Best Test XI - POLL - Opening Batsmen
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Latham - very consistent at the top, always takes the shine off the ball and has the ability to score tons if he gets set
Richardson - didn't go on with it often but he blunted attacks and batted time nearly every innings. The ability of a test opener to consistently take the shine off the new ball can't be overstated.
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Glenn Turner. Rock solid in defence and had a sublime straight drive.
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Sticking up for the old fellas, but I'd suggest including Bert Sutcliffe.
A Test average of over 40 in his day was bloody impressive and he was regarded as one of the best left-handers of any era by his peers. Tough bastard too in the mould of Buck Shelford against fast bowlers.
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@No-Quarter Richardson also the best average of all our openers if you remove not outs
Still won't get my vote though
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
Sticking up for the old fellas, but I'd suggest including Bert Sutcliffe.
A Test average of over 40 in his day was bloody impressive and he was regarded as one of the best left-handers of any era by his peers. Tough bastard too in the mould of Buck Shelford against fast bowlers.
Statsguru tells me Sutcliffe average 45 as an opener, 33 as a middle order. 40 career average.
Not sure why he stopped, or paused opening? To do with his head knock?
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Stu Dempster.
Only played 10 tests as NZ granted test status.
Tests M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50
New Zealand 10 15 4 723 136 65.72 2 5But also played 2 unofficial 'tests' v Australia 2 years before NZ granted test status. Averaged 36 v them.
would take it to '12' tests to give a slightly larger sample size:
Tests M I NO Runs HS Ave 100 50
New Zealand 12 19 5 833 136 59.50 2 5Had a good FC record. Ave 44.98 and 12145 runs.
Can see he averaged 49.52 for Nwe Zealanders in tour games and avergaed 49.04 for Leicestershire in county cricket. -
@Rapido said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
Not sure why he stopped, or paused opening? To do with his head knock?
Dunno. Perhaps as he, along with John Reid, were probably the only genuine Test class players we had at the time, he was moved up and down the order to maximise his impact..
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@Rapido I thought about Dempster when I was nominating Donnelly as those two and Sutcliffe are the three old timers worthy of at least passing consideration.
Dempster had a lot of NO's in his comparatively short career though which put me off.
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@Rapido said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
Stu Dempster.
Only played 10 tests as NZ granted test status.Similar to Martin Donnelly. Played 7 Tests with an average of nearly 53. Played Test Rugby at 13 as well.
Not enough Tests, I guess, to see if they were able to maintain their records.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
@Rapido said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
Stu Dempster.
Only played 10 tests as NZ granted test status.Similar to Martin Donnelly. Played 7 Tests with an average of nearly 53. Played Test Rugby at 13 as well.
Not enough Tests, I guess, to see if they were able to maintain their records.
Yeah. We're not talking a Voges situation or Mark Greatbatch career start. There was 12 years between Donelly's (and Cowie's) first and last tour. Obviously they could maintain it. And back it up in county cricket.
But, I'm not expecting them to make final 11's, as there are other options now. But 20 years ago these guys were far more arguable.
Donnelly's record is very England-biased. Only played them, county cricket.
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NZ teams were quite weak pre-1970's and were pretty much carried by 2 or 3 players and were often fighting rearguard actions.
Would be interesting to what the likes of John Reid & Sutcliffe, would have gone in today's Black Caps - probably be up there with Williamson & co.
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@Rapido said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
But, I'm not expecting them to make final 11's, as there are other options now.
Really only had the longer form of the game to play back then too so it's hard to judge all-round batting skill. That said, from what I've read about John Reid, he'd have been an absolutely awesome Limited Over player
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
NZ teams were quite weak pre-
19701980'sP40 W3 (all at home) L19 (13 were either by an innings, by more than 100 runs or by 10 wickets) D18
An improvement but we were still aspiring to be Bangladesh. Maiden victories against Oz and England and some battling draws and a couple of matches we should have won but for a bit of self belief make the decade seem better than it really was.
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@dogmeat said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
@Rapido I thought about Dempster when I was nominating Donnelly as those two and Sutcliffe are the three old timers worthy of at least passing consideration.
Dempster had a lot of NO's in his comparatively short career though which put me off.
We have an opening batsman who averaged 65 in tests and we're not going to pick him?
This is a team that is going to have to trail out alongside the greatest Australians of all time!!!
In my mind the only question is who goes out with Dempster and frankly, I'm tempted to say Rodney Redmond
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@rotated said in Best Test XI - NOMINATIONS - Opening Batsmen:
Fleming. He opened enough to be legitimately a nominee and if looking at some of his bigger scores and you draw any sort of distinction between opening and batting first drop then you didn't watch a lot of NZ cricket at that time.
Ha was thinking this while drifting off in a work meeting this avo.....the amount of times Fleming found himself in the middle in the first couple of overs in any given test was a disgrace and a damning indictment on our openers
All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com
Martin Donnelly (sportsman) - Wikipedia
