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Opinion
What are the toughest assignments in sporting history? In my lifetime, there are two standouts.
One is fighting Mike Tyson in the ’80s. The other is to play the West Indies in the West Indies during the same era.
The year is 1984 and the West Indies are defeating everyone. They haven’t lost a series for four years and now two of their sides are defeating teams. The official West Indies side is destroying Australia and the rebel side is winning against South Africa in South Africa.
So what World XI side could be put together to take on the West Indies? Because no individual nation was strong enough.
The only team to get close was Pakistan when Imran Khan came out of retirement in the Caribbean in 1987. Otherwise the West Indies would hold on to their mantle as the best team in the world until 1995.
The cricket world in 1984 had Sri Lanka, which had only been playing Test cricket for one season. South Africa was banned, and Zimbabwe was only playing in World Cups. Afghanistan and Ireland were years away from showing up on anyone’s cricket radar and Australia had just gone through the retirements of Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee and Greg Chappell.
So let’s go through the rules of this World XI line-up to take on the West Indies. South Africans are available for selection as they wouldn’t be representing South Africa but a World XI. The selections are available for the year 1984. While some players would do well against the West Indies like David Boon and Martin Crowe, they hadn’t quite yet established themselves as Test-class or world-class players yet.
The West Indies were a fearsome prospect with the likes of Joel Garner in the 1980s. (Mark Leech/Getty Images)
Sunil Gavaskar and Kepler Wessels both have great averages against the West Indies and with this I get to have the right-hand and left-hand combinations. Gavaskar averaged an astonishing 65.45 against the West Indies and Wessels averaged 52.38, and his century against the West Indies at the SCG in 1984-85 helped set up a rare win against the cricketing juggernaut.
Not many players did well in their careers against the West Indies, so the middle order was a process of elimination. Batting three, four and five are Dilip Vengsarkar, Graeme Pollock and David Gower.
Vengsarkar averaged 44.33, Pollock was scoring runs against the West Indies into his late 30s even though it was a rebel side and David Gower averaged 45.84 and is one of the few players of the era to average more against the West Indies in the West Indies as opposed to his home wickets.
Leaving out Allan Border was tough. Yet there are international players who had better records against the West Indies. Border averaged 39.46 in his career against them. Allan Lamb, despite being a great player of pace, averaged 34.41 against the pace attack.
My number six is a surprise inclusion: Wasim Raja of Pakistan. He averaged 57.43 against the West Indies and 20.00 with the ball, providing a second leg-spin option.
Number seven and captain is Imran Khan. He averaged 27.67 with the bat and 21.68 with the ball and is the player who always challenged the West Indies.
Number eight is Kapil Dev. He averaged 30.82 with the bat and 24.89 with the ball.
Number nine is Richard Hadlee, giving another swing and seam option. He averaged 32.41 with the bat and 22.03 with the ball against the West Indies.
(Simon Bruty /Allsport)
Number ten is Ian Smith. There were no real stand-out keepers during this era. Keepers around at the time were Paul Downton from England, Wasim Bari from Pakistan and Wayne Philips from Australia. I went with Ian Smith for the better overall keeper-batsman package.
At 11, I considered Robert Holland with a bowling average of 28 against the West Indies, yet he only played three Tests against them. So I went with Abdul Qadir, who averaged 30. He gives the best overall leg-spin option.
So the team from one to 11 gives us a lot of left-hand bats against a mainly right-hand bowling attack. There are two leg-spin options with plenty of pace and batting depth to take on the greatest cricket side of all time.
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