Viv Richards v Sunil Gavaskar

[Dissector]

Thanks for those figures, SJS. Interesting to see Imran perform so well in his 5 tests and a pity that Hadlee didn't play more tests. Like you said it's pretty much what you would have expected. All the three Windies greats averaged under 25 and so did Lillee though he had a bit of help from that one game in New Zealand. Fine performance from Walker as well: a bowler I know very little about.

I think the ICC should give official test status to all the Packer tests as well as the ROW tests in the early 70's. There is no question that the quality of cricket in all these games was high ;higher in fact than that of most official tests and players deserve to have their performances recorded as part of their official statistics.

 

[The Sean]

The ICC did actually give Official Test status to the 1970 England v RoW series, which they then stripped a couple of years later.

Whether all those matches should be granted Test status is open to question. What is beyond question IMO is that performances in those matches should absolutely be taken into account when judging a player's quality and record.

 

[aussie]

The ICC did actually give Official Test status to the 1970 England v RoW series, which they then stripped a couple of years later.

Whether all those matches should be granted Test status is open to question. What is beyond question IMO is that performances in those matches should absolutely be taken into account when judging a player's quality and record.

Absolutely. That 1970 year Sobers really did some tremendous stuff as an all-rounder. Which year do you reckon was a better peak for Sobers as an "all-rounder" 66 or 70?.

 

[Pratters]

Whether all those matches should be granted Test status is open to question.

Given that they granted Australia v ROW a few years earlier test status, I see no reason why WSC matches should not be recognised now. It is high time and there is precedence for it.

 

[The Sean]

Given that they granted Australia v ROW a few years earlier test status, I see no reason why WSC matches should not be recognised now. It is high time and there is precedence for it.

The ICC's lack of consistency makes this one hard to call - the Australia v RoW match from 2005 was given full Test status for marketing rather than cricketing reasons as far as I'm concerned, a decision that was made all the more baffling by the fact it was inconsistent with their previous rulings. Still, at least that and the two RoW series from the early 1970s were played as official matches under the banner of the ICC and so the argument for Test status is there to be made in some way.

WSC on the other hand has no real chance of ever being acknowledged as Test status, given that they were played as a completely rebel competition under the banner of a commercial enterprise and the ICC has made clear that they will never even be considered FC matches let alone Tests.

The great paradox, of course, is that WSC was some the very best cricketers of all time giving us some of the very best cricket ever played. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that the ICC will never add those performances to "official" Test statistics doesn't mean that we can't - it's fascinating to me to see how the career records of those great players look when we add the missing numbers.

 

[The Sean]

Absolutely. That 1970 year Sobers really did some tremendous stuff as an all-rounder. Which year do you reckon was a better peak for Sobers as an "all-rounder" 66 or 70?.

For sure, that 1970 series was certainly one of Sobers' greatest - ironically, Sobers only agreed to play in that series once he'd received guarantees that the matches would be classed as official Tests.

I'd still have to go with 1966 as the zenith of his performances though. 722 runs at 103, 20 wickets at 27, 10 catches and captaining WI to a series win. IMO the greatest captain's series of all time, rivalled only by Bradman in 36/37.

 

[Richard]

I think the ICC should give official test status to all the Packer tests as well as the ROW tests in the early 70's. There is no question that the quality of cricket in all these games was high ;higher in fact than that of most official tests and players deserve to have their performances recorded as part of their official statistics.

Test cricket is not just about the standard of the play, it's about the teams. Kerry Packer was not a Test team, and every single team in WSC played not for Test cricket but for Kerry Packer. Any team with "Rest Of" in the title does not deserve Test status at all, in order to have Test status a team must be a) good enough and b) have some sort of qualification debarring all bar a certain group of players from being involved. Anything with "Rest Of" doesn't; it changes according to who its opposition are.

The ICC Super Series Test having Test status is a rank joke for that precise reason. Absolutely ridiculous that it was sanctioned - the self-stipulated ICC grounds for Test status were twisted to suit the ICC's immediate purposes (which was giving the Super Series as high a profile as possible, in order to make as big a short-term profit as possible from it).

 

[Pratters]

The ICC's lack of consistency makes this one hard to call - the Australia v RoW match from 2005 was given full Test status for marketing rather than cricketing reasons as far as I'm concerned, a decision that was made all the more baffling by the fact it was inconsistent with their previous rulings. Still, at least that and the two RoW series from the early 1970s were played as official matches under the banner of the ICC and so the argument for Test status is there to be made in some way.

WSC on the other hand has no real chance of ever being acknowledged as Test status, given that they were played as a completely rebel competition under the banner of a commercial enterprise and the ICC has made clear that they will never even be considered FC matches let alone Tests.

The great paradox, of course, is that WSC was some the very best cricketers of all time giving us some of the very best cricket ever played. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that the ICC will never add those performances to "official" Test statistics doesn't mean that we can't - it's fascinating to me to see how the career records of those great players look when we add the missing numbers.

Yeah, we should definitely consider the matches in assessing a player in my opinion. It is similar to ignoring one's record versus Zimbabwe and Bangladesh which Richard talks about. Then people will ask - what about games versus Yorkshire and Barbados at their peak. They all should be taken into account in my opinion. If a player made a double century versus Yorkshire back in the day, it wasn't a nothing knock for sure.

 

[Richard]

The ICC did actually give Official Test status to the 1970 England v RoW series, which they then stripped a couple of years later.

Well, to be exact the TCCB (the ECB of its day for those who don't know) gave them Test status, as the home authority were in charge of such matters in those days. Garry Sobers, the ROW captain, would not have played had they refused to grant said status.

IIRR some decision from someoneorother in, I think, 1977 resulted in the matches being, rightly in my book, retrospectively stripped of Test status (as I say for me no "Rest Of" team has a place in Test cricket). It's just a shame such a thing wasn't done to games involving South Africa up to 1905/06. I doubt, in this day and age, that such a thing will ever be done.

 

[Richard]

Given that they granted Australia v ROW a few years earlier test status, I see no reason why WSC matches should not be recognised now. It is high time and there is precedence for it.

There's no precedent for WSC games being given Test status, even if there is (regrettably) some for the 1970 and 1971/72 ROW games being granted it. WSC was a private competition, and there was and remains plenty of resentment in official circles for Kerry Packer's anti-establishment stances. Hopefully this will never die, and the realisation that Packer was a rebel who was interested not in the game but exclusively in his own TV channel's interests will always prevent the notion of WSC games being given Test status from gaining any serious foothold. Once the players who played in said games - who tend to be among the fiercest advocates - have faded hopefully the idea will fade still further.

 

[The Sean]

Well, to be exact the TCCB (the ECB of its day for those who don't know) gave them Test status, as the home authority were in charge of such matters in those days.

Yeah good call, you're absolutely right with that one.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, we should definitely consider the matches in assessing a player in my opinion. It is similar to ignoring one's record versus Zimbabwe and Bangladesh which Richard talks about. Then people will ask - what about games versus Yorkshire and Barbados at their peak. They all should be taken into account in my opinion. If a player made a double century versus Yorkshire back in the day, it wasn't a nothing knock for sure.

All comes down to the fact that there's more than just Test cricket to a cricketer's excellence. Those who hanker for WSC matches to be included in Test records tend, in my experience, to be the same sorts who basically refuse to acknowledge anything other than Test cricket in assessing a player. A view that's mistaken now and hugely, hugely mistaken the further back through cricket history you delve.

Yorkshire vs Barbados in 1969 (not sure if that was ever actually played TBH, can't remember who their fixtures were against) might indeed easily have been a better standard of cricket than some Test at the same time was. But that doesn't mean it should be given Test status.

 

[aussie]

All true Richard. But you must agree the standard of cricket played, means we should use it as guide to judge the players who participated.

 

[Richard]

The ICC's lack of consistency makes this one hard to call - the Australia v RoW match from 2005 was given full Test status for marketing rather than cricketing reasons as far as I'm concerned, a decision that was made all the more baffling by the fact it was inconsistent with their previous rulings.

Though in all honesty, the rulings about the '70 and '71/72 series' were made by completely different people to those who made the '05 one, and the priorities were completely different. Those who made the original rulings, though the organisation was officially different (TCCB rather than ICC) made the same ruling (that the ROW games would have Test status) for the same reasons (to give the games the highest possible profile). Once that reason had served its purpose, the result was reversed in terms of the '70 series, and I still hope that maybe someday the same will be done with the '05 match.

 

[The Sean]

Though in all honesty, the rulings about the '70 and '71/72 series' were made by completely different people to those who made the '05 one, and the priorities were completely different. Those who made the original rulings, though the organisation was officially different (TCCB rather than ICC) made the same ruling (that the ROW games would have Test status) for the same reasons (to give the games the highest possible profile). Once that reason had served its purpose, the result was reversed in terms of the '70 series, and I still hope that maybe someday the same will be done with the '05 match.

Well it would be true regardless of the organisation given that the decisions were made 35 years apart, but I see where you're coming from. Not sure what you mean by the priorities being completely different though? Think I might be misunderstanding your point there.

The 1971/72 series in Australia was never granted official Test status and interestingly one of the men who agrees with that ruling is Ian Chappell, who has said that he didn't feel that Australia v RoW had quite the same intensity as "real" Test cricket. It's to Chappelli's credit that he says this because his stats would stand to improve if those matches were included. In the five matches he scored 634 runs at 79.25 with four centuries - his greatest ever series.

Chappelli is clearly not a man interested in protecting his own numbers because he is also one of the fiercest advocates for WSC to be included in the players' official stats, maintaing to this day (as do most who played in it) that it was the best, toughest cricket he ever played - this despire the fact that his average would diminish if those matches were included.

 

[Richard]

Well it would be true regardless of the organisation given that the decisions were made 35 years apart, but I see where you're coming from. Not sure what you mean by the priorities being completely different though? Think I might be misunderstanding your point there.

They were made 35 years apart, is one thing I was going to mention and somehow didn't - those in charge of cricket in 1977 and 2005 were not the same people.

The priorities of those who stripped Test status from the 1970 series were different to the priorities of those who gave it to the one in 2005 (though I think both decisions were credited to an "ICC", even though the ICC was nothing but an imperial relic in 1977, and certainly not an international govorning body). And in fact the priorities of those who gave it to the one in 2005 were exactly the same as those who originally gave it to the 1970 series.

The 1971/72 series in Australia was never granted official Test status and interestingly one of the men who agrees with that ruling is Ian Chappell, who has said that he didn't feel that Australia v RoW had quite the same intensity as "real" Test cricket. It's to Chappelli's credit that he says this because his stats would stand to improve if those matches were included. In the five matches he scored 634 runs at 79.25 with four centuries - his greatest ever series.

Chappelli is clearly not a man interested in protecting his own numbers because he is also one of the fiercest advocates for WSC to be included in the players' official stats, maintaing to this day (as do most who played in it) that it was the best, toughest cricket he ever played - this despire the fact that his average would diminish if those matches were included.

As I say, all the players tend to harker for it to be included, because they all maintain it was such high standard. None appear to have any feeling for the fact that they had turned their backs on Test cricket to play for Packer - perhaps because they're not entirely comfortable with having done so. It was a fair enough choice, because if you want a lot more money than you currently get anyone is entitled to take it, but there were some sacrifices and those players who defected to Packer made them. In wanting Test status for those games the Packer players are, simply, trying to have it both ways, and it's right in my book that they've so far been refused.

 

[The Sean]

They were made 35 years apart, is one thing I was going to mention and somehow didn't - those in charge of cricket in 1977 and 2005 were not the same people.

The priorities of those who stripped Test status from the 1970 series were different to the priorities of those who gave it to the one in 2005 (though I think both decisions were credited to an "ICC", even though the ICC was nothing but an imperial relic in 1977, and certainly not an international govorning body). And in fact the priorities of those who gave it to the one in 2005 were exactly the same as those who originally gave it to the 1970 series.

Ah, gotcha now. And yep, agreed.

As I say, all the players tend to harker for it to be included, because they all maintain it was such high standard. None appear to have any feeling for the fact that they had turned their backs on Test cricket to play for Packer - perhaps because they're not entirely comfortable with having done so. It was a fair enough choice, because if you want a lot more money than you currently get anyone is entitled to take it, but there were some sacrifices and those players who defected to Packer made them. In wanting Test status for those games the Packer players are, simply, trying to have it both ways, and it's right in my book that they've so far been refused.

Yep, Tony Greig is another who talks in terms of Test matches being due to the "standard of the cricketers" - arguing that the RoW should be Test matches because they were all Test players involved. Dear old Tony missing the point there, one feels.

I don't disagree about the whole WSC-shouldn't-be-official-Tests thing either, the reasoning is more than sound. My contention was simply that whatever their status, the WSC matches should be considered when assessing a player's career both in terms of achievements and statistics.

 

[Pratters]

All comes down to the fact that there's more than just Test cricket to a cricketer's excellence. Those who hanker for WSC matches to be included in Test records tend, in my experience, to be the same sorts who basically refuse to acknowledge anything other than Test cricket in assessing a player. A view that's mistaken now and hugely, hugely mistaken the further back through cricket history you delve.

Yorkshire vs Barbados in 1969 (not sure if that was ever actually played TBH, can't remember who their fixtures were against) might indeed easily have been a better standard of cricket than some Test at the same time was. But that doesn't mean it should be given Test status.

Well, I for one acknowledge that there is more to a player than just tests but I would want WSC matches included as tests. I understand your reasoning why they shouldn't be but I don't agree with it.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Interesting to see how well Ray Bright did in those games. Certainly out-stripped his record in Test cricket.

 

[SJS]

Thanks for those figures, SJS. Interesting to see Imran perform so well in his 5 tests and a pity that Hadlee didn't play more tests. Like you said it's pretty much what you would have expected. All the three Windies greats averaged under 25 and so did Lillee though he had a bit of help from that one game in New Zealand. Fine performance from Walker as well: a bowler I know very little about.

I think the ICC should give official test status to all the Packer tests as well as the ROW tests in the early 70's. There is no question that the quality of cricket in all these games was high ;higher in fact than that of most official tests and players deserve to have their performances recorded as part of their official statistics.

Absolutely. The best players from Australia, West Indies, Pakistan, South Africa and England (most of them) were playing while the teams that represented Australia and West Indies under Simpson and kallicharan were jokes as international sides yet we count all those runs the Indians piled up against them towards fattening their batting averages.

Lillee was possibly at his peak during this period and the West Indians, Imran and Hadlee too were bowling so well. Scoring runs against those guys would have been a real Test even for a great batsman like Gavaskar. I have always wondered why Lillee holds Gavaskar in slightly less than the highest regard (as comes out in subtle ways when you read his books or hear him talk of the best batsmen in the world of that time) and the reason could be something to do with the fact that Gavaskar was not playing in the WSC and scoring runs against the second string Australian team who the WSC's Aussie players hated