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ArkRoyal wrote: BH -- great post mate, just to illustrate your point about the strength of cricket in those days, the following countries all had to cope with tours to SA; and yet, as you rightly said, standards remained high indeed.

Sri Lanka
WI
Australia
England

Even more than that, from memory, the WI XI actually won the series in SA.

AR you are quite correct the touring sides that went to South Africa from WI, AUS & ENG were very strong squads.

WI- Lawrence Rowe (C), Sylvester Clarke, Colin Croft, Bernard Julien, Richard Austin, Alvin Greenidge, Alvin Kallicharran, Collis King, Ezra Moseley, David Murray, Derick Parry, Franklyn Stephenson, Albert Podmore, Faoud Bacchus etc

ENG- Graham Gooch (C), Dennis Amiss, Geoff Boycott, John Emburey, Mike Hendrick, Alan Knott, Wayne Larkins, John Lever, Chris Old, Arnold Sidebottom, Derek Underwood, Peter Willey, Bob Woolmer Graham Dilley etc on the first tour 81/82.....and then on second tour 89/90- Mike Gatting (C), Bill Athey, Chris Broad, Chris Cowdrey, Graham Dilley, Richard Ellison, John Emburey, Neil Foster, Bruce French, Paul Jarvis, Matthew Maynard, Tim Robinson, David Graveney etc.

AUS- Kim Hughes (C), Terry Alderman, John Dyson, Peter Faulkner, Mike Haysman, Tom Hogan, Rodney Hogg, Trevor Hohns, John Maguire, Rod McCurdy, Carl Rackemann, Steve Rixon, Greg Shipperd, Steve Smith, Mick Taylor, Graham Yallop & Kepler Wessels.

That loss of talent for a few years took far greater of a toll on AUS & ENG than the WI at that time that is for sure.

bh: when I think of it, virtually the whole Australian side signed, and from what Border has reportedly said, he would have signed had Bacher asked him.

Whitney did not like SA so he would not have gone
Lawson was the other one

As you know, bease, some of the English, men, such as Botham, had a conscience about it because they played with Richards and Garner at Somerset; Yorkshire being the exception.

Ben Stokes really is a fantastic cricketer.
170 odd in the first dig followed by a quickfire 70 odd no in the second dig, always at you with the ball and a wicket taker and very good fieldsman.
Pity he plays for England.

A better effort by England, winning with a day and an hour to spare. You have pointed it out many times, bh, but it is something which needs to be said often, Broad is lethal in his own conditions.

Stoke's average of 38.00 is getting up there now in terms of a top order batsman.
Buttler made me laugh; to be fair to the man, his average of 31.00 is acceptable provided he bats at number seven. His fortunes, or misfortunes, as BH and mikeh, said in a previous posts, merely demonstrate the profound superiority of test cricket over the other versions of the sport.

Me thinks that Holder should try batting at five or six in his team. I would still play the six batsmen as they have been doing so far, just change the order.

That result sums the WI up in a nutshell.....always on the cards when they lost those 6 wickets for 40 odd in their first innings....

Agree BH, Stokes just keeps on delivering.....is everything Mitch Marsh isn't....if only eh?

Yes true Freeze but you could also say the same of Watson, O'Donnell, Gilmour etc as well before Mitch.
We havent had a decent all rounder since the days of Keith Miller, Richie Benaud & to a lesser extent Lindwall & Davidson 60 years or so ago.
Other countries have no problems producing world class all rounders in that time-
ENG- Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff, Ben Stokes
IND- Kapil Dev, Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja
PAK- Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Abdul Razzaq
NZ- Richard Hadlee, Chris Cairns, Daniel Vettori
SA- Jaques Kallis, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener
WI- Gary Sobers, Jason Holder, Roston Chase
SL- Sanath Jayasuriya, Chaminda Vaas
ZIM- Heath Streak
BAN- Shakib Al Hasan

Fingers crossed Cam Green or Will Sutherland can deliver on the big stage....Aust seem to have all these Tarzan built allrounders who play like Jane and made of paper mache...Green looks the goods....time will tell

Scarily England have an arsenal of fast bowlers to pick from at the moment.
In the 1st Test they went for Archer, Anderson, Wood & Stokes.
In the 2nd Test they rested the first three and went with Broad, Woakes, Curran & Stokes.
Yes I know Anderson & Broad are getting on but they are still bowling well especially over there in those conditions and they certainly have a plethora of seamers to pick from.

England will have to be good, given that Buttler is batting at six. Maybe he will channel les ames or allan knott? You never know, I guess.

English contracts

Have they got something against Wood? Eng., will not win the urn back without him, and yet, they have included JA on the test list; Anderson should be left in England; I would bring Broad next time, as neither Archer or Wood will have bowlled in test cricket in this country. We all know what happened to Harmison when he came out here

www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/54352180