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Road to the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Miller actually fought in a war though, which obviously gave him a sense of perspective about a sporting contest.
​Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse. Playing cricket is not.

- Keith Miller

One of my favourite quotes.
 

Burgey

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The likes of Greenidge and Richards referred to Cricket as a war in that film, is what I’m getting at. Warner is hardly the first sportsman to equate recreational activity with armed conflict, and he won’t be the last. I find it cringeworthy, but neither surprising nor particularly damn-worthy.
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
Fire in Babylon is all retcon. The idea that the West Indies were fired up for the 1976 Series to gain revenge for the enslavement of their ancestors is garbage. They just had a lot of good players emerging at the same time and at a time when England were pretty ordinary.
 

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
I hate the way they portray the West Indies as a joke team ('calypso cricketers' - was that really an insult when it was directed at the Windies in 1960-1?) which Clive Lloyd and his quartet of express pacemen then took over and turned into world beaters, overriding some colonial/racist crime. What a load of bollocks. Learning your history of West Indies cricket from that DVD and you'd be forgiven for not knowing who Garfield Sobers is!! 1960-67 the West Indies were certainly one of the greatest sides of test cricket - Hunte, Kanhai, aforementioned Sobers, Worrell*, Gibbs, Hall - and they had decent sides before that, when they had the three Ws and the spin twins, Valentine and Ramadhin and earlier still during the Headley/Constantine era. They beat England in England (Hutton/Washbrook), albeit an England who does not seem to have taken them seriously, 3-1 in 1950 and always defeated the minnows of that (pre-Worrell captaincy) era, New Zealand, India and Pakistan..

I suppose they were the third best test team after England and Oz, between their test inauguration and Worrell's captaincy (although they never played South Africa). Then under Worrell they because arguably the best test team in the world - well it was either them or Benaud's Australia.
 
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vcs

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Day 1 Brisbane is always worth getting up early for. Sadly it's a working day. Should manage to watch one session before leaving for work though.
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Fire in Babylon is all retcon. The idea that the West Indies were fired up for the 1976 Series to gain revenge for the enslavement of their ancestors is garbage. They just had a lot of good players emerging at the same time and at a time when England were pretty ordinary.
Yep. And the adoption of the four fast bowlers strategy was simply due to Lloyd's inability to get good performances out of spinners, one that seems to have been partly due to his own captaincy.
The only humiliation they would have been thinking about was getting beaten 5-1 in Australia and conceding a world record chase against India.
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
One of my favourites to watch and read about. Sure the umpiring may have sucked but the Windies sure set themselves up by walking in front of the stumps and missing the ball again and again. And their attitude was terrible.
 

quincywagstaff

International Debutant
I hate the way they portray the West Indies as a joke team ('calypso cricketers' - was that really an insult when it was directed at the Windies in 1960-1?) which Clive Lloyd and his quartet of express pacemen then took over and turned into world beaters, overriding some colonial/racist crime. What a load of bollocks. Learning your history of West Indies cricket from that DVD and you'd be forgiven for not knowing who Garfield Sobers is!! 1960-67 the West Indies were certainly one of the greatest sides of test cricket - Hunte, Kanhai, aforementioned Sobers, Worrell*, Gibbs, Hall - and they had decent sides before that, when they had the three Ws and the spin twins, Valentine and Ramadhin and earlier still during the Headley/Constantine era. They beat England in England (Hutton/Washbrook), albeit an England who does not seem to have taken them seriously, 3-1 in 1950 and always defeated the minnows of that (pre-Worrell captaincy) era, New Zealand, India and Pakistan..

I suppose they were the third best test team after England and Oz, between their test inauguration and Worrell's captaincy (although they never played South Africa). Then under Worrell they because arguably the best test team in the world - well it was either them or Benaud's Australia.
I would’ve thought that for most of the 1960s the West Indies were the best side in the world – beat India at home 5-0, won in India, beat England in England twice, beat Australia at home.

They fell away rapidly from 1968 onwards but they were exceptional for the majority of the decade.
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I would’ve thought that for most of the 1960s the West Indies were the best side in the world – beat India at home 5-0, won in India, beat England in England twice, beat Australia at home.

They fell away rapidly from 1968 onwards but they were exceptional for the majority of the decade.
FWIW the retroactively calculated raking have them as no. 1 from the start of '64 to the end of '68, which seems about right, maybe even an underestimate. Shame they never played South Africa though, it being politically inexpedient to do so.

While bowling wise I don't think they match up to the 80's team they've got to be close batting wise.
 

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
I would’ve thought that for most of the 1960s the West Indies were the best side in the world – beat India at home 5-0, won in India, beat England in England twice, beat Australia at home.

They fell away rapidly from 1968 onwards but they were exceptional for the majority of the decade.
Exceptional team who also played cricket in the correct spirit. That first Worrell trophy is arguably the greatest test series ever. There is a great documentary on it, part one,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDOvNjBWceI
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
I hate the way they portray the West Indies as a joke team ('calypso cricketers' - was that really an insult when it was directed at the Windies in 1960-1?) which Clive Lloyd and his quartet of express pacemen then took over and turned into world beaters, overriding some colonial/racist crime. What a load of bollocks. Learning your history of West Indies cricket from that DVD and you'd be forgiven for not knowing who Garfield Sobers is!! 1960-67 the West Indies were certainly one of the greatest sides of test cricket - Hunte, Kanhai, aforementioned Sobers, Worrell*, Gibbs, Hall - and they had decent sides before that, when they had the three Ws and the spin twins, Valentine and Ramadhin and earlier still during the Headley/Constantine era. They beat England in England (Hutton/Washbrook), albeit an England who does not seem to have taken them seriously, 3-1 in 1950 and always defeated the minnows of that (pre-Worrell captaincy) era, New Zealand, India and Pakistan..

I suppose they were the third best test team after England and Oz, between their test inauguration and Worrell's captaincy (although they never played South Africa). Then under Worrell they because arguably the best test team in the world - well it was either them or Benaud's Australia.

To which I'd add that they were anything but 'calypso cricketers' under Lloyd's immediate predecessor. From an English pov, the 2-0 win under Kanhai in 1973's three match series was every bit as convincing as the 3-0 win under Lloyd in 1976's five match series. Lloyd was a great player, and I'm prepared to believe he was a very fine captain, but he's never been slow to announce his own importance.

That being said, as for the political connotations, maybe there's a bit more to be said there. A generation of black me growing up with a backdrop of what was going on in America and South Africa, not to mention independence in their own back yard, may well have had a different perspective to previous generations. Plus the crap that was going on in the UK courtesy of the rising influence of the NF would have played a part too.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah why are we talking about irrelevant teams like the West Indies when we could be debating how many lifetimes the ECB should ban stokes for?
 

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