This generation

[Aerie]

Has there ever been a better generation of cricketers than those who will be retiring now and over the next few years? These are the champions that fixated me with cricket from an early age. Sure I read about legends of bygone eras, but I actually "was there" to see all of these guys start their careers and have followed every inch of the way. Steve Waugh, Taylor, Healy and Curtly Ambrose retiring left a hole, but looking at the following list of champions it's hard to imagine cricket without them. The game will go on and these players will be discovered by a young kid opening yet another cricket book for Christmas in the future.

Australia:
McGrath age: 36 ave: 21 with 555 wickets
Gilchrist age : 35 ave: 49 as a keeper
Hayden age: 35 ave: 52
Warne: age 37 ave: 25 with 699 wickets

West Indies:
Lara age: 37 ave: 53

India:
Tendulkar age: 33 ave: 55
Dravid age: 33 ave: 58
Kumble age: 36 ave: 28 with 538 wickets

Sri Lanka:
Murali age: 34 ave: 21 with 674 wickets

Pakistan:
Inzamam age: 36 ave: 50

South Africa:
Pollock age: 33 ave: 23 with 402 wickets

[MightyEagles]

All bar one are great players and you all know what I think of him.

[Adelaide Hawk]

I think if you look back at the collection of talent in World Series Cricket, that would be the best in terms of world quality players at one time. Most countries were very strong in those times whereas these days a number of counrties are low on talent.

[spell_check]

I think if you look back at the collection of talent in World Series Cricket, that would be the best in terms of world quality players at one time. Most countries were very strong in those times whereas these days a number of counrties are low on talent.

Which is a shame that those Super Tests are not regarded as First Class status yet Test Matches between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are...

[Rik E Boy]

How's this for a generation? REB's best in bold for each nation.

Greg Chappell
Allan Border
Rod Marsh
Jeff Thomson
Doug Walters
Dennis Lillee
Imran Khan
Javed Miandad
Geoff Boycott
Derek Underwood
Ian Botham
Graham Gooch
David Gower
Allan Lamb
Malcolm Marshall
Michael Holding
Courtney Walsh
Joel Garner
Viv Richards
Clive Lloyd
Gordon Greenidge
Jeff Dujon
Demsond Haynes
Andy Roberts
Colin Croft
Richie Richardson
Martin Crowe
Richard Hadlee
John Wright
Bruce Edgar
Geoff Howarth
Kapil Dev
Sunil Gavaskar
Garth Le Roux
Clive Rice
Graeme Pollock

These guys all played between the period of late 70's early 80's and shits on Aerie's list from a great height. Why?

1. All Rounders: A greater collection of allrounders has yet to grace the great game in Cricket history, every nation bar the West Indies and Australia had a genuine allrounder.

2. Bowlers: In modern cricket there aren't as many great bowlers becuase one day cricket has practically destroyed the breed. True, they had one day cricket in the era I mentioned but the batting and fielding side of the game has come along a fair way since then, but bowling has not. Quite often bowlers are being elevated to Test cricket due to their propensity to save runs rather than take wickets (Giles vs. Panesar is an example of this). I believe the ICC Champions trophy might prove to be something of a watershed for bowlers as it was proven that wicket taking bowlers can also reduce the run rate by actually taking wickets...yes, surprising that! There are only a handful of great bowlers today in comparision with the era I am talking about.

3. Spread of talent: The above list shows a great spread of talent with only Sri Lanka (fringe dwellers at the time and only just attaining Test status) not having genuine representation. Back then of course, it was the West Indies who dominated and not Australia but look at the gun players in the other sides. These days you might have one gun player per side and Australia has a few but genuine superstars are a bit thin on the ground these days.

4. Old batsmen 'ropeable': These days nearly every test venue is roped off, boundaries are shorter and they are facing pie chuckers elevated from one day squads. Give me Viv Richards over Lara anytime, regardless of the averages. If Viv Richards was the type of player that cared about records he would have rewritten almost all of them. Imagine what Viv would do to Harmison, Oram, Malinga, Nel etc.

Aerie's list of course contains some excellent cricketers but in the late 70's and early 80's, there were a lot more excellent cricketers who weren't having their averages raised flogging the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

regards,

REB

[Ecky]

It all depends on how you define a "generation".

Aerie's players are all born within 4 years, REBs span about 15 years (born ~1945-1960)

Need to compare apples with apples...

[Aerie]

It all depends on how you define a "generation".

Aerie's players are all born within 4 years, REBs span about 15 years (born ~1945-1960)

Need to compare apples with apples...

Yes, exactly. You could add the Waugh brothers, Healy, Gillespie, MacGill, Donald, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mushtag Ahmed, Mohammad Yousuf, Flintoff, Kallis, Cairns, Vettori etc. etc. I would say the fast bowling would be stronger in the 70's/80's, spin bowling easily stronger in the last 10 years and the batting very even.

[Rik E Boy]

It all depends on how you define a "generation".

Aerie's players are all born within 4 years, REBs span about 15 years (born ~1945-1960)

Need to compare apples with apples...

Those blokes all played tests (except the Yarpies) between 1979-83, despite the years in which they were born in.

Spin: Current
Batting: Old School
Fast Bowling: Old School
Fielding: Current
All Rounders: Old School

Warne and Murali make up the majority of the first component, Batting, see my post above for my views on this, better fast bowlers by a fair way in the old days, ditto allrounders but there aren't too many poor fieldsmen around today but years ago a lot of bowlers especially were fairly poor in the field (Windies aside). How TF can you compare apples with apples when comparing eras LMAO.

regards,

REB