Harsh Thakor
First Class Star
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2012
- Runs
- 3,520
- Post of the Week
- 2
Many batsmen who averaged under 50 on their day were as good if not better than a Lara,Tendulkar or Viv Richards.Clive Lloyd,Zaheer Abbas and David Gower at their best were batting superstars.Few batsmen ever posessed the power of Clive Lloyd resembling a Hercules or the willowy grace of Gower and Abbas who resembled a Michelangelo sculpting a piece.Clive Lloyd held the bat like a club and could make the impact of a hurricane.Gower and Zaheer's strokes reminded you of the touches of a painter's brush.
Zaheer was the king on slow batting tracks and against spin bowling.Arguably he was the best batsmen of his era on flat tracks and spin.Lloyd was the ultimate man for a crisis to revive a side from a precarious position.In terms of natural talent Gower was simply supreme among the 3 having the best reflexes to tackle express pace even if Lloyd had more determination.
Clive Lloyd proved his greatness against genuine pace when topping the averages on the 1975-76 series in Australia at 46.7 facing Lillee and Thomson at their quickest.Zaheer never scored a century versus s West Indies and was not at his best against hostile pace.Still he averaged over 57 in Australia in 1976-77 including a century and 3 fifties.Gower and Lloyd were prolific on the bouncy Australian tracks for atleast 3 tours with Clive being an epitome of consistency.
Zaheer scored 2 big double centuries in England unlike Lloyd and had 4 double centuries in his career as compared to Lloyd's one and Gower's 2.Never did Gower or Lloyd equal Zaheer's best batting performances in a single test series like when averaging 195 v India at home in 1978-79 and 130 v India at home in 1982-83.
Abbas by some distance overshadowed Lloyd and Gower in 1st class cricket scoring 108 centuries,34,843 runs at 51.54 and scoring a double century and a century in a single game on 4 occasions.Arguable in 1979 Zaheer was the closest challenger to the supremacy of Viv and Barry Richards,Sunil Gavaskar or Greg Chappell.
In ODI'S I rank Zaheer as the best just a shade behind Viv Richards.Few batsmen could manipulate or improvise as effectively as Zaheer who could pierce the most impregnable gaps.His average of 47.62 in that form of cricket speaks for itself.Zaheer's knocks include a classic 93 v West Indies in the 1979 world cup semi-final and a 108 v Australia in 1981-82.Still I must mention LLoyd's 102 in the 1975 world cup final which came close to being the best cricketing knock in any form of cricket.
The forte of Clive was his outstanding consistency as a captain often even outscoring compatriot Viv like in 1981 v England at home, in Australia in 1981-82 and in India in 1983-84.In a crisis he was close to the best batsmen in the world.As a skipper he was simply in a different class from Zaheer and Gower leading a renaissance in West Indies cricket to reach a level of supremacy and standard never attained before by a team in the history of the game.He knit or bounded talented bunch of individulas to emerge into a cricketing umpire like nonone else.Zaheer hardly met with any success as a skipper while Gower led England to a succesful Ashes win at home in 1985 and a test series win in India in 1984-85 which no team outside the subcontinent later achieved till South Africa in 2000.
In 1979 Garfield Sobers ranked Zaheer Abas at 6th place and Clive Loyd at 7th amongst the best contemporary batsmen of the world.
In the final analysis if it came to only test cricket then my ranking would be Gower,Lloyd and then Zaheer.In O.D.I.cricket my placing would be Zaheer,Gower and then Lloyd.In 1st class cricket my rating would be Zaheer,LLoyd and then Gower.Combining all forms of cricket my verdict would be Zaheer Abbas,David Gower and then Clive Lloyd.Adding factor of captaincy my unanimous verdict would be Clive Lloyd at the top of the 3 as a cricketer overall.
Zaheer was the king on slow batting tracks and against spin bowling.Arguably he was the best batsmen of his era on flat tracks and spin.Lloyd was the ultimate man for a crisis to revive a side from a precarious position.In terms of natural talent Gower was simply supreme among the 3 having the best reflexes to tackle express pace even if Lloyd had more determination.
Clive Lloyd proved his greatness against genuine pace when topping the averages on the 1975-76 series in Australia at 46.7 facing Lillee and Thomson at their quickest.Zaheer never scored a century versus s West Indies and was not at his best against hostile pace.Still he averaged over 57 in Australia in 1976-77 including a century and 3 fifties.Gower and Lloyd were prolific on the bouncy Australian tracks for atleast 3 tours with Clive being an epitome of consistency.
Zaheer scored 2 big double centuries in England unlike Lloyd and had 4 double centuries in his career as compared to Lloyd's one and Gower's 2.Never did Gower or Lloyd equal Zaheer's best batting performances in a single test series like when averaging 195 v India at home in 1978-79 and 130 v India at home in 1982-83.
Abbas by some distance overshadowed Lloyd and Gower in 1st class cricket scoring 108 centuries,34,843 runs at 51.54 and scoring a double century and a century in a single game on 4 occasions.Arguable in 1979 Zaheer was the closest challenger to the supremacy of Viv and Barry Richards,Sunil Gavaskar or Greg Chappell.
In ODI'S I rank Zaheer as the best just a shade behind Viv Richards.Few batsmen could manipulate or improvise as effectively as Zaheer who could pierce the most impregnable gaps.His average of 47.62 in that form of cricket speaks for itself.Zaheer's knocks include a classic 93 v West Indies in the 1979 world cup semi-final and a 108 v Australia in 1981-82.Still I must mention LLoyd's 102 in the 1975 world cup final which came close to being the best cricketing knock in any form of cricket.
The forte of Clive was his outstanding consistency as a captain often even outscoring compatriot Viv like in 1981 v England at home, in Australia in 1981-82 and in India in 1983-84.In a crisis he was close to the best batsmen in the world.As a skipper he was simply in a different class from Zaheer and Gower leading a renaissance in West Indies cricket to reach a level of supremacy and standard never attained before by a team in the history of the game.He knit or bounded talented bunch of individulas to emerge into a cricketing umpire like nonone else.Zaheer hardly met with any success as a skipper while Gower led England to a succesful Ashes win at home in 1985 and a test series win in India in 1984-85 which no team outside the subcontinent later achieved till South Africa in 2000.
In 1979 Garfield Sobers ranked Zaheer Abas at 6th place and Clive Loyd at 7th amongst the best contemporary batsmen of the world.
In the final analysis if it came to only test cricket then my ranking would be Gower,Lloyd and then Zaheer.In O.D.I.cricket my placing would be Zaheer,Gower and then Lloyd.In 1st class cricket my rating would be Zaheer,LLoyd and then Gower.Combining all forms of cricket my verdict would be Zaheer Abbas,David Gower and then Clive Lloyd.Adding factor of captaincy my unanimous verdict would be Clive Lloyd at the top of the 3 as a cricketer overall.
