Mark Richardson

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by flanflinger

Not my fantasy XI, maybe a knightmare XI, or a potential to bore you to death XI...

Leaving aside the irrelevence of an opener's "entertainment" value... what, exactly, was so boring about Gooch? He was hardly Trevor Bailey Mk II!

More to the point... who would get into that England fantasy XI ahead of him?

[Mr Kiwi]

I would rate Richardson as 'one of New Zealands best ever' - probably being third choice for opener after Bert Sutcliff and Glenn Turner, and then only being edged out by lack of big scores (while still being comparable in average). Arguably Martin Donnelly could be ahead of him too but it's hard to tell as he didn't actually play that much test cricket and his legend is based more on eye witness accounts from Oxford.

The main things about Richardson's career aren't easily readable from the stats, it has to be put into context; not only did he normally average 10-15 more runs per innings than anyone else in his team (consider that more renowned NZ bats such as Fleming and Astle don't even average 40) but he provided a huge amount of stability to the NZ innings. There's one of those 'stats don't tell the whole story' pieces on cricinfo to this effect:

http://content-nz.cricinfo.com/newze...ry/135980.html

I can still remember a shocking day at the basin where NZ were running along semi-comfortably with Rigor at the crease. Then he got out, we lost about 7 wickets for as many runs and turned a 170-run 1st innings lead into a 6-wicket loss. I'm sure many more examples could be found if you dug deep enough [i just saw these are in the above article, sorry, i didn't read it before pasting in the link]

Yes he was dour, yes he was boring to watch, yes in the amount of time he spent at the crease any of his contempories would have scored a pile more runs/tons (a lot of his innings were 70's/80's/90's) but he was invaluable to the NZ team in a way those players had the luxury of avoiding

[mismaiden]

Over here in NZ Mark Richardson was called the rock. For me he seemed to score to slow.
But one good thing i liked about him was his ability to use up the new ball and get behind
it. And he was a funny cricketer, He had a good sense of humour for the game. And as
for his commentating thats a 70/30 one. I get annoyed with the selectors here in NZ
most of their selections are beyond me. I liked the opening pair of Mark Richardson
and Matthew Bell they were good together, but NZ never stuck with that combo for
long. Bumma...

[clwalcott]

39.0% of his innings finished in scores (innings of 50 or more) essentially the only job an opener has to do - see off the new ball. The average for batsmen falls somewhere between 30-33%. He was not a marquee bat in the 3/4 role, so why are centuries particulary relevant?

Here are score percentages for Richardson's peers;

Tendulkar 36.9%
Lara 35.3%
Hayden 33.7%
Ponting 37.9%
S.Waugh 31.5%
Dravid 36.8%
Kallis 38.9%

He was quite literally the most consistant batsman of his generation, a PERFECT opener. He practically made your team collapseproof and made it easier for the entire batting card.