I should have added the Bills could be further strengthened with WG Grace instead of Edrich or AN Other. For the Alans – strengthen the batting and spin with Alan Steel, rated as second only to WG as an all rounder in the 1880s. Scored the first Test century at Lord’s. Also old school, for the Andrews Stoddart probably has a more impressive reputation than Hudson or Hilditch.

For the Bills – not sure who the Oldfield from the Windies was, perhaps you meant William Albert Stanley Oldfield as keeper? Otherwise Murdoch as you probably know kept in FC and Spofforth refused to play in the first Test because Blackham was preferred over him. Otherwise, we have Bill Storer for England and William Carkeek for Aus, 6 Tests each. You should do this as an article in itself if you haven’t before? Many won’t have seen this one or the comments. You could calculate their comparative net averages if you really want to drive yourself mad: aggregate averages minus 2.5 x best 4 bowling averages (or 2 x 5 best). At a glance , I’d say it’s a close thing between the Mikes and the Bills. Possibly the Bills?

Geoff, you haven’t seen the series I’m talking about? It’s a bit tedious but I’ve gone back to the series to fact check, rather than impose on the hardworking folk at the Roar. It’s at about the 59th minute of episode 4 in the series, showing you give a massive send off with a big F off or P off to an England batsman in an ODI – looks a bit like Derek Randall, or was it Wayne Larkins or someone less familiar? It was just after they had you saying how you were a more intellectual sledger than most, and Garner saying you weren’t the nicest on the field, and you proudly saying it was a win that Gooch thought you were the nastiest. There was also an earlier clip in the episode that seemed to show you giving another sendoff, but I stand corrected if that was the only one. Anyhow, the whole implication of the segment was that you thoroughly endorsed that kind of thing – a kind of contrast, especially straight after a very extended section about you bemoaning Chappell’s lack of support- so perhaps blame the filmmakers and don’t shoot the messenger? But hasty of me to imply you were an extreme sender-offer. And my bad also not including you among the leading quicks of the decade along with Lillee and Alderman for Aus. I have fond memories of seeing you lead the way in beating the Poms at the SCG to take the Ashes.

Being a bigot would usually be something like Lenny Pascoe calling Vic a “black c..” But do you think my comments were to do with a weird state allegiance? I’m a bit from all over, but a fan of NSW cricket if anything (though whisper it softly, there are some people with true state bigotism around here who might hold it against me). Best wishes and thanks for a great career.

Good question AD. Looking at across all sides with good bowlers, I don’t think it was any easier being in weaker teams, and of course at times they weren’t that weak thanks in large part to those two. Surely having less pressure from the other end evens out any advantage of sharing the spoils less. If teams have 4 good bowlers like the Windies in the 80s they can still have 3 averaging in Hadlee’s territory if they are good enough.

Very true about the bowlers. Such a pity we can’t see Barnes and see whether the hype was true, as so many old timers tales prove unconvincing. I still can’t get over Clem Hill’s description “I played three different balls. Three balls to play in a split second- a straight ‘un, an in-swinger and a break back” – and on a perfect wicket apparently. Impossible to make a ball break back -as they talked about in those days – with a new ball on a perfect wicket. Ashwin, Lyon, Murali can’t do it. Unless he had some magic trick that no one else has found since? Or he just managed to hit the seam and it cut back, and there was more grass on it than you’d describe for a perfect wicket.

The average runs per wicket for all Test batsmen in Shrewsbury’s era of 1882-93 was 18.6, compared to the long term average since 1920, which has been pretty stable at 30.8 +/- 1.2. So 40% lower! If we adjust Shrewsbury’s average upwards by 40% to make it more comparable, we get 49.7, fantastic for an opener.

A fine selection as always AD. Fry deserves a run for his overall interesting character and career alone. Besides getting first-class honours in Classics at Oxford, and being an international in cricket and soccer, it’s claimed that but for an unfortunate injury he would have added a rugby Blue at Oxford to his other honours, and was also a fine boxer, a passable golfer, swimmer, sculler, tennis player and javelin thrower. Apparently, he was at the League of Nations – which he also wrote a book about – as part of the Indian delegation, at the prompting of Ranjitsinghi, his old partner for Sussex and England. So a more interesting teammate than the staid Dennis Amiss.

But while it’s always hard to compare with pre WWI players like Fry, Amiss is 4th all time in averages for England as an opener, on 54, behind only Hutton, Sutcliffe and Hobbs and 5 runs better than the next, Boycott. He did have a poor record against Australia, only averaging 15 in 11 Tests, but had some great innings against the Windies, eg a 200 in the 1976 game in which Holding cleaned up his teammates and took 14 wickets. Fry only averaged 32 in 18 Tests, never toured Australia and opened in fewer than half his Tests. But I’d happily keep him in the team ahead of Gower.

I’d say it would be a close call between Knott and Healy for best keeper. I can’t believe Wisden picked Knott in their best ever team ahead of Gilchrist. Doesn’t matter if Knott was a slightly better keeper – can you imagine how many skippers or selectors would pick him out of the two to help win a game. I’d say no more than 5 out of 100. I believe McDermott was only 19 on debut btw.

Yes the England series had pretty good pitches.

Still sometimes impossible to put paragraph breaks on this website!

Nice article Kamran. I agree that the Ashes competitions lately haven’t been as challenging in Australia, though they’ve been more even away from home for us than in India! The next India series will be a big challenge for Australia. For that reason I’m not sure I’m looking forward to it as much as another Ashes series! For us older types, there is nothing quite as satisfying as beating the Poms. But it should be great cricket- Indian batting might give them the upper hand. To give credit where it’s due, South Africa is the one other country that has done well in Australia in recent decades. Won three series here from 2007-8 to -2016-17, only 3 Test series unfortunately. SA were overall best team in the world in that 10 year stretch, although Australia also managed to win a couple of series in SA.
When you say India found a blueprint on how to win in Australia in 2018-19, I think it’s simply a case of finally having a really good all round pace attack. Before that India only had one really good quick at the most- in fact only Kapil in the 80s was a really top line paceman, with all due respect to the likes of Srinath, Ishant and Zaheer Khan. It reminds me of the legend that keeps getting repeated about Clive Lloyd finding a magical formula to win with four great paceman. No, they just suddenly emerged and the best bowlers were picked as they had been beforehand and have been since. They don’t grow on trees. And when the Windies went to India or Pakistan they picked a spinner.

Thanks v much Kamran. Will definitely read. Everyone was pretty much wearing helmets by the 80s but not always with the face guard. The first face guards were wide plastic wraparound strips with holes that weren’t as comfortable as the later ones with a grille design and more air coming through. Viv was about the only one who never wore a helmet. But they had only really come in in the late 70s around the time of WSC. Before that, imagine facing Jeff Thomson bouncers at
150-160kph!

Thanks Colin. Chatfield and Cairns weren’t too bad in their day. The more I’ve read of Hadlee’s career, the more I’m convinced he should be convinced he should be in the top three quicks of all time, certainly the top 5, especially if we look at the best ten years of a bowler’s career.

Hi Wiki, yes remember him having a great season in the 82-83 Ashes. Was a bit up and down after that and a couple of injuries, but fine seasons in 84-85 vs Windies and 89 Ashes. Not up there with the same career figures but excellent at his best.

Indeed, and for most of these guys I believe it was either the first grade club they played with, or the one they spent most years with. Though not sure about MacGill in that regard.

Oh yes, I miscounted and added Miller, thinking he filled in as captain in one match. But he didn’t. Definitely a contender for one of the best club all-time sides ever, though I assume it represents a couple of different clubs and wonder how many of them spent a lot of time at Sth Melbourne. The best club pedigree I’m aware of is St. George in Sydney:
Arthur Morris
Les Favell
Bradman
Norm O’Neill
Brian Booth
Alan Fairfax
Ray Lindwall
Bill O’Reilly
J Hazlewood
Kerry O’Keeffe
Trent Copeland
Murray Bennett
Kurtis Patterson

Well done.

7?

Sorry that’s not one every 4.7 innings or 4.2 innings. That’s 4.7% or all innings vs 4.2% of all innings. And for Australia against everyone apart from the minnows, the percentage has actually increased a bit, from 5.45% of innings 1970-99 to 5.6% of innings since 2015.

Hi BG. Run scoring hasn’t changed that much over the last few decades, apart from a peak in the 2000s. See my comment above. The number of centuries scored by the main countries has dropped a bit – from one every 4.7 innings played from 1970-99 to one every 4.2 innings since 2015, a drop of 11%. It was up at 5.9 in 2000-2015.. West Indies batting getting much weaker hasn’t helped. But a long-term drop of 11 percent shouldn’t really change our expectations too much.

It’s a good point that centuries are an arbitrary milestone and Green’s and Marnus’s 90s were better value than many centuries. (although Marnus’s shot to get out was awful for someone well set.) It’s true that batting averages have dropped since the mid-2010s, down to 30.1 from 32.8 in the 2000s (excluding Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Ireland). But that’s less than a 10 percent drop and about the same level as the period 1970-2000, when centuries and big scores were just as highly valued. So not really a new normal to get used to.

Scores went up in the 2000s thanks to the bigger bats and, in some places, smaller boundaries. Not sure that pitch quality has made a big difference, though they have been harder for batting in India and South Africa. I’m sure a bigger reason has been the truncating of overseas tours everywhere with minimal warm up and tour games between Tests since about 2010 with T20s squeezing the calendar. And the preponderance of T20 cricket and less domestic first class cricket for Test players has helped batting techniques and ability to build big scores.

Jaiswal looks like he could be even bigger. Haven’t seen him on bouncy pitches much though he looked pretty good in Dharmsala, not much trouble against Wood. Didn’t know Kohli was Punjabi.

Calm down. Just surprised to see them there with the quality of their lineup. It’s actually pretty good to have a team from a population that size with 5 or 6 locals in it.

Bad luck. Missed opportunity but shouldn’t affect his chances next year. How did Tasmania make the final?! I believe they even have 5 Tasmanians in the team, which is something of a high.

Yes, it’s a three year period from the last occasion on which he has played for Australia. Which is ridiculous if someone is the cricketing product of one country, as Hardie is. Pretty sure he moved to Australia when very young.

Obviously we have had the wood on them. I was suggesting above that maybe with these small number of Tests and v small differences in the numbers we may be exaggerating the big brother intimidation effect. But perhaps we aren’t. Although the stat you mention isn’t that remarkable when you consider that 3 of those four clean sweeps were two 2-Test series. While most other series by really strong teams from outside South Asia were 3 Test series. South Asian teams never did particularly well in Australasia until very recently- Pakistan has never won a series in Oz and India hadn’t done it until 2019. And I don’t think there were any genuinely great Pakistani teams. Maybe a couple of great bowling attacks. But yes, Australia has done a lot better than the rest over the last decade or so. Less of an away fixture for us?