• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Unrecognised Match Tribute

Indipper

State Regular
No, it shouldn't. Like it or not, cricket politics is a big part of what decides things. Also, the fact that Kerry Packer had no interest in the welfare of the game of cricket is hardly a political argument.
If the argument you are trying to make is that only those matches that are organised by those with the welfare of cricket in mind then I would say it is an ideological and a misguided one. Were the organisers of the first tours which are now regarded as Tests interested in the welfare of cricket? Or, for that matter, were the various national boards throughout their respective histories?

I think why the game is played is irrelevant as long as it's played. So no one in WSC cared about cricket. That's probably so. The ACB certainly didn't care enough about it to treat it's players decently before and after the event.

And yet that has nothing to do with the quality of World Series Cricket. Like SJS said it was regarded by many participants as some of the toughest cricket they ever played in their life. So why hinge a game's status on the pure hearts of its administrators instead of the excellence of its participants?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
If the argument you are trying to make is that only those matches that are organised by those with the welfare of cricket in mind then I would say it is an ideological and a misguided one. Were the organisers of the first tours which are now regarded as Tests interested in the welfare of cricket? Or, for that matter, were the various national boards throughout their respective histories?

I think why the game is played is irrelevant as long as it's played. So no one in WSC cared about cricket. That's probably so. The ACB certainly didn't care enough about it to treat it's players decently before and after the event.
Of course those who organised the early Test tours to Australia weren't thinking of what they were going to end-up creating. Whether they had the welfare of the game at heart isn't really something we can know, as things were more than a little different in those days. But either way, I've often found some of the early Test status conferred on games more than a little dubious.

And were those in the ACB in the 1970s shining beacons of geniality? No, of course not. But they cared more than Kerry Packer did. His interest was zero. He was concerned only about the short-term, and about his own TV network which brought his own income.
And yet that has nothing to do with the quality of World Series Cricket. Like SJS said it was regarded by many participants as some of the toughest cricket they ever played in their life. So why hinge a game's status on the pure hearts of its administrators instead of the excellence of its participants?
Quality is not the only requirement of Test cricket, though it is, obviously, one of them. For, perhaps, the 1000th time now.
 

Indipper

State Regular
I'll just skip to the part which really interests me:

Quality is not the only requirement of Test cricket, though it is, obviously, one of them. For, perhaps, the 1000th time now.
No, it's not, I know. You obviously had this argument before. I'm not suggesting that World XI games should be regular fixtures, I just think that games that are history by now should be regarded for their quality and not for their political label. WSC doesnt even have first-class status. And if that means bolstering the Test records of players who were screwed out of their careers by the test ban, even better.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
They weren't "screwed out" of their Test careers - they made the choice of money over Test cricket. As I said - that's not an illegitimate choice, but that's the choice they made. WSC doesn't deserve Test or First-Class status - I can't really make it any clearer: these games were private ventures, specifically designed to take away from what was already defined as Test cricket.

There's no political label on Rest Of World XI games, either - the simple fact of the matter is, there's no place (IMO) for teams in Test cricket which have "Rest Of" in their title - ie, teams which are picked at random without any qualification apart from "not from such-and-such place". A Test team must have some form of long-term behind it, IMO.
 

Indipper

State Regular
They weren't "screwed out" of their Test careers - they made the choice of money over Test cricket. As I said - that's not an illegitimate choice, but that's the choice they made.
I was refering to the South Africans.

WSC doesn't deserve Test or First-Class status - I can't really make it any clearer: these games were private ventures, specifically designed to take away from what was already defined as Test cricket.

There's no political label on Rest Of World XI games, either - the simple fact of the matter is, there's no place (IMO) for teams in Test cricket which have "Rest Of" in their title - ie, teams which are picked at random without any qualification apart from "not from such-and-such place". A Test team must have some form of long-term behind it, IMO.
Regarding this, we can only agree to disagree.
 

aussie tragic

International Captain
I get a tingling sensation just reading those great names. Here is the World Squad that faced the Australians of 1977-78 in the WSC super tests.

  1. Barry Richards
  2. Gordon Greenidge
  3. Roy Fredricks
  4. Viv Richards
  5. Zaheer Abbas
  6. Clive Lloyd
  7. Asif Iqbal
  8. Tony Greig
  9. Mike Proctor
  10. Imran Khan
  11. Andy Roberts
  12. Joel Garner
  13. Wayne Daniel
  14. Derryk Underwood
  15. Alan Knott
Not to forget the additional players in 1978-79

Desmond Haynes
Javed Miandad
Dennis Amiss
Lawrence Rowe
Clive Rice
Deryk Murray
Garth Le Roux
Michael Holding
Colin Croft
 

Lillian Thomson

Hall of Fame Member
Moving on the 1970 World XI series vs England

http://gulf.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1970S/1970/R-O-W_IN_ENG/

1st Test: What a game for Captain Sobers

6-21 (off 20 eight ball overs), 183, 2-43 (off 31 overs) and 2 catches....of course World XI won by an innings given that performance....

That series is the biggest farce of all in that Garry Sobers only agreed to captain the side on the understanding that the matches would be considered Test Matches. Opening batsman Alan Jones was given his Cap, Sweater and Blazer to mark his debut only for the ICC to decide two years later that they weren't Test Matches after all. Legend has it that he was forced to return the kit but that isn't true, he still has them as momento's even though they don't mean what they should. He was never selected again after that match.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Have often wondered what went through Sobers' mind when he heard that promises given him by someone had been broken by someone else.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I was refering to the South Africans.
I see. Well, much as it is indeed a shame that both the generation of 1969/70 (Bacher, Richards, Barlow, the Pollocks, Irvine, Lindsay, Goddard, Lance, Procter, Trimborn) and the following one were denied the chance of a good-length or even any Test careeer, there were only a tiny handful of matches which could be said to be Test substitutes which players such as these played in.

And purely and simply, there are some things in cricket more important than high standard of cricket between qualifiable teams being classed Tests. There's a good reason the South Africans were outlawed from international cricket in the 1970s and 1980s, and the situation of the time has not changed just because it is now less recent: there was much wrong about the country, and the country did not deserve the honour that was playing international sport.

It's quite right that any team choosing to break the rules which banned them should have been regarded as "Rebel".
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
And purely and simply, there are some things in cricket more important than high standard of cricket between qualifiable teams being classed Tests. There's a good reason the South Africans were outlawed from international cricket in the 1970s and 1980s, and the situation of the time has not changed just because it is now less recent: there was much wrong about the country, and the country did not deserve the honour that was playing international sport.

It's quite right that any team choosing to break the rules which banned them should have been regarded as "Rebel".
I dont think that SA 'rebel' games should be classed at Tests. Not by any stretch.

But the above post is SO pious, preachy and condescending I just had to reply. :laugh:
 
Last edited:

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Moving on the 1970 World XI series vs England

http://gulf.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1970S/1970/R-O-W_IN_ENG/

1st Test: What a game for Captain Sobers

6-21 (off 20 eight ball overs), 183, 2-43 (off 31 overs) and 2 catches....of course World XI won by an innings given that performance....
Yes. He had a fabulous series.

In five tests he scored 588 runs at 73.5 per innings and took 21 wickets at 21.5 each.

He was a star with both bat and ball in a team that had great players in both disciplines

  • - Barry Richards
  • - Graeme Pollock
  • - Rohan Kanhai
  • - Clive Lloyd
  • - Eddie Barlow
  • - Mike Proctor
  • - Graeme McKenzie
  • - Intikhab Alam
  • - Mushtaq Mohammad
  • - Peter Pollock
  • - Lance Gibbs

and Enginner and Murray behind the stumps.
-
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
So, why?

Let's start at the start, is there anything inaccurate in there?
Firstly its opinion presented as fact.

Secondly you mention a) some things b) good reason and c) much wrong, without detailing anything.

If you are going to present an opinion as fact (especially in such a matter of fact and detail free way, almost like talking to an 8 yr old) at least explain why a decision is right or wrong so the basis of the foundation of your point can be understood.

As it is it is lacking in any substance and very preachy.
 
Last edited:

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'd have imagined it was obvious what I was saying on all three counts, hence the lack of detail. So...

"Some things" - well, basically that can roughly be translated as "doing the right thing". IE, making it clear you have distaste for something such as an Apartheid-system-run country.

"Good reason" - because Apartheid was worthy of them being excluded from international sport, IMO and in the opinion of many others. I'm aware you are not of this opinion, and I'm aware of your reasons for it, but I don't agree.

"Much wrong" - yes, I do think there was much wrong with South Africa under Apartheid. I also realise it's not a black-and-white case and that there are many of the shades of grey in there that I've never even examined, never mind understood, but I don't think it's inaccurate to say that there was "much wrong" with the Apartheid system.

I'm well aware each of these are opinion, but they're opinions I've only ever heard dissent on on a small number of occasions. Hence, I don't think talking of them as something other than solely my opinion is especially preachy.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
I dont want to clog this thread up too much. One last question. Were sporting sanctions, in your opinion, implemented and kept as a response to the overall Government policy (ie Apartheid) or the lack of integration of a particular sport ie cricket?

If the justificastion was to change national issus such as Apartheid then I think its a cheap trick used by lazy policy makers to have others do their fighting for them rather than use the correct channels. It begs the question why far more other countries dont get banned. Is killing people less offensive to making different people ride different buses? Apartheid was offensive and allowed little upwards mobility to vast proportions of the population. But in terms of the scale of state violence, murder and corruption it ranks way below other nations. Ive no issue with SA being sanctioned against if there was any consistency in how such things are applied. I dont believe sport should be used as a tool to try and force change, though there are times it can be used to protest. Ie If England decided not to got to SA because they were not comfortable with the politics and didnt want to be seen to be endorsing the regime then that is far more legit than sport being used as a political weapon to crowbar change in a seperate sovereign nation.

Now Im not saying SA should have kept playing Test cricket. It was tough to do as it would have placed a lot of cricketers in awkward situations. Maybe they could have done so by playing games at neutral venues? But then again maybe not. However, my issue with sports sanctions against SA was the banning of players that chose to make a living there. Its one thing for an authority to decide their team will not go there (that is their right) but the lack of freedom of movement and right to earn a living (when the guys you would be playing with were your teammates and opponents in County cricket) was oppressive (see Jackman and Greenidge etc).

Institutions can make choices over what they decide to do and individuals should have that same right without fear of recrimination.

If the reason for the ban was for the lack of integration and racist policies in Cricket then Id suggest you read your history books a little more. That would have been accurate early but was very complicated by the 1980s.

This is a long post and a little rambling so I dont expect too many people to read it. The reason for writing it is probably based on my pet hate of people presenting simplified opinions to complex problems (why I really dislike Rush Limbaugh).

Of course apartheid was bad, but if that was the reason then why are other equally, if not more, despicable regimes not treated the same? IMO its fine for intitutions to make a decision over their behaviour ie a cricket board deciding they will not play against SA but they shouldnt be able to penalise players for playing in a country just because they dont like it.

If it was cricket, rather than Government, related then the ban went on far longer than it should have as massive changes had been made. If it was Government, rather than cricket, then Id like to see more nations banned from sport.

Again, apologies for going OT. As I said it was just as a response to what I believed to be a post that talked down to everyone on a complex topic.

EDIT- Just to show Im impartial and not just trying to get after you. I had my wife read the post I originally took issue with. She didnt see much wrong with it so maybe the way I interpreted it (and still do) is different to how others will.and how it was intended to read :)
 
Last edited:

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
TBH, there's plenty of places I'd not be sorry to see excluded - have sporting sanctions taken against them. Zimbabwe, obviously, as I've been saying for the past 4 years or so, is once such example. China (for instance) is not, because as has been said ad nauseum, it's a reality - not a pleasant one, no, but a reality that it'd be fruitless to deny - that China has enough power to basically do what it wants, and woe betide anyone who attempts to oppose them. See the Beijing Olympics.

Matthew Engel, as so often, put it well in his Wisden 2005 notes:
It is true that it's all too easy to get on one's high-horse about this. I could have a decent stab at writing a powerful newspaper column arguing the moral case against playing cricket anywhere you care to name, however innocuous it may sound (even New Zealand has dirty little secrets, you know. The UK certainly has). But somewhere in the dust, by no means easy to find, is a line no decent human-being should cross. And I believe the wretched tyranny that is Robert Mugabe's govornment is now accross that line and no cricket team should tour there.
As I've said - my knowledge of Apartheid is not particularly complex, but I am well aware that in cricket circles things were on the change by the 1970s and 1980s.

However, one thing I'd say is that, while the ban on SA may have been little more than a cheap trick used by lazy policy makers to have others do their fighting for them rather than use the correct channels, that doesn't mean it was neccessarily a bad idea. What is, perhaps, bad is the fact that there aren't more teams who have sporting sanctions taken against them. I know rather more about what is routinely "let go by" now than I did, say, 10 years ago when I first heard about the fact that SA had been excluded for 22 years. And there have been times, a decent number of them, when I've thought "where the hell is the consistency? If SA were kicked-out for that, I sure as don't get why there's barely a whisper here".

The unfortunate reality is, however, that some things are disproportionally reacted to. See the Iraq "war". British govornments have taken many, countless, worse decisions in the last, say, 40 years than participating in the action against Iraq. Yet the scale of protest there was some of the largest I've known. That doesn't mean those questioning the Iraq action were wrong to question it. But it does seem a little odd that they weren't complaining about a rather large number of other foreign policies.

As to was the isolation of SA implemented and kept because of the overall Government policy (Apartheid) or the lack of integration in cricket - well I don't know the answer. Unless someone made statements about it that I've never read, nor does anyone else - we can only guess. The point, though, is that the stand was being taken against the country in a visible way (ie, we're not engaging you in sporting contests) because of the policy of the govornment. From what I know, it's unlikely that the end of Apartheid was actually hastened at all by the sporting exclusion. But the fact that it was an obvious statement of disapproval means I support it, even if those responsible should also have been directing their statements of disapproval elsewhere too.
 
Last edited:

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Im not sure you answered my question as to what the aims of banning SA were (not wanting to deal with a regime like that? wanting to bring change? or cricket related?) :)

But your reply above is a good response.

I cant count the number of times I think you have written some over simplified drivel and responded and then you have fleshed out the opinion with decent content in a response.

Im not sure if you need to be more detailed and thorough when originally presenting an opinion as fact or I need to be less twitchy in jumping on them.

Im sure its probably a bit of both :)
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Im not sure you answered my question as to what the aims of banning SA were (not wanting to deal with a regime like that? wanting to bring change? or cricket related?) :)
I forgot that intially, then edited the post after re-reading yours, so mine above now includes an answer to that question.
But your reply above is a good response.

I cant count the number of times I think you have written some over simplified drivel and responded and then you have fleshed out the opinion with decent content in a response.

Im not sure if you need to be more detailed and thorough when originally presenting an opinion as fact or I need to be less twitchy in jumping on them.

Im sure its probably a bit of both :)
Well I'm a master of both the one-liners and the big posts. One-liners have their advantages and their disadvantages. Among them, the fact that they can appear to over-simplify something that would probably be best exemplified on a little more.
 

Engle

State Vice-Captain
Those 70's ROW matches were loaded with stars, many of whom were all-rounders who could contribute both with bat and ball. Sobers, Barlow, Procter, Intikhab and yes, even Clive Lloyd who led the bowling averages. England had D'Oliveira, Greig and Illingworth.

Tho it did not answer the question of which was the greater team between the WIndies and S.Africa. The WIndies (Sobers, Kanhai, Lloyd, Murray and Gibbs) had a slightly better overall batting contribution over the S.Africans (Barlow, Richards, GPollock, Procter, PPollock), but a slightly lesser overall performance by their bowlers.
 

Top