KP had many days. I will post the numbers, hopefully tomorrow.

Lyon took 8 for 50 in second test in India 2017 when we were 1-0 up, only for our batsmen to let us down with a sub-200 4th innings target. He took 6 for on final day at Edgbaston in 2019. Australia lost 2-0 in the three Ashes tests Lyon didn’t get to play in last year, won 2-0 in the two that he did play in. How were we too good even without him?

I’m pretty sure Emburey played more times with Phil Edmonds than with anybody else.

Yep. Actually I did miss one: Sydney 1994-95.

Yeah, the 5th was a dead rubber, though, Ashes already decided, and I am only talking about tests in each other’s respective countries when destiny of Ashes still alive. In 2013, we had no right to get as close as we did in 1st, and the 4th innings target in 4th test was unrealistically out of reach. However, yes, we were robbed by rain in 3rd, when Ashes, technically weren’t yet gone, and there is no test in Australia in the 1988-2021 period of play in which England were even remotely similarly robbed. And outside of the previously mentioned 2010-11, the only live Ashes tests in Australia in which England even remotely competed in front half of match i.e., until completion of both team’s first innings were first two tests in 1990-91 and 1st test in 2017-18.

We’re obviously on the same video page.

No England batsman can be considered as unquestionably superior to Kevin Pietersen.

Good on Baz. It was long since at the point where Anderson was only playing for milestones. Phenomenal bowler in England, but outside of England he generally operated as a stock containment bowler but only shouldering the work load of a shock strike bowler and this was extremely detrimental to the balance of the attack.

Yes, I’ve seen a youtube video in which Chappelli says that. I just remembered also, there was a one day match on the rebel tours to saffie land in which Hughes scored 83 off 58. Wessels scored 134 off 121 and the Australian’s were cruising to victory with a large target until Clive Rice did a masterly performance bowling at the death – we drool over Steve Waugh’s bowling at the death around the same time period, but Rice’s was even better.

In the 1983-84 WSC Hughes actually had innings against the West Indies of 71 off 73, 67 off 95, 53 off 89 and 65 off 88. Leaving out the 71 off 73, the average strike rate for the other three innings of 68 was just about par for them days. Viv Richards’ strike rate of 90 was way above par.

Most people agree that Lawry was rightly sacked as captain but wrongly dropped as a batsman – he was still comfortably the best opening bat in the country at the time, as far as I know.

Only half right about Taylor: when the one day side under his captaincy started losing, he did lose that part of the national captaincy, and he was simultaneously dropped as a batsman because he wasn’t contributing anything substantial there either.

These are the numbers: since 1987, England have only won tests when Ashes still on the line on one tour down under 2010-11. In the same time frame Australia have won such tests on every tour of England, bar 2013. Last Ashes series, we became only the second side ever not to win a series from 2-0 up. What peeves me most is Paine and Cummins bowling first at the Oval. Last time an Ashes test at the Oval was won by the side batting second was in 1972. It’s a no-brainer to bat first at the Oval, especially if leading the series.

What kockers fail to understand is that Young Trev must have found the pressure excruciating. He gets the radar only slightly astray, it rolls down the leg side, then it’s called a wide, and then a 6 would win the match, not merely tie it. He was ice cool, and put an end to the kiwi uprising, right there and then.

Wouldn’t have made any difference who we took, we still would have gotten nowhere near the trophy. The only team capable of upsetting the Windies were India who invented the idea of using piddling line and length medium pacers to choke free flowing scorers and get them out by forcing them to snap and try shots that weren’t on rather than produce unplayable balls they weren’t capable of bowling. I am sure Bob Simpson would have stored this away in his memory because when chance made him the first international coach, this is exactly the tactic he pursued and it resulted in us lifting the trophy in 87 and then having a phenomenal run of 62/80 up until the distastrous 1992 campaign.

What do they say? Such a peach of a delivery wasted on a tailender?

It’s very hard to accept how we continue to find ways not to win in England.

I should have added earlier today that Greg was over the hill as a test man by 1983 and well and truly over the hill as a one day batsman. Knowing this full well, he dropped down from number 3 to 5 and 6 in the order from the second match of the 1982-83 WSC and didn’t reach 50 even once thereafter. To highlight my earlier point about the disproportionate number of one day games played in the 1970s up until world series cricket and the number played thereafter, in the first 3-4 months of the aformentioned 1983 were Greg’s final 14 innings and it represented more than 20% of his ODI career.

A brilliantly exectued delivery to outwit a clueless batsman to prevent a six being hit off last ball of match?

It isn’t Greg Chappell’s test record that overshadow’s his one day record, it’s the fact that he didn’t play that many one dayers because of the times. The top six Australian one day bats in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER ONLY are Greg Chappell, Mark Waugh, Michael Bevan, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Steve Smith. Jones might be number 7.

Trevor Chappell has an achievement in international cricket that neither Ian nor Greg have: a world cup century.

I would be interested to know when Renato Carini’s birthday is.

Thanks Rowds, right on the money as always.

Another way to explain the phenomenon of why others in his era didn’t average significantly more than half what Bradman did is to look at the centuries of Australia’s best batsman down the ages, and I’ll actually include Hayden and Warner in this because they both scored a lot of them at the end of the day.

The two aspects I look at is 1. % of their tons that were the only ton in the team innings and 2. The % of total team centuries in which they scored their own tons – for example, on the 8 occasions Trumper scored a test ton, there were only 9 team tons in total, and he was the lone centurion on 7 of those occasions. For the person listed second on the below list to follow the fractions are 13/20 and 20/29. The first percentage listed for each player below is Category 1. And the second percentage listed for each player is Category 2. In descending order, it reads:
Victor Trumper 87.5 88.9
Mark Waugh 65.0 69.0
Stan McCabe 66.7 66.7
Greg Chappell 58.3 70.6
Allan Border 66.7 71.1
AB 1984-86 80.0 76.9
AB strong sides 58.8 68.0 (1979-83 & 87-93)
Neil Harvey 52.4 60.0
Steve Smith 50.0 62.7
Don Bradman 41.4 61.7
Ricky Ponting 43.9 59.4
Steve Waugh 1 43.8 54.2
Michael Clarke 1 42.9 56.8
Matthew Hayden 36.7 55.6
David Warner 36.0 56.8
Steve Waugh 2 33.3 50.0
Michael Clarke 2 32.1 51.9
Adam Gilchrist 11.8 45.9
Michael Clarke 3 0.0 41.2
Border’s breakdown should be self-explanatory, and I would have broken this down regardless. Steve Waugh 1 is his 26 tons not at number 6, while Steve Waugh 2 is his 6 tons at number 6. Steve Waugh 1’s numbers are actually boosted by doing this breakdown. What caused me to do this is that I was initially bemused by Gilly’s low numbers but then I realised that if you are relying on your number 7 to have numbers anywhere near Victor Trumper then you have a terribly weak side.
Gilly’s magic was about other things. Just as I rank Bradman’s 167 against minnow South Africa as one of his top half a dozen innings, I likewise rank Gilly’s 144 against minnow Bangladesh as one of his top half a dozen for the exact same reason: both innings were delivered at a time of total crisis, not just the actual match situation, but also the resultant embarrassment for Australian cricket had these innings NOT been delivered when they were.
Similarly, the thought occurred to me, going back to the Ian Chappell school of test cricket, that number 6 will also rarely be the main influence in a team’s innings in a strong side, as this is generally the spot where a raw rookie will be placed to find his feet. Openers and Gary Sobers are obvious exceptions.

To sum up, the rather banal question as to why others in his era didn’t average what Bradman did if batting was so easy et al is to make the completely unfounded assumption that every single batsman in every single era goes to the wicket in every single innings with the top priority on his mind to protect, and enhance his average, rather than to actually advance the team’s position in the match, if indeed it needs to be advanced, and sometimes a team’s position is already either in a completely impregnable position or facing a completely doomed irretrievable lost cause, come back end of a two innings match.

Yes, and bowlers returns are capped as a collective unit, always, at 10. There is no bowler’s equivalent of 335 not out, even on a seaming green top, or raging turner. This is why your point about Barnes and Bradman verses colleaagues and opponents is far more relevant for Barnes than it is for Bradman. I find it highly unlikely that Barnes was a better bowler than Wasim Akram.

The same reason he (Bradman) would outscore everybody else to the same extent today in pointless dull, high scoring draws, All Day. Bradman wasn’t completely rubbish off road, per say, he just came back completely to the rest of the field on the rare occasions bowlers got some even conditions i.e., a bit of grass, and if it was a seaming greentop or a sticky, less than 25% of his test innings, that’s when he was rather ordinary. This isn’t me beating up on him, I learnt this from Renato Carini, and it checks out.

I actually think if there is any time Bradman could have an average close to 100 post-his-own-era, it would be one day cricket post-2000 with the roads they have served up, rules lopsided in favour of batsman, particularly no intimidatory fast bowling. But it begs the question, Bradman averages 100 at a strike rate of 80 with the bigger bats today, and the team average score is, say, 3 for 290, would the team not be better served by Bradman averaging 60 at a strike rate of 100, with the team average rising to 7 for 330? It’s not like he wouldn’t have capable batting colleagues to make use of the extra 65 balls Bradman cedes having already gained a real comparative advantage of 12 runs for the team off the now reduced to 60 balls he faces, on average, per innings.

Actually a slight error all day: Chappelli’s teams were in fact
NSW Arthur Morris, Bob Simpson, Don Bradman, Mark Waugh, Stan McCabe, Keith Miller (captain), Brad Haddin, Ray Lindwall, Alan Davidson, Bill O’Reilly, Ooh Aah with Richie Benaud 12th man.

Barbados: Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Frank Worrell (captain), Everton Weekes, Clyde Walcott (wicket keeper), Gary Sobers, Denis Atkinson, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Wes Hall, Charlie Griffith, with Manny Martindale 12th man.

To the NSW XI first: Knowledge is power, as the saying goes, so to tinker as little as possible, let’s leave Morris and replace Simpson with Trumper, who simply MUST play. And of course, Bradman goes, and we give Steve a go at number 3. For simplicity, if we bowl first, Ooh Aah and Davo open for variety, while Morris and O’Reilly are off the field to allow squad members Mark Taylor and Bob Simpson to field in slips.
I am happy for Miller to stay captain as he was apparently in the same skipperish mould as Lawson (in shield only), Benaud, Chappelli and Tubby himself. But when Miller rests off the field between bowling spells, Tubby calls the shots rendering the official vice-captain, whoever it is, a puppet.

Immediately upon completing their spell, Ooh Aah and Davo leave the field for half an hour, and then return so they can return to the attack immediately after lunch, if necessary. They are replaced for the second hour of play by Lindwall and Miller. All bowlers of course get the 40-minute luncheon off the field and Miller and Lindwall stay off for the first half an hour after the interval while Ooh Aah and Davo have a second crack. Lindwall can stay off for a full hour, as O’Reilly will now enter the fray, and Stan McCabe can have a break to enable both Tubby and Simmo to remain in the slips.
NSW also have very handy 6th and 7th bowling options in McCabe and Mark Waugh, an 8th in Steve, if he plays.

The only things I would question with the Barbadian XI is why is Walcott keeping? Has Barbados really never produced a better keeper than him? It’s not like they need to strengthen the bowling, as Sobers is one of the best 5th bowlers in history and he is batting 6. This is an especially pertinent point given that I have never even heard of Denis Atkinson, but I am assuming he is a supposed bowling all-rounder who bowled a little bit of part-time spin?

A tiny disclaimer: when this appeared on facebook, the question was raised as to why Haddin is in the team and not Gilchrist and the most logical answer provided was that Gilly didn’t play enough games for NSW to qualify. I actually pointed out that Simmo also left for the west, but apparently, and I didn’t even actually know this previously, he (Simmo) only stayed in the west until he was established in the Australian side and then returned home to NSW, comfortably the strongest cricket state down the ages – Simmo was neither the first nor last worthy test aspirant who had to leave NSW to actually even get a crack at shield cricket.