Wisden's Cricketers of the Century

[tooextracool]

yes Dravid is rated better ..and is a better batsman than Gilchrist overall, but it cannot be denied that Gilchrists style of play will get him more column inches, or tv coverage, because he is the type of player that a crowd really wants to see.

But also,Gilchrist has had a bigger impact on international cricket than probably any other player in the world to emerge in the last say 7 years, because he has opened up a whole new thing whereby it is now considered a weakness to not have a player of his calibre coming in at number 7 and the fact that he is a wicketkeeper as added so much to what many would consider one of the all time greatest teams in the world, in fact he may well be the ingredient that has elevated this Aussie team into the top 3 of all time....but he isnt the best batsman in the world....and that is what I mean by impact on the game...he has changed the way we look at the game...in the same way as Warne did in the early 90's, the same way as Richards did in the 70's, or Botham did in the late 70's and early 80's.

And that is the main difference between Richards and Gavaskar, or say Botham and kallis, or even Kapil Dev and Kallis or Gilchrist and Dravid.

I hope that makes sense..I think I may have got to what I have been trying to say about this Wisden list for the last couple of nights...although I maybe wrong

okay now you're just screwing it all up

 

[Sanz]

i was laughing more at the 'and all of us have seen the result' bit, because India never really have had an overwhelming number of proven class pace bowlers have they since Dev..infact only one (Srinath)

Well, it doesn't matter. what matters is that lot of kids started taking fast bowling seriously because of Kapil dev. Couple of years after Kapil became successful, the bowling combination of Indian team started changing and we started having more fast(or Medium fast) bowlers in Indian team, more and more people started taking up fast bowling. If you look at the no. of fast(medium fast) bowlers played for India from 19887-88 onwards and no. of pace bowlers pre-1987 era, you will notice the no. was up by at least 30-40 times and that was because of Kapil's influence and success.

The fact that they were not world class or failed at international level is a different matter.As you yourself said ( and many other pointed as well) that Warnie's success has influenced many kids to take up leg-spin bowling. If these kids dont get into international cricket or become successfull will not change the fact about warnie's influence.

 

[tooextracool]

Maybe that was a slight exaduration but he was certainly not the same bowler he had been.

once again you are proven wrong....even you're almighty stats dont back that up!

Gavaskar's record against New Zealand is better than Richards so you can't really use that against me. England's bowling attack was NOT one of the best. If you think New Zealands attack was so bad and Englands so good then why did New Zealand beat England a number of times during that period despite the latter having a far superior batting lineup?

gavaskar vs NZ - 43.40
richards vs NZ - 43.00

clearly not much between that. if u can say richards failed against NZ then so did gavaskar.
englands batting wasnt better than NZs and NZ have always come into series well prepared and tend to play as a team.

 

[Sanz]

yes Dravid is rated better ..and is a better batsman than Gilchrist overall, but it cannot be denied that Gilchrists style of play will get him more column inches, or tv coverage, because he is the type of player that a crowd really wants to see.

It depends where you are watching the TV or which newspaper you are reading. The amount of coverage Indian players get in India after scoring a century makes me sick. It also depends what you want to watch when a batsman is batting. I personally enjoy Dravid's style of batting his technique and his desciplined approach in batting.

Rest your post about singing hosannas about Gilchrist sounds more like an Aussie bias to me. (Gilchrist is a great player though and I woll have him in my team, but not at the expense of Dravid but at the expense of Parthiv Patel)

 

[a massive zebra]

I personally enjoy Dravid's style of batting his technique and his desciplined approach in batting.

Me too.

 

[Swervy]

okay now you're just screwing it all up

well i know what i mean...i think

anyway..its all opinion i guess...the wisden list was voted by 100 writers, ex players, commentators etc, and these are the players that came up, they wre the ones those people voted most for. I pretty much agree with the list, although I can see the arguements for at least 10 other players that could be in that list.

Ricahrds for me was the best batter I have ever seen...i may think that certain qualities are important when other people may think other qualities are important

 

[a massive zebra]

well i know what i mean...i think

anyway..its all opinion i guess...the wisden list was voted by 100 writers, ex players, commentators etc, and these are the players that came up, they wre the ones those people voted most for. I pretty much agree with the list, although I can see the arguements for at least 10 other players that could be in that list.

Ricahrds for me was the best batter I have ever seen...i may think that certain qualities are important when other people may think other qualities are important

Very good post.

 

[tooextracool]

once again you are proven wrong....even you're almighty stats dont back that up!



gavaskar vs NZ - 43.40
richards vs NZ - 43.00

clearly not much between that. if u can say richards failed against NZ then so did gavaskar.
englands batting wasnt better than NZs and NZ have always come into series well prepared and tend to play as a team.

well do i get a reply here or what?

 

[Swervy]

It depends where you are watching the TV or which newspaper you are reading. The amount of coverage Indian players get in India after scoring a century makes me sick. It also depends what you want to watch when a batsman is batting. I personally enjoy Dravid's style of batting his technique and his desciplined approach in batting.

Rest your post about singing hosannas about Gilchrist sounds more like an Aussie bias to me. (Gilchrist is a great player though and I woll have him in my team, but not at the expense of Dravid but at the expense of Parthiv Patel)

yeah and I enjoy watching Dravid as well, he is a great batsman.

But you cannot deny that since Gilchrist came onto the scene, all teams have been on the look out for that kind of player...the number 7 who can change the face of a game within half an hour. You cannot deny that he is probably the greatest number 7 batsman that has ever played the game.

15 years ago, number 7 was considered to be the position after you last main batsman (usually at 6 was an allrounder or a good not great batsman)..the tail was starting around number 7...these days it isnt like that, when one team has a number 7 who can score 150 in 2 hours or whatever and averages 55ish in tests ..all teams must try and follow that example or they will be left behind (as we have seen)...and that is why Gilchrist has been the batsman who has had, in my opinion, the biggest impact throughout the world in test cricket.

And as I say, that doesnt make him the greatest batsman in the world

 

[a massive zebra]

well do i get a reply here or what?

England's batting was a lot better they had a number of players who averaged 40+ New Zealand had few and the 'playing as a team' thing is one of the reasons why New Zealands bowling attack was better.

 

[Sehwag309]

I personally enjoy Dravid's style of batting his technique and his desciplined approach in batting

..Even Yaasir Hameed said he lost his concentration when he dropped his catch in the last test coz he was so engrossed in watching dravid bat for long.

"Talk about inspiration here"..Dravid will inspire a new crop of players then

 

[Sehwag309]

yeah and I enjoy watching Dravid as well, he is a great batsman.

But you cannot deny that since Gilchrist came onto the scene, all teams have been on the look out for that kind of player...the number 7 who can change the face of a game within half an hour. You cannot deny that he is probably the greatest number 7 batsman that has ever played the game.

15 years ago, number 7 was considered to be the position after you last main batsman (usually at 6 was an allrounder or a good not great batsman)..the tail was starting around number 7...these days it isnt like that, when one team has a number 7 who can score 150 in 2 hours or whatever and averages 55ish in tests ..all teams must try and follow that example or they will be left behind (as we have seen)...and that is why Gilchrist has been the batsman who has had, in my opinion, the biggest impact throughout the world in test cricket.

And as I say, that doesnt make him the greatest batsman in the world

I agree with you on the gilly part. If you had 2 match converage where gilly was batting on one and dravid on another, you would tend to watch gilly!

 

[Neil Pickup]

I agree with you on the gilly part. If you had 2 match converage where gilly was batting on one and dravid on another, you would tend to watch gilly!

This is the whole crux of the issue.

Dravid, for me, would be name number one on the World XI team sheet (followed by Gary Kirsten pre-retirement). However neither guy has had the kind of impact that a Gilchrist or a Jayasuriya has - and that's what makes the latter category more memorable.

 

[Ford_GTHO351]

ok..maybe worded slightly wrong...gavaskars performance never had the impact on world cricket in the way Richards did. Admittedly this is probably due to the more subdued manner Sunny would get his runs compared to the expolosion of runs when Richards scored big...in the same way Gilchrsit when he scored a big hundred will tend to get bigger headlines around the world than say if Dravid did, because of the manner the runs would probaly have been scored at...I hope that explains it a bit better

Yeah I was just thinking along your lines.

Richards when he batted, he went out to murder the bowlers and thats where the impact thing comes into the criteria of Wisden's five.

 

[Ford_GTHO351]

Umm, when was the last time Gilchrist scored a Big Hundered ?? I guess the only big hundered he scored was the one in SA where he scored a 204*. Whereas Dravid's big hunderes are 277, 233, 222, 217, 180, 162, 200* and 190. Does that tell you something about why Dravid's big hundreds are not talked about or dont make headlines in Australia or England (They do get lot of notice in India ) ?

Its a bit hard for Gilchrist to score a big hundred in a Test considering he comes in at No.7

 

[marc71178]

you think that Mcgrath is better than Akram (despite the poll in Akram's favor 23-9),

Polls cannot be a reliable judge as they can easily be hijacked (remember that poll during the RWC on an Aussie site where about 98% of about 300,000 votes said that England were playing scintillatig Rugby?)

 

[marc71178]

In 70s and good part of 80s Richards average shoot up really high every time he played against weak bowling attacks like India & England.

And of course Gavaskar's average never shot up after playing weak teams did it (including the 2 series that he played against the weak West Indian attacks that vastly inflate his average against them)

If he were such a great player against them, how come on occasion he dropped himself to number 4 when the Windies had their full attack out?

 

[marc71178]

this a comparison of their career match by match standing of PWC ratings which show that both of them were great and almost equal and u can figure out aganist whom they played well and bad from

Shows them both great, but casting my eye down that list (too tired to work it out at moment) it appears to me that Richards was ahead of Sunny a lot more than the other way round.

 

[aussie_beater]

If he were such a great player against them, how come on occasion he dropped himself to number 4 when the Windies had their full attack out?

Whoa mate, hold on there !! ....that did not happen, except in one single match in Madras(Chennai) in 1983 where he came in at number 4 but in that match also he came in when the scoreline was 0-2 and Viv Richards quipped "Man, it doesn't matter when you come in to bat, the score is still zero" and Sunny went on to score his highest test score of 236* in that innings. And he was not the Indian captain at the time either.So it wasn't his choice.So don't try to use something that was absolutely a one-off just because you want to prove your point. BTW, Navjot Sidhu made his debut in that match and was being tried as an opener.

Look, there is no point arguing that Gavaskar wasn't a great batsman. He was arguably the greatest opener the modern day cricket(post war cricket) has seen, but when you stack him up against someone like Richards I think people who have seen Richards bat, tend to rate Richards higher.

 

[Deja moo]

This isnt a list of players who were the best, or even of players who had maximum impact on people.

This is a list of players who had maximum impact on those actually voting for it.

No wonder there are flaws.