I don't doubt Lilee was the better bowler, I think I have made it clear in post after post that Lillee and Thompson were great bowlers, however in England at least they bowled short as I remember - in fact barsman would not get into line for that reason.

Also to furthur my point - the England selectors at their wits ends brought in a bread and butter player by the name of David Steele, who put some pride back into England cricket being able to play both Lillee and Thompson - his favourite shot against both was his cocky hook shot, you don't do that to a player bowling full.

I never watched Lillee bowl in Australia - so I can't comment.

My original point was that the comparason was only (rightly or wrongly) over my opinion as to what Rachael meant in her post.

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Ern

I'm not the one to be defending Botham... but the first few years of his career the stats were awesome. Just check out the first 1/4 of his career (by matches) and the first 10,000 deliveries... I make that 5.56 wickets per match in his first 25 Tests, dropping to 5.02 after 10,000 balls (as he began to slide down the slippery slope to being singularly ordinary).

But most of the people who claim this were players he played against. Lille did have his faults, yes, he did get carried away at times bowling too short but he was a great bowler who also had the ability to work out a batsman and then get the ball to do what he wanted to..... People also forget he suffered from quite a few serious injuries during his career.

Did I read that right, Rachael defending Botham . For the first 40 tests his figures were awesome. A bowling average of 20 a battinf average of near to 40 and a load of slip catches. If Botham was so poor how come no Englishman has come close to taking as many wickets as him. Even now there are only a few bowlers who can better his number of 5 wicket hauls and even fewer (none) can match his 14 hundreds and 120 catches.

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Mark.

Aussies are just fine. With cricketing standards dwindling in all of the teams, AUS would continue to dominate world cricket as long as hayden is around. Gilly is no more a threat. Once Haydos retires, Aus can be beaten by any team on a given day if not on a streak(inspite of punter being around)

Ponting's divine run form started with India in 2003 WC final and may end with india this summer

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Tendulkar - A gift to the game of cricket

I think the standards are improving particlarly in India.
When I see a guy like Sharma at 19 and though looking lean mainly because of his height, showing signs that he has already got good base fitness and strength, he can hold his pace and tempo throughout his spells. Along with RP Singh who in his early twenties already looks like a well rounded bowling package. Not to forget the born again Pathan.

Bowling is not getting any easier considering most sides now incubate their up and coming batsmen for so long in their domestic competition's that near finished articles are coming off the production line to confront these bowlers.

The downside to this is that some batsmen with a very short shelf life are coming out of these slow cooking ovens.

From a cricketing perspective, its no good if things improve only in india. India is a one sport nation and cricekt will thrive even though there are no talents untill a new talent comes up. If in countries like AUS , ENG, SA who are good in many sports OR follow many sports, if there is no new talent coming up, it may not augur good for the game of cricket. West Indies is a very good example for it. T20 is the only saviour to keep cricket alive . T20 is the onyly soultion to sell cricket to non cricketing countries

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Tendulkar - A gift to the game of cricket

I think it is OK that India has got their act together off Field with training and developing earlier in it's juniors and demanding maintained fitness from their established senior players. And as we can now see the effort is producing the desired on Field results.

I think things are looking OK for the long term future of cricket in Australia and England and no West Indies type problems appear to be on the horizon. In Australia's case I think we are in a bit of a lull after losing McGrath, Warne, Langer and Martyn in a very short period, and it will continue to some extent as we will shortly be seeing off Gilchrist, Hayden, MacGill and Hogg as well. Not to mention over the next 3-4 years Ponting, Clark, Lee, Hussey and even the recently promoted Rogers is over 30. That will leave our batting to be predominantly re-built around Jaques and Clarke; and our bowling to be re-built around Johnson.
So more than likely there will be a decline in Australian cricket, but that is not such a bad thing and is necessary to rise to another era of greatness with a new group of cricketers.

If I have a concern it is what appears to be an over willingness of the domestic cricket sides to retain too many older players for to long. My solution would be to reduce the number of contracted players that state clubs are allowed to have, so they have to source more players from their local competitions. And maybe also an age restriction example only 5 players over 30 allowed to play in a domestic 4 day match.
Also the lack of participation of our international cricketers in domestic matches has been a concern for a fair while now.

Not so sure about England but I think cricket is riding on a wave of good popularity and participation there. South Africa I think are moving in the right direction.

I also think that to much Australian domination will hurt rather than help the game, and a part of me enjoys the fact that when we get to an international match or tournament in the future that the result is not a guarantee and that there are multiple sides capable of winning on their day.

P.S I agree T20 is the future of cricket, and its lifeline to long term sustainability. I think in a hundred years that test cricket may also be thanking T20 for saving it as well.

You're totally right, the first 25% of Botham and Richards' careers were ridiculously good - that and their extravagent style of play has led both to be vastly overrated in my eyes. People tuned out the mediocre performances that followed. As I mentioned, Botham's numbers (particulary the 3.8 wpm, that's much higher than I thought) were better than I expected, but still, he couldn't clean Imran's boots. Ditto Richards and Chappell, Richards' first seven years (of a seventeen year career) were out of this world, particulary 1976 which I believe still stands, remarkably, as the most runs in a calendar year. He averaged 66.19 for the first 3971 runs of his career with an especially nutty 45.3% score percentage. A century every 4.9 innings, Bradman was once every 3.2 for comparison. He averaged a relatively pedestrian 41.54 for the remainder of his career. There has to be a punishment historically for that. He scored just eleven centuries after 1981, once every 10.7 innings through the final ten years, another mediocre stat. I think this explains why people think of Richards as a force of nature because the peak was so incredible, and he might have been the best POM killer since Bradman, but the stats taken as a whole are very good, but not "best postwar batsman" level, particulary seeing as he never had to face the best bowling attack of the time (by streets).

We can see the same thing with Botham, you have gone to the trouble of tabulating the first five years which quite frankly, compare well with any bowler in the game at the time. The batting also was superb, no one questions this. But it's not about who was the best over a course of five or six years, it's the body of work that counts - peak performance is an ELEMENT of evaluating a player, but far from the final word. Anyway, I could produce (and have in another thread) five MORE impressive years by Imran, like, a peak performance that will knock your socks off...but this isn't about me and my Imran love, it's about acknowledging cricketers that were inconsistant and somehow get rewarded historically for this.

This is true, but totally irrelevant in assessing how good a pace bowler Lillee was. If anything it should count AGAINST him because he was not regulary on the field for his team. I mean, does Shane Bond get a pass? It's a bad thing to be injury prone, not a good thing.

Because the standard of English cricket has been incredibly poor since they were the best team in the world in the late 1970's. Seriously, if David Gower is your best player (fine player, but best batsman over 25 years? Wow, embarrassing) over that span, followed by a player (Flintoff) who has put together a total of two good (admittedly awesome good but still) years and who's career averages are 32.50/32.02 and who's career is almost certainly lost to injury...no wonder Rachael is hyping Michael Atherton.

Not being rude but if you dont mind me asking how old are you "cl" ?

Averages dont always tell the full story I had the fortune to see the great man live at the MCG four times. Twice in tests and twice in one dayers.

Test's...
96 runs 4th test MCG (1979) dominant awesome and unlucky.
2 runs 1st test MCG (1981 *Boxing day) Dennis Lillees favorite wicket and all time favorite day of test cricket (and mine) I was one of many in "bay 13" and one of those chanting "Lillee, Lillee" (and still a teenager) for half an hour after the close of play while D.K Lillee sucked in the I suppose over the top adulation from the members stand at the other end. (14 wickets in the day Windies 4-10 at stumps Viv's castle in tatters on the final ball of the day)

ODI's
153 runs December 1979 MCG first time I had seen him. Totally awestruck sitting on the second level at "bay 13" watched him hit a straight drive six back in the days you could take esky's full of beer into the "MCG" and watched as the ball landed on a bloke below us's poly-styrene esky early in the day still full of most of his glass stubbies of beers and it and the grog totally exploded. I dont think he even saved a stubby. Established in my mind Viv was a total legend.
14 runs January 1989 MCG Viv was in decline but did run into at the donut stand across from the Hilton Hotel after the match which was a thrill.

For the most part of Viv's career he was totally awesome and better than most players I have seen since. Only Tendulkar and Ponting come close.

I think after 1988/89 his batting went into full decline hence the reduction in his average, but then again the West Indies did not have anyone really challenging his batting in decline even at that stage. Lara, Arthurton and Hooper were emerging but their were still plenty of holes in the WI batting line-up.

For the most part he was the best and most complete batsmen I have ever seen. Not just 25% but I would say 80%

I apprieciate averages do not tell the full story, first of all, a variety of statistics are necessary to get a picture of a player - those numbers also then need to be put into context of the opposition faced, where the games were played and if possible, match scenarios. This gives a full statistical profile of a player. If the profile of a player is close enough to another player, THEN aesthetic qualities of the players can be compared. If I was a slave to statistics then I'd be making ridiculous points about George Lohmann or Eddie Paynter.

I am 23, but thanks to my father, have an extensive library of cricket from the late seventies and most of the eighties, which I've watched pretty religiously. I've seen lots of Chappell an Richards and have no doubt Chappell was the better player, mainly because he just had a better technique and was a more difficult batsman to dismiss, while remaining a pure boundary hitter. Yes, there were less sixes...sixes are typically awful shots, incapable of being repeated consistantly.

I don't think Joel Garner was a better bowler than Fred Trueman because his average was half a run lower. I definately do not think Sachin Tendulkar was a better batsman than Brian Lara despite the three run difference in average. I don't think Wally Hammond was better than Garry Sobers. There are lots and lots of examples. A bowler with the average of 23.92 pretty much cannot be the best bowler of all time. That's a pretty high average considering the praise, and considering that we have a man in Marshall, with a far superior average, bowling in roughly the same era, and we have Richard Hadlee, bowling with ZERO support, putting up similar numbers (wpm almost identical, average 1.5 runs lower) in the same era AND with more longevity and less injury prone, and we have Glenn McGrath, playing nearly TWICE as many Test matches, with a better average and bowling quite literally in the hardest era to bowl at an average more than two runs lower and we have Fred Trueman, which we take more anecdotal evidence on at his ability being so far superior to that of his contempararies and being a true force of nature. Look, the statistical evidence for a variety of players is extremely strong, I don't really see how an argument can be made for Lillee above these guys, let alone the other options (Ambrose et al) I mentioned.

I watch a lot of cricket, much of it from the past, from as many sources as possible, I live in an era when someone who bats like Kevin Pietersen can average over 50 - I'm well aware statistics can be misleading, but they are still the fundamental element of cricket - matches are won and lost with numbers, and the result of matches is the entire point of playing cricket, or establishing what counts as a good team/player and otherwise. It is, as they say, the bottom line, and MUST be the starting point of any analysis of a career.

You are more than entitled to your opinion, and you are certainly not alone, I am aware my opinion of Greg Chappell being superior is in the minority. As I mentioned in another thread, this IS a genuine debate - a case can be made intelligently for Viv Richards, there is no hard and fast answer. But I do have very good reasons for believing the way I do, these are based largely, though not exclusively on the ACTUAL PERFORMANCES OF THE PLAYERS IN TEST MATCHES, ie. statistics, and not "aura" or "feel".

I am happy enough if someone thinks Viv Richards is the best ODI cricketer of all time, seems to be a valid argument. But...ODI cricket is terrible.