Cricket - best ever, trivia etc
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@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Personally I'd say the best ever test opening partnership was Hobbs and Sutcliffe, but agree that Greenidge and Haynes will always at least be on the short list in the ODI era (as will Hayden and Langer).
Drawing a line somewhere in the 90s makes some sense as ODIs switched quite dramatically somewhere after the WC 92 when NZ and Greatbatch really turned the ODI opening concept on its head, and by the WC 96, that was standard.
That had some impact on scoring rates in tests especially, as 2-3 RPO was replaced by 3-4 RPO, and the widespread adoption of helmets in the 70s-80s also had quite an impact.
Agreed. Amazing stats and such an old fashioned dashing looking pair.
Tubby and Slats were decent, so were Sehwag and Gambhir….did Boycott and Gooch play much together ?
Two genuinely class players opening at the same time is actually pretty rare hence I’ll always rate Hayden and Langer damn near the top.
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@nzzp said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Sehwag was a walking highlights package. What a player
Very exciting and very effective. Gambhir was a really good foil for him.
But my point stands, where are the other really good opening pairs ?
Another worth mentioning is Cook and Strauss to be fair.
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@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50 -
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50Yeah I think Atherton was one of those key wickets who was worth more than his average.
Actually from memory Gooch got a lot better after Boycott retired ? Definitely rated the best test batsman at one stage.
I don’t remember AB De Villiers ever opening though ?
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@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 You had me really worried.
This from cricinfo
So mainly a middle order but definitely opened. Stats guru never seems to be working but Howsstat vindicates me - sort of. McKenzie and Smith seem the better pair
Geez that shoots my Hayden and Langer theory out of the water. Both brilliant individuals but that stat shows it looked like it was more a case of one going cheaply but the other scoring large with Ponting/Hussey/Waugh/Martyn/Gilly etc. I thought they’d be up in the top five easily.
Greenidge and Haynes are even lower !
Were Hobbs and Sutcliffe basically the only decent England batsmen of their era ? Looks that way……
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@mn5 said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Were Hobbs and Sutcliffe basically the only decent England batsmen of their era ?
Nope When you finally separated the openers out would stroll Wall Hammond with a test average of just under 60. It was a golden age for England . Unfortunately for them it was the same for Oz
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@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Were Hobbs and Sutcliffe basically the only decent England batsmen of their era ?
Nope When you finally separated the openers out would stroll Wall Hammond with a test average of just under 60. It was a golden age for England . Unfortunately for them it was the same for Oz
Yeah their careers did crossover a bit, I always thought he was a bit later.
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@mn5 Pretty much my knowledge of that era all comes from the Bodyline TV mini series of the 80's
Interesting snippet. Elrond (Hugo Weaving) got his first break starring as Douglas Jardine before going on to Priscilla Matrix and a pointy eared elf.
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@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50The opening pair of Wright and Franklin are underrated because everyone remembers Wright and Edgar (who scored more runs because they played together more, but at a lower average partnership). Granted, Franklin's main contribution was scoring not much off enough balls that Wright's class would take them to a decent partnership (Wright's average from 1988 to retirement in 1993 was over 47 which was excellent for an opener in that era), but 12th highest average ever of pairings with 1000+ runs is still impressive. Looking back at some of our opening pairs after they both retired, one suspects the selectors would happily have taken that.
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@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50The opening pair of Wright and Franklin are underrated because everyone remembers Wright and Edgar (who scored more runs because they played together more, but at a lower average partnership). Granted, Franklin's main contribution was scoring not much off enough balls that Wright's class would take them to a decent partnership (Wright's average from 1988 to retirement in 1993 was over 47 which was excellent for an opener in that era), but 12th highest average ever of pairings with 1000+ runs is still impressive. Looking back at some of our opening pairs after they both retired, one suspects the selectors would happily have taken that.
From memory wasn't Franklin replaced with another test supremo in Blair Hartland?
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@bayimports said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50The opening pair of Wright and Franklin are underrated because everyone remembers Wright and Edgar (who scored more runs because they played together more, but at a lower average partnership). Granted, Franklin's main contribution was scoring not much off enough balls that Wright's class would take them to a decent partnership (Wright's average from 1988 to retirement in 1993 was over 47 which was excellent for an opener in that era), but 12th highest average ever of pairings with 1000+ runs is still impressive. Looking back at some of our opening pairs after they both retired, one suspects the selectors would happily have taken that.
From memory wasn't Franklin replaced with another test supremo in Blair Hartland?
Yes, going by Cricinfo, Wright played 3 more series after Franklin's last series at home vs Sri Lanka 1990-1 (famous for the first test in which Crowe got his 299). Hartland was the other opener for 2 series, then for Wright's last series (at home vs Australia 1993), Greatbatch was the other opener (did OK, better than Hartland at least). Hartland did one more series after that (tour of England 1994), then was dropped permanently. He probably made the selectors regret moving Franklin on.
While I'm waxing effusively about Wright, his average as captain was 48.63 compared to 35.83 when he wasn't captain, so his batting apparently thrived under that pressure.
@bovidae said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Looking at that list Graeme Smith probably doesn't get the praise he deserves (outside of SA).
Agree, that list shows Smith and Gibbs are top drawer as well for modern partnerships.
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@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@bayimports said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50The opening pair of Wright and Franklin are underrated because everyone remembers Wright and Edgar (who scored more runs because they played together more, but at a lower average partnership). Granted, Franklin's main contribution was scoring not much off enough balls that Wright's class would take them to a decent partnership (Wright's average from 1988 to retirement in 1993 was over 47 which was excellent for an opener in that era), but 12th highest average ever of pairings with 1000+ runs is still impressive. Looking back at some of our opening pairs after they both retired, one suspects the selectors would happily have taken that.
From memory wasn't Franklin replaced with another test supremo in Blair Hartland?
Yes, going by Cricinfo, Wright played 3 more series after Franklin's last series at home vs Sri Lanka 1990-1 (famous for the first test in which Crowe got his 299). Hartland was the other opener for 2 series, then for Wright's last series (at home vs Australia 1993), Greatbatch was the other opener (did OK, better than Hartland at least). Hartland did one more series after that (tour of England 1994), then was dropped permanently. He probably made the selectors regret moving Franklin on.
While I'm waxing effusively about Wright, his average as captain was 48.63 compared to 35.83 when he wasn't captain, so his batting apparently thrived under that pressure.
@bovidae said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Looking at that list Graeme Smith probably doesn't get the praise he deserves (outside of SA).
Agree, that list shows Smith and Gibbs are top drawer as well for modern partnerships.
yeah Wright was great for NZ, I just cant justify Franklin in the "greats" category
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@bayimports said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@bayimports said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@godder said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 Boycott and Gooch opened together in the late 70's early 80's until the ban for touring South Africa. Although they are both great openers the partnership never really thrived. Gooch and Atherton was more successful and Boycott and Edrich in the 60's.
'Modern' partnerships - Smith and de Villiers is worth a mention.
Further back Wright and Franklin
actually averaged over 50The opening pair of Wright and Franklin are underrated because everyone remembers Wright and Edgar (who scored more runs because they played together more, but at a lower average partnership). Granted, Franklin's main contribution was scoring not much off enough balls that Wright's class would take them to a decent partnership (Wright's average from 1988 to retirement in 1993 was over 47 which was excellent for an opener in that era), but 12th highest average ever of pairings with 1000+ runs is still impressive. Looking back at some of our opening pairs after they both retired, one suspects the selectors would happily have taken that.
From memory wasn't Franklin replaced with another test supremo in Blair Hartland?
Yes, going by Cricinfo, Wright played 3 more series after Franklin's last series at home vs Sri Lanka 1990-1 (famous for the first test in which Crowe got his 299). Hartland was the other opener for 2 series, then for Wright's last series (at home vs Australia 1993), Greatbatch was the other opener (did OK, better than Hartland at least). Hartland did one more series after that (tour of England 1994), then was dropped permanently. He probably made the selectors regret moving Franklin on.
While I'm waxing effusively about Wright, his average as captain was 48.63 compared to 35.83 when he wasn't captain, so his batting apparently thrived under that pressure.
@bovidae said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Looking at that list Graeme Smith probably doesn't get the praise he deserves (outside of SA).
Agree, that list shows Smith and Gibbs are top drawer as well for modern partnerships.
yeah Wright was great for NZ, I just cant justify Franklin in the "greats" category
Franklin was always a personal favourite of mine for his sheer guts. I don’t think he knew too many horizontal bat shots though
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@mn5 said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@dogmeat said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@mn5 You had me really worried.
This from cricinfo
So mainly a middle order but definitely opened. Stats guru never seems to be working but Howsstat vindicates me - sort of. McKenzie and Smith seem the better pair
Geez that shoots my Hayden and Langer theory out of the water. Both brilliant individuals but that stat shows it looked like it was more a case of one going cheaply but the other scoring large with Ponting/Hussey/Waugh/Martyn/Gilly etc. I thought they’d be up in the top five easily.
Greenidge and Haynes are even lower !
Were Hobbs and Sutcliffe basically the only decent England batsmen of their era ? Looks that way……
Apart from Hobbs and Washbrook perhaps?
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Some surprising stats in that. Wouldn’t have put Gooch and Atherton that high and as for Greenidge and Haynes . Stupefied!
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@catogrande said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Some surprising stats in that. Wouldn’t have put Gooch and Atherton that high and as for Greenidge and Haynes . Stupefied!
Gooch was bloody good and Atherton was decent enough. Obviously they worked really well as a pair.
I’m still staggered how far up the list Wright and Franklin are.
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@mn5 said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
@catogrande said in Cricket - best ever, trivia etc:
Some surprising stats in that. Wouldn’t have put Gooch and Atherton that high and as for Greenidge and Haynes . Stupefied!
Gooch was bloody good and Atherton was decent enough. Obviously they worked really well as a pair.
I’m still staggered how far up the list Wright and Franklin are.
Agreed. It must highlight just how dogshit the rest of our teams were at that time.
