Kane Williamson

[trundler]

Pollock having a peak in 2002 is interesting to me. Wasn't he sharper in the late 90s?

 

[Athlai]

Pollock having a peak in 2002 is interesting to me. Wasn't he sharper in the late 90s?

Pollock is up there for far longer than I'd have thought. An interesting thing was Warne only appears in the top 3 once. Maybe it'd be kinder to him if the timeline was after the English summer?

 

[Arachnodouche]

He scared the **** out of England when he debuted. Had a very slippery bouncer.

 

[trundler]

Pollock was also at the very top ahead of McGrath and Donald around the time when he has played 50 tests averaging under 20(!!!) for a fairly long duration.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Early Pollock was indeed pretty rapid but by 2002 he had dialled back a little bit in the name of consistency. Was an odd peroid for South African fast bowling, Donald was being increasingly let down by his own body. Ntini had just reemerged but was still raw and ragged, old mate Günther was a loose cannon both on and off field, and there were guys like David Terbrugge and Steve Elworthy getting a few games here and there

 

[thierry henry]

I’ve always felt like there’s a myth that Pollock was really fast and scary and then slowed down and became sort of a poor man’s McGrath or something

If you go back and watch footage of Pollock, say from the 1997/98 tri series or tests against Australia, he wasn’t quick at all. Maybe he was really quick in like 1995-1996? But seems odd he would suddenly stop bowling quick at like 24 years old?

For the vast majority of his career Pollock was 130-odd. I’ve always felt there seems to be a certain reluctance to rate him as highly as he should be rated, allied with a false narrative that he mostly succeeded when/because he was quick.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Granted I am going somewhat off what seemed to be the general consensus among those around South African cricket, it's possible there may have been a bit of tyre pumping going on

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Manoj Prabhakar and Gundappa Viswanath

Prabhakar opened the batting and bowling quite a lot for India.

Viswanath was a middle order batsman. He did really well against some gun West Indian pace attacks which would have earned lots of ranking points.

 

[Athlai]

I went far more in depth and have the excel sheet with the records in the other thread.

 

[Immenso]

I've also more or less statistically proven that the worst era of cricket in the last 40 odd years was 1991-1995

Certainly was for NZ .... shudder.

 

[Immenso]

So far two players have been in these lists that I'm not familiar with

Manoj Prabhakar and Gundappa Viswanath

Prabhakar was a seam bowling all rounder, bowled in-swingers as a stock ball. Medium pace, but got slower once he concentrated on his batting.

He was batting number 7, one of the 3 seamers, in this test in 1990 v NZ (when Hadlee broke the 400 barrier), and Danny Morrison broke Navjot Sidhu's finger. Prabhaker elevated to open in the second innings, and then stayed there for a few years.

https://archive.nzc.nz/Scorecards/52/52375.html

Quite often opened the batting and bowling in the same tests.

Was a match fixer, banned along with Azharduddin and Ajay Jadeja in the late 90s. The first wave of bannings.

 

[honestbharani]

Was a match fixer,

Not really. He was banned for association with bookies, but he was involved in a sting operation carried out by a magazine called Outlook, so I dont think that is accurate.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Early Pollock was indeed pretty rapid but by 2002 he had dialled back a little bit in the name of consistency. Was an odd peroid for South African fast bowling, Donald was being increasingly let down by his own body. Ntini had just reemerged but was still raw and ragged, old mate Günther was a loose cannon both on and off field, and there were guys like David Terbrugge and Steve Elworthy getting a few games here and there

You forgot Nantie Hayward.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

You forgot Nantie Hayward.

Ahh Nantie Wayward, actually kinda kicking myself a bit for forgetting him

 

[Dan]

Dewald Pretorius, too

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Dewald Pretorius, too

I know I would have watched games he played in, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing him bowl. Him being finished domestically within almost no time after his test career also puzzles me somewhat

 

[Smudge]

Certainly was for NZ .... shudder.

I'm just thinking of a composite test XI of our worst around that time:

Pocock
Darrin Murray
Rutherford
Greatbatch (unfair but we didn't try many other batsmen).
Chris Harris
Vaughan
Blain
Mark Priest
Davis/Su'a (take your pick)
Owens
de Groen

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Senator Kennedy a bit stiff imo

 

[Smudge]

Senator Kennedy a bit stiff imo

Tail end of that period. Plus, I used to see him when he served pints to me at my local a decade ago so I feel a little sympathetic towards him.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Tail end of that period. Plus, I used to see him when he served pints to me at my local a decade ago so I feel a little sympathetic towards him.

That is actually brilliant