everyone then we might as well have a team of all rounders which too would be a pretty formidable team I must admit.
Its a question of the premise or philosophy of the selectors'
Here is another side.
1. Hobbs
2. Walcott
3. Bradman
4. Sobers
5. Worrell
6. Miller
7. Botham
8. Imran
9. Hadlee
10. Mankad
11. Benaud
This is hurriedly made. I could improve it given time. But this is just to highlight my point.
If I had to choose a wicket keeper batsman. With emphasis on both batting and keeping, the choice would be between Ames, Walcott and Gilchrist. It would be a tough choice. All three were world class batsmen but Ames was probably the best keeper of the lot so I might choose him, you may chose Gilchrist and someone else might take Walcott. But in this case all three choices would be at lest based on the same selection philosophy.
SJS
Hall of Fame Member
For the statistically inclined, statistically deluded & those blinded by statistics!
There seems some confusion about Hobbs. It is not for me to state the case of whether or not Hobbs is the greatest opener (many have claimed the greatest batsmen) in the history of the game. But then there have been those who have claimed Bradman was over rated, so how does it matter really !
But to claim that Hobbs scored heavily because he played so much cricket against the "minnows" of the game of his days like South Africa, as has been claimed is defying with cussedness accompanied by a total disregard for FACTS, those who will keep arguing in favour of the Master batsman purely on the accepted criteria of his batsmanship.
So let me put the figures, since these are neither subjective nor created.
Point Number ONE : : Did Hobbs play much of his international cricket against the minnows.
(Both Africa and West Indies have been named)
Well The stats tell that Hobbs, till 1971 had played the highest number of tests(41) by any cricketer against Australia. Thankfully Australia have not been called the minnows of test cricket !!
He has been over taken later by Colin Cowdrey (43), and later by Gooch and Gower (42 each). Remember , that these worthies, having played 2 and 1 test MORE than Sir Jack, scored 1206, 1004 and 367 runs LESS than Hobbs against Australia !!!
Clearly Hobbs played a helluva lot of his test matches against Australia who in my humble opinion have never been the minnows of the game. And seems to have performed well, dont you think ??
Point Number TWO : : Its not true that he still played a larger proportion of tests against minnows than others.
Since it would be contentious to classify minnows over history, PLUS would take longer , I just took the proportion of matches against Australia and took the ten top openers and ten top middle order batsmen in history for comparison. Here they are with there test matches versus Australia :-
Openers :-
Player....tests....Verus Australia....%
Sutcliffe.... 54.............27........50.0
Gooch.....118............42........35.6
Boycott....108...........38........35.2
Hutton...... 79............27........34.2
Atherton...115...........33.........28.7
Haynes....116...........33........28.4
Greenidge.108..........29........26.9
Stewart....133...........33........24.8
Kirsten.....101..........18........17.8
Gavaskar...125.........20........16
MIDDLE ORDER
Player....tests....Verus Australia....%
Hammond..85............33............38.8
Cowdrey....114..........43.............37.7
Gower...... 117...........42............35.9
Richards...121...........34............28.1
Lara..........112...........27...........24.1
Sobers......93.............19...........20.4
Dravid........89............18...........20.2
Miandaad..125...........25...........20.0
Tendulkar..123...........21...........17.1
Inzemam...100..........13............13.0
Hobbs played over 67 % of his test matches (41 0ut of 61) against Australia.
By the way, South Africa were a weak side, though never like BD and Zimbabwe mainly because of their batting. They were a fairly competent bowling side. Even a cursory browsing of their performances will reveal that.
Point Number THREE : Suppose we consider Hobbs only against Australia. versus the great batsmen of the world. ?
So we did that. I took ten of the top openers in the world and ten of the top middle order batsmen in the world in the history of the game and took there runs against australia and their batting averages against Australia.
Conclusion : No one in the history of the game has cored more runs against australia than Hobbs's 3636 !!
No one has scored more centuries against Australia than Hobbs's 12 !!
Only two of the 20 batsmen (21 if you include Hobbs) average higher than his 54.27 against Australia. These are Sutcliffe at 66.8 in 27 tests and Hutton at 56.47 also in 27 tests. Though Sutcliffe and Hutton's figures are impressive, it is important to remember that Hobbs played his tests from before the birth of Bradman till two years beyond his debut and was playing against the new Genius when he mesmerised England on his 1930 tour.
He was in his 48th year when he retired. He scored two thirds of his 5400 runs AFTER his 30th birthday and scored over a hundred first class centuries after his thirty fifth birthday.
The stats about his age do not show the poor standards of his time but show how great was his mastery over technique (his batting has been called a manual on correct batsmanship) that age did not make him fallible. The only thing that happened with age was that the real big double hundreds and beyond beame fewer since he would get tired.
OPENERS :-
Player...Tests.....Runs.......Avg
Sutcliffe.....27.....2741......66.85
Gooch...... 42.....2632......33.32
Boycott.....38.....2945......47.5
Hutton...... 27.....2428......56.47
Atherton....33.....1900......29.69
Haynes.....33.....2233......42.13
Greenidge..29.....1819......40.42
Stewart.....33.....1810 ......30.68
Kirsten......18.....1134 ......34.36
Gavaskar...20.....1550......51.67
MIDDLE ORDER BATSMEN
Player...Tests.....Runs.......Avg
Cowdrey....43......2433........34.27
Gower.......42......3269........44.78
Richards... 34......2266........44.43
Hammond..33......2852........51.85
Lara..........27......2470........51.46
Miandaad..25......1797........47.29
Tendulkar..21......1859........53.11
Sobers......19......1510........43.14
Dravid....... 18......1480........51.03
Inzemam...13......784.........34.09
Hobbs.......41......3636......54.27
Not only were the 5410 runs Hobbs scored in his career by the time he retired Far far more than anyone had scored in test matches by then, even the 3636 runs that he scored against australia alone were more than what any cricker had scored till then in his entire career against all comers !! This includes all Australian batsmen too !!
There seems some confusion about Hobbs. It is not for me to state the case of whether or not Hobbs is the greatest opener (many have claimed the greatest batsmen) in the history of the game. But then there have been those who have claimed Bradman was over rated, so how does it matter really !
But to claim that Hobbs scored heavily because he played so much cricket against the "minnows" of the game of his days like South Africa, as has been claimed is defying with cussedness accompanied by a total disregard for FACTS, those who will keep arguing in favour of the Master batsman purely on the accepted criteria of his batsmanship.
So let me put the figures, since these are neither subjective nor created.
Point Number ONE : : Did Hobbs play much of his international cricket against the minnows.
(Both Africa and West Indies have been named)
Well The stats tell that Hobbs, till 1971 had played the highest number of tests(41) by any cricketer against Australia. Thankfully Australia have not been called the minnows of test cricket !!
He has been over taken later by Colin Cowdrey (43), and later by Gooch and Gower (42 each). Remember , that these worthies, having played 2 and 1 test MORE than Sir Jack, scored 1206, 1004 and 367 runs LESS than Hobbs against Australia !!!
Clearly Hobbs played a helluva lot of his test matches against Australia who in my humble opinion have never been the minnows of the game. And seems to have performed well, dont you think ??
Point Number TWO : : Its not true that he still played a larger proportion of tests against minnows than others.
Since it would be contentious to classify minnows over history, PLUS would take longer , I just took the proportion of matches against Australia and took the ten top openers and ten top middle order batsmen in history for comparison. Here they are with there test matches versus Australia :-
Openers :-
Player....tests....Verus Australia....%
Sutcliffe.... 54.............27........50.0
Gooch.....118............42........35.6
Boycott....108...........38........35.2
Hutton...... 79............27........34.2
Atherton...115...........33.........28.7
Haynes....116...........33........28.4
Greenidge.108..........29........26.9
Stewart....133...........33........24.8
Kirsten.....101..........18........17.8
Gavaskar...125.........20........16
MIDDLE ORDER
Player....tests....Verus Australia....%
Hammond..85............33............38.8
Cowdrey....114..........43.............37.7
Gower...... 117...........42............35.9
Richards...121...........34............28.1
Lara..........112...........27...........24.1
Sobers......93.............19...........20.4
Dravid........89............18...........20.2
Miandaad..125...........25...........20.0
Tendulkar..123...........21...........17.1
Inzemam...100..........13............13.0
Hobbs played over 67 % of his test matches (41 0ut of 61) against Australia.
By the way, South Africa were a weak side, though never like BD and Zimbabwe mainly because of their batting. They were a fairly competent bowling side. Even a cursory browsing of their performances will reveal that.
Point Number THREE : Suppose we consider Hobbs only against Australia. versus the great batsmen of the world. ?
So we did that. I took ten of the top openers in the world and ten of the top middle order batsmen in the world in the history of the game and took there runs against australia and their batting averages against Australia.
Conclusion : No one in the history of the game has cored more runs against australia than Hobbs's 3636 !!
No one has scored more centuries against Australia than Hobbs's 12 !!
Only two of the 20 batsmen (21 if you include Hobbs) average higher than his 54.27 against Australia. These are Sutcliffe at 66.8 in 27 tests and Hutton at 56.47 also in 27 tests. Though Sutcliffe and Hutton's figures are impressive, it is important to remember that Hobbs played his tests from before the birth of Bradman till two years beyond his debut and was playing against the new Genius when he mesmerised England on his 1930 tour.
He was in his 48th year when he retired. He scored two thirds of his 5400 runs AFTER his 30th birthday and scored over a hundred first class centuries after his thirty fifth birthday.
The stats about his age do not show the poor standards of his time but show how great was his mastery over technique (his batting has been called a manual on correct batsmanship) that age did not make him fallible. The only thing that happened with age was that the real big double hundreds and beyond beame fewer since he would get tired.
OPENERS :-
Player...Tests.....Runs.......Avg
Sutcliffe.....27.....2741......66.85
Gooch...... 42.....2632......33.32
Boycott.....38.....2945......47.5
Hutton...... 27.....2428......56.47
Atherton....33.....1900......29.69
Haynes.....33.....2233......42.13
Greenidge..29.....1819......40.42
Stewart.....33.....1810 ......30.68
Kirsten......18.....1134 ......34.36
Gavaskar...20.....1550......51.67
MIDDLE ORDER BATSMEN
Player...Tests.....Runs.......Avg
Cowdrey....43......2433........34.27
Gower.......42......3269........44.78
Richards... 34......2266........44.43
Hammond..33......2852........51.85
Lara..........27......2470........51.46
Miandaad..25......1797........47.29
Tendulkar..21......1859........53.11
Sobers......19......1510........43.14
Dravid....... 18......1480........51.03
Inzemam...13......784.........34.09
Hobbs.......41......3636......54.27
Not only were the 5410 runs Hobbs scored in his career by the time he retired Far far more than anyone had scored in test matches by then, even the 3636 runs that he scored against australia alone were more than what any cricker had scored till then in his entire career against all comers !! This includes all Australian batsmen too !!
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FaaipDeOiad
Hall of Fame Member
Excellent points, SJS.
During the period from the start of the 1910s to the end of the 1920s, Hobbs scored 2,901 runs at an average of 63.07 in just Ashes tests. During this period, only two batsmen managed to score even HALF as many runs as Hobbs in Ashes tests, being Frank Wooley and the other useless, overrated amatuer opener England had at the time, Herbert Sutcliffe. Wooley scored his runs at the comparitively modest average of 36.70, while Sutcliffe scored his runs at 70 - 1,561 of them. During this time Hobbs scored 12 centuries in Ashes tests, another mark which nobody can even come close to, with Sutcliffe's 6 coming in next.
Now, how good were the other batsmen? Here are some players Hobbs left in his wake in this era, aside from Wooley and Sutcliffe: Bill Ponsford, Bill Woodfull, Charlie Macartney, Warwick Armstrong, Jack Ryder, Jack Gregory, Alan Kippax, Clem Hill, Wilfred Rhodes and Elias Hendren. And just in case you thought he couldn't do it against South Africa as well, Hobbs also scored more runs at a better average against South Africa than any other player in this time.
During the period from the start of the 1910s to the end of the 1920s, Hobbs scored 2,901 runs at an average of 63.07 in just Ashes tests. During this period, only two batsmen managed to score even HALF as many runs as Hobbs in Ashes tests, being Frank Wooley and the other useless, overrated amatuer opener England had at the time, Herbert Sutcliffe. Wooley scored his runs at the comparitively modest average of 36.70, while Sutcliffe scored his runs at 70 - 1,561 of them. During this time Hobbs scored 12 centuries in Ashes tests, another mark which nobody can even come close to, with Sutcliffe's 6 coming in next.
Now, how good were the other batsmen? Here are some players Hobbs left in his wake in this era, aside from Wooley and Sutcliffe: Bill Ponsford, Bill Woodfull, Charlie Macartney, Warwick Armstrong, Jack Ryder, Jack Gregory, Alan Kippax, Clem Hill, Wilfred Rhodes and Elias Hendren. And just in case you thought he couldn't do it against South Africa as well, Hobbs also scored more runs at a better average against South Africa than any other player in this time.