I disagree that Greg Chappell was a more difficult batsman to dismiss than Viv Richards. I think in the context of most matches that Greg played in after he took over the captaincy from his brother Ian, he found he was a captain batting with his teams back to the wall. He could not afford risk, he did not have Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd, Lawrence Rowe, Larry Gnomes and Jeff Dujon batting with him. He was a lot of times the B-all and end all of the Australian batting.
Viv could definitely put you out of a match and put the Windies into a commanding position in a very short period of time. Greg at best after Ian left dithered mainly looking at a draw.



Notice the subtleties like how he wears a helmet and body padding, while Viv, Greg C and even Allan Border often batted in a cap. Not to mention the advances in cricket bat technology nor advances in cricket pitches (now mostly covered)


Yeah but don't totally discount "aura" or "feel" sometimes punters like me were watching these matches while they unfolded and did get a "feel" of the performances that won the test or one dayer. And they were not always those of a batsman who played a chanceless inning's and reached some "numerical significant milestone" that cricket for some reason over emphasis.

Fine, intangibles - Greg Chappell received a standing ovation from the members pavillion at Lord's, Viv Richards never did despite having one of the most incredible series in England in 1976. In fact, I don't know of any player after WWII besides Chappell receiving this honour. I can't help but cite this - in five day matches which Richards and Chappell both played, Chappell averaged 64.20, Richards 55.71, there were 22 such matches. Richards scored one century in his final 20 Test matches. But to be perfectly honest, I make my argument mainly not on stats, but on watching these batsman. Richards hit the ball hard, great, Greg Chappell was a BATSMAN, a true BATSMAN. It's like comparing Dravid to Gilchrist, one actually bats, the other is a destructive force who is, to be pedantic, not playing cricket the way it was meant to be played...and he faced the West Indians. I mean, just look at this - YouTube - Greg Chappell - Tall, majestic, elegant

It is a happy coincidence that most of the numbers favour my argument, but this isn't gymnastics - we don't score the performances on show. Runs win matches. Wickets win matches. Intimidation and aura do not win Test matches. Furthermore, I don't think Viv Richards, to be frank, was that important to the results of the West Indies. The West Indian story of the 80's is a story of unrivalled fast bowling majesty, Viv Richards was a blip on the radar. Greg Chappell and Dennis Lillee WERE the story of whatever success Australia had in the 70's and early 80's. So if we're talking about important runs, Chappell once more has the wood on the West Indian. Greg dithered? Dithered??? What the hell? His strike rate was 58.6!!! Tendulkar's, by way of comparison is 57.9.

Yes Richards was very cool, yes he hit sixes, yes he entertained kids of the era who are now intelligent adults who retain this sense of weird awe about him without looking at the actual evidence at hand. But he was not the better player. Let's watch some Richards and revel in the playing across the line, taking one hand off the bat, backing away and exposing stumps, sweeping fast bowlers - YouTube - Viv Richards - Fastest ever test century v Eng 1985

Forget the stats if you wanna make this a crude, emotional analysis, just look at those two batsman, how can anyone POSSIBLY say Richards was better? I know people do...just blows my mind.

Totally irrelevant and misleading comparing Dravid with Gilchrist comparing G.Chappell to I.V.A Richards.

And you quickly seem to forget that half that great all conquering bowling lineup Roberts and Holding were smashed 5-1 by Ian Chappell's Australian's in 1975.

You seem a bit to eager to dismiss Viv's role in engineering the Windies 3-0 post WSC routing of Australia in Australia in 1979/80 with Garner and Croft (significant inclusions but still only 50% from "75" to the bowling attack ) not to mention Clive Lloyd being in decline as a batting force at this stage.

I must admit you have caught me on a personal pet, because these are two guys I did see a fair bit of live. And maybe unfortunately for Greg Chappell I did see a fair bit of him late in his career. And I will admit that was probably not the best time to see him. While early on Viv's crispness and clean hitting left a more indelible impression on me.

But you also mentioned Viv the "master blaster" was hit and miss with his aggression.
Well my eyes must have seen differently to yours as I saw controlled aggression from a batsman who had mastered a lot more cross batted and lofted shots than Greg Chappell ever did or was ever prepared to play.

Notably players such as Allan Border and Steve Waugh later made Viv's cross batted shots trademarks of their own game. And also slowly but surely broke down the menace of the four pronged Windies pace attack by doing so.

Note not long after Lords pat on the back for Greg Chappell, England entered a prolonged ashes drought.
The value of "Lords" opinion must be considered questionable..

The purpose of the Dravid statement was to illustrate what a batsman, a great batsman, is, as opposed to what a glorified, and effective slogger is, a player who is extremely hard on bad bowling, and exceptionally streaky. Seeing as we are trying to discuss this without recourse to statistics (which is what the discussion SHOULD be about), we are reduced to individual subjective evaluations of players which typically goes nowhere, but when in Rome I guess.

Wow, one series, OK, I'm totally convinced, West Indies fast bowling in the late 70's and 80's was awful, you've sold me with this mountain of evidence. Is that what you are trying to say? If not, what is the point of looking at six Test matches and going ha! When earlier in this thread it was pointed out that for fifteen years the West Indies did not lose a Test series. Probably fair to say that the bowling attack was pretty good don't you think? Also, no Garner, Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Croft, Daniel, Bishop, yada, yada, yada, two guys were in this series. Let alone the fact it was Holding's debut series, kinda harsh. Whatever, it doesn't matter because we both agree the fast bowling was ridiculously good, you know this, I know this, so there's no point at all to this comment.

Also, you know that Viv Richards played in that series right? So...doesn't that like...diminish his ability as a match winner? Doesn't that suggest that it was the pace bowling, and not Richards that was critical to them winning so many games?

I give you this - I am being excessively harsh on Richards in respect to his style to make a point. You don't average 50.23 in over 100 Tests without having legitimate and serious batting talent. That said, those awful examples of batsmanship CAN be found in that clip and I would argue in nearly every significant IVA innings.

Waugh and Border is a bit of a different argument, one that is much, much, much more about toughing it out and aggregates and pure numbers...I do have a tremendous respect for Waugh despite his questionable natural talent, simply due to the fact that he reshaped his game entirely and simply focused exclusively on shot selection. Ugly runs count just like the rest of them.

Milo has long struck me as a sounder judge than most on modern-era cricketers... and he's commented on Viv with enthusiasm and passion on many, many occasions... but for all his enthusiasm, the verdict on Viv has always been that he was a great exponent of a particular style of play - and whilst Milo clearly delighted in witnessing that style of play he's objective enough to recognise that others in the history of the game were considerably more complete batsmen.

Milo is one who has no problem taking CLWalcott's advice to "watch some Richards and revel in the playing across the line, taking one hand off the bat, backing away and exposing stumps, sweeping fast bowlers" and so on.

I've no recollection of ever having seen footage of Chappell and have not read enough to really comment on the case for or against... but I've no problem, in principle, with the use of Dravid and Gilchrist as a means of making a crucial distinction between a complete batsman (which Dravid certainly is and I believe Chappell was) and a guy whose game is extremely dependent on being a clean striker of the ball (far truer of the one dimensional and frankly second rate Gilchrist than of the far more polished and accomplished Richards).

Ps. What's with this argument that Viv's ability and willingness to play lofted shots and cross batted shots is a critical factor in determining batting greatness: on that basis you'd quite probably have to elevate hundreds of batsmen (and perhaps even the likes of Gayle and Jayasuria) over Bradman!!!!

I'm sure with great respect to "milo" he has, plus he has formed his own opinion.

And for reasons including a very memorable "high five" with Viv late one night at a donut stand, as well as seeing some great performances in a colluseum like environment with 50-60 thousand others at the "MCG" rather than over "high tea" in a much more relaxed "county atmosphere" so have I.

It wasnt inconsistancy that blighted Botham later career. it was a back injury and the crazy idea by his agent that he would become a hollywood star.

How is that?? Lillee still played a lot of matches for Australia, some whilst injured. Lille played in England in '81 whilst seriously unfit, bowling medium pace and still took wickets. If he was fully fit how many more would he have taken. You havent answered the point I made about Lillee's peers rating him so highly. Incidently the same goes for Viv. Imran recalls Viv could play him like no other batsman he bowled to.

Gower was a decent bat, so how is him being our best player of the 80's ebarassing? Again players like Lillee, Marshall, Hadlee.... all rate him as one of the best batsman they bowled to. Rachael likes Athers because he his her "type" of player

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Mark.

You can add the W.I and N.Z to that list.

Are there any young stand-outs in the spin department that deserved a run ahead of Hogg or McGill?. Who would have you chosen ahead of Jacques? Is not Mitchell Johnson young?

You can add Jacques as well to the current replacements.
And i will re-iterate these names in addition to the three above. Bichel, Kasprwicz, Lehmann, Martyn, Colin Miller, McGill. These are off the top of my head. Can you give any examples where perseverance in youth has paid off? Apart from Warne (who falls into the "special case" category)

Re-enforcing failure can be even more fatal. Damien Martyn, Matt Hayden, Matt Elliot and Greg Blewitt are perfect examples of what happens when you do this.
In my mind, there are still question marks over Clarke's temprement. He tends to crack under pressure more often than not. Still, he is young. Like Ponting, i am sure he will improve in this regard......as he matures.

Such as who? Hilfenhouse? Should they have brought him in to get a hammering at the hands of the Indians, or should they perhaps hold him back until he is ready. I say the latter.

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Hayden probably through muscle, reasonable and hand speed along with perseverance made his way back through although like Langer he I think he was in the eye of the storm with Ambrose, Walsh etc . Damien Martyn primarily having excellent footwork then working hard on his overall fitness and as a benefit of that his concentration improved also came back through due to sheer hard work. Elliot and Blewett both dropped off the increasing pace of being a modern Australian test cricketer. And never regained it.

I thought his temperament today was great except when he got out. I feel a few early "div's" at this are part of an extended prelude and attempted dishevelment prior to the ashes "09"


At least let him run into form first. I'm on Peter Siddles cause now an average of "23" at the age of "23" is good enough for me to think the 6'2" Vic is worth a go. 5-27 already at the Adelaide oval this year is another good reason to give young Pete a go.

It's about time Australia realises it can play an un-contracted player.

I was talking the previous 5-7 years before the retirement of Warne/McGrath/Langer. They are obviously forced into playing young players now, which is what they should have tried to avoid by getting players ready for the rigours of Test cricket when the opportunity was available.

I wouldn't be counting your chickens just yet Seamer.

I would attribute the "success" of these players to essentially being taken with the tide of a very strong team that was led by the SWaugh/McGrath tandem, supported by Hayden/Langer/Ponting/Warne, followed by the Ponting/McGrath tandem supported by the same men. The talent base has gradually been dwindling, which is why I consider the 2001 side the peak Australian team. It would have been difficult to fail in such a team, which is why a young up and coming player would have been ideal. There are not many matches you can point to me where any of those players (MacGill is a bit different, it's a specialist role with no real alternative,but the rest) played an absolutely pivotal role in winning a Test match. Lehmann had a few, Martyn POSSIBLY (though have severe doubts) and Kasprowicz essentially had one excellent year where he came on when most teams were 3/31 - Cricinfo Statsguru - MS Kasprowicz - Test matches - Bowling analysis besides 2004, every other year Kasprowicz was terrible. Even in that year his wpm was only 3.61, I don't think he was that crucial. I will add that AUS left a relatively young Michael Hussey blowing in the wind for years - ditto Stuart Clark, they could be two superstars by now rather than two players who, quite frankly, I am waiting for the market correction to kick in (think Harmison, Strauss, Sehwag, G.Smith etc).

At the very least I need you to elaborate here... Are you saying that these players careers were ruined because they were given excessive opportunities? Or they owe their success to NOT being given many opportunities? What?

This is perfectly fair enough, I'm sure you wouldn't begrudge him the chance, he was the highest scorer today, in fact the only scorer, in a pretty important innings. The talent is there, he should not have been dropped. His average was a perfectly reasonable 36.96 when he was dropped, considering he was a young player and it was just his 20th match, and DOUBLY considering he was replaced with 30 something Brad Hodge.

I believe knowing who is "ready" is an extremely vague science...you just don't know until you see them on the Test stage, and I disagree with you regarding New Zealand and the West Indies. I don't know if Tait will be a nothing in Test cricket or a fine player, ditto Johnson - I need to see them at that level, that's the only way you will know.