Lloyd's Windies or Waugh's Aussies?

A world record inevitably draws comparisons across eras and so must Australia’s dream run in Test cricket. Whatever standards you choose to judge them by, they are an outstanding team. Unlike teams from the sub-continent, they travel well, unlike the West Indies they are organised and have a very strong team feeling and unlike the South Africans, they add flair to their efficiency. Without any doubt, they are the best team in the world, but before we shower the thoroughly well-deserved praise on them, we need to place their performance in the context of the kind of cricket the world is playing.

When we were in Nairobi, Ian Chappell was telling us a story that is relevant to this issue. There is no better narrator of cricket in the world at the moment, and none as colourful, so I will try and get by without the actual quotes but the core of the story is just as significant.

Apparently Chris Cairns, in the middle of a great run of success with bat and ball, asked Chappell if he was among those who thought that the only good cricket played was in his era.

No, said Chappell, but asked by way of comparison, how often someone like Glenn McGrath would be pasted for three hours or more by the opposition with not a hope of getting a wicket. When you bowled to the likes of Gary Sobers and Rohan Kanhai, Chappell said, that was a very real possibility and so you needed to add patience and great tactical thinking to your armoury.

I remembered that story when I saw McGrath get 10 for 27 at Brisbane against the worst West Indies team in living memory. It made me wonder, and to be honest Chappell was making that point as well, whether Australia's success coincides with one of the bleakest batting phases in the history of the game.

Let us leave out Australia's batsmen because their bowlers do not have to bowl to them. And so, apart from Sachin Tendulkar, there is not a single batsman in world cricket today that bowlers need to lose sleep over; certainly not in the kind of conditions you experience in Australia.

In the twelve matches that Australia won, all they came up against were Andy Flower, Saeed Anwar and Inzamam ul Huq, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. With the exception of Dravid, who was in dreadful form in Australia, none of the others have a reputation for travelling well. Invariably Australia’s new ball bowlers were picking up wickets against very poor opening combinations and exposing the middle order to a bouncy, seaming ball. It could be argued, and with great merit, that this had as much to do with the ability of McGrath and Brett Lee. But with great respect to their skill, taking the new ball against Mohammad Wasim, Wajahatullah Wasti, Devang Gandhi, VVS Laxman, MSK Prasad, Craig Spearman and anybody from Zimbabwe wasn’t the most daunting international assignment !

In fact, apart from Saeed Anwar and Sanath Jayasuriya, both of whom have a distinct preference for Asian conditions, and to a lesser extent Gary Kirsten and Michael Atherton who is in the evening of his career (and averages under 40) there isn't a single world class opening batsman in the game today.

Does that explain why more and more Tests are finishing in three or four days?

So while freely admitting that Australia are by far the best cricket team in the world at the moment, and that they are among the best there has been, I would suggest a little word of caution. To be fair to them, it is not Australia’s fault that the rest of the world is playing such poor cricket but to be classified as the greatest ever, they need to stack up against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies team of the late seventies and the early eighties and that, I suspect, would be a bit unrealistic.

The two teams have a lot in common. A strong top order, a wicketkeeper who was an outstanding batsman, very high quality fast bowling and resilient lower order batting. They were both brilliant fielding sides as well, a factor that sometimes tends to get lost amidst the other skills on display. Australia might seem to have an additional quality with the presence of a great leg spinner in Shane Warne but I suspect the extraordinary fast bowling ability of the West Indies might have overcome that; indeed it did overcome just about everything!

So here is how they stack up. The West Indies with Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Gomes, Logie, Lloyd, Dujon, Marshall, Holding, Garner and Roberts. Australia with Slater, Blewett or Hayden, Langer, the two Waughs, Ponting, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, McGrath and Kasprowicz or Gillespie or Miller or Fleming.

There is no comparison with the first three. Slater has had flashes of brilliance and Blewett soldiered for a while but they would be the first to give way to Greenidge and Haynes. Langer has done very good duty for Australia, the kind Gomes did for the West Indies, but up against Richards, anyone would suffer. The two Waughs would earn the Australians valuable points against Gomes and Logie and given that Lloyd was struggling a bit, Ponting might earn a draw for Australia there. Dujon was brilliant and acrobatic, a very classy batsman but Gilchrist averages 56 in his first eleven Tests and is a match winner with the bat so another point to Australia, but only just.

The West Indies did not have a weak link in their bowling with four all-time great fast bowlers in one side and when they were on, the surface did not seem to matter too much. With Warne, McGrath and Lee, Australia have a very good trio but the fourth has at best been a decent support bowler and it is only the poor quality of the opposition batting that has prevented that from being shown up.

I would go for the greater all-round strength of the West Indies but I wouldn't engage Steve Waugh in a debate on it !!

Harsha Bhogle

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