Bewal Express
Test Star
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2005
- Runs
- 39,102
In a new series, two writers(Michael Atherton and John Westerby) debate the best in sport. Today, two stars with contrasting styles at the crease
THE GREATEST
Master blaster Viv Richards or the machine Don Bradman – who is the greatest batsman?
In a new series, two writers debate the best in sport. Today, two stars with contrasting styles at the crease
Friday March 20 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
Viv Richards
By Mike Atherton
Something hurt he bad, you could see,
As if he self alone could end we slavery!
In the words of the Caribbean poet Ian McDonald, Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards went out to bat as if he alone could turn back slavery. Many batsmen have scored more runs at a higher average, some could claim to have had more influence on an era, and style is in the eye of the beholder, but has any batsman had a more profound influence on the teams he played for?
As if lifted by a cricketing high tide, his teams rose proudly: Antigua, Combined Leeward and Windward Islands, Somerset and, of course, West Indies, who were unbeaten under his captaincy and who were unofficial world champions for the length and breadth of his career. His impact on each was profound.
I’m just about old enough to remember when he made a nation conscious of him, during that long, hot summer of 1976. Walking — sauntering, rather — proudly to the crease, eyes fixed on the horizon not the ground, jaw fiercely chewing gum, maroon cap fixed defiantly to his head, the peak ever so slightly tilted upwards, SS Jumbo ready for destruction. At Trent Bridge (232) and the Oval (291), in particular, England’s bowlers were pummelled. He plundered 829 runs in four Tests in that summer alone.
For a boy who had been brought up on the importance of a high left elbow and a straight bat, the way he thrust his front leg towards off stump — hovering in the air just as the bowler released the ball — and then whipped the ball through mid-wicket was eye-opening. I’d never really seen anyone play like that before.
Like many of the greats, he was entirely self-taught, stamping his own technique and style on a game that has always allowed for, and encouraged, self-expression. According to his younger brother, this signature stroke through mid-wicket was shaped by boyhood games in the local park, when the necessity was to avoid an angry fisherman who would stand behind the bowler’s arm and refuse to return the ball. So was the seed of bowlers’ destruction sewn
I played against him towards the end of his career when, possibly, the eyes weren’t quite as sharp, but there was no loss of pride and, therefore, performance. Cricket for him, you sensed, was a vehicle for something bigger; to show that the black man could be the equal or better than anyone in any field of his choosing. On such a mission, and with such a sense of purpose, how could advancing years possibly matter?
Comparative judgment across generations is almost impossible because of the advent of helmets and other protective equipment. We don’t know how some modern greats would have coped with the knowledge that you could be seriously hurt, something that earlier generations carried with them daily. Equally, Don Bradman’s average during Bodyline (still 57, but way down on his overall Test average) suggests the limitations that would be imposed on the best by, say, the four-pronged West Indies attack of the 1980s.
Richards, the scorer of 8,540 Test runs, never stooped to wearing a helmet despite facing some of the fast-bowling greats
Richards, the scorer of 8,540 Test runs, never stooped to wearing a helmet despite facing some of the fast-bowling greats
We know how Richards would have coped because he never stooped to wearing a helmet, as the bare-headed statue outside the ground named after him in Antigua suggests. He straddled eras: batting, like the champions of earlier generations, without protection but in a modern era when bowling became more hostile and aggressive. It helped, of course, that the fastest and nastiest were on his side, but neither against Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, nor against the West Indies fast bowlers in the domestic Caribbean competition, did Richards bow down.
There are those who will nominate WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Garry Sobers, Sachin Tendulkar, Barry Richards, Graeme Pollock and, of course, Bradman as the best batsman of them all, but I’m happy with my choice, as were other writers who chose Richards as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the 20th Century. For a combination of charisma, style, destructivity, productivity and influence, he stands tall.
Don Bradman
By John Westerby
Even in a team sport that places such precise values on the contributions made by its individual players, cricket’s statistics can never tell the whole story. There is always a context that the bare numbers cannot convey, a variegated backdrop shaped by the conditions, the quality of the opposition, the state of the game and more.
Yet there is one statistic so startling that tells a particularly powerful tale. Don Bradman's Test batting average of 99.94 is the most famous stat in the sport and, more than 70 years after he played his final game for Australia, he is still so far ahead of the rest of the field it almost defies comprehension. In the list of highest Test averages, second place is held, at present, by Marnus Labuschagne, with 63.43 from 14 Tests, or Steve Smith at 62.84 if you prefer someone with a longer career.
Either way, this suggests that Bradman is more than 50 per cent better than any other batsman to have played the game. Whether this is true or not, the gap between Bradman and the rest is so vast that, in any debate about the game’s greatest batsman, that figure of 99.94 dominates the discussion in the same way that Bradman subjugated the bowling attacks he faced. “The greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket,” John Woodcock wrote of Bradman, “indeed in the history of all ball games.”
Sir Don Bradman salutes the Oval crowd during his 232 that helped Australia regain the Ashes in 1930
Sir Don Bradman salutes the Oval crowd during his 232 that helped Australia regain the Ashes in 1930
GETTY IMAGES
As ever, there is a bigger picture to paint here, but in fact the statistics can only hint at the impact Bradman's batting had on the wider game, from the Ashes series of 1930. In that English summer, he made 131 at Trent Bridge, 254 at Lord’s, an astonishing 334 at Headingley, including 309 on the first day, and 232 at the Oval, for a total of 974 runs in a five-match series, a record that still stands. He was 21 at the time and would remain the pivotal character in Ashes contests until 1948.
He arrived at a time when Australia, as a young and uncertain nation, buffeted in recent decades by the First World War and the Great Depression, was on the lookout for homegrown heroes. We should not, perhaps, overstate the contributions made by a sportsman amid such traumas, but Bradman's unparalleled feats undoubtedly played a huge part in helping Australia regain its sense of selfhood, of placing sport at the centre of the nation’s identity, where it remains today.
In an effort to curb this force of nature, England created the biggest controversy the game has known, with the advent of Bodyline tactics in the 1932-33 series. By his own extraordinary standards, Bradman had an ordinary series, averaging a mere 56.57 and scoring only one hundred in the series. Does this indicate that he would not have been as dominant in a later era, when short-pitched bowling was more commonplace? The chances are that he would have adapted.
Standing 5ft 7in, his defining characteristics as a batsman were a stillness in his stance, the quickness of his eye and then the nimbleness of his footwork. Watch footage of him in action and you will be struck by how early he is in position for the stroke, particularly for the pull, for which his back foot would move well outside the off stump, enabling him to place the ball to his satisfaction and roll the wrists to keep it on the floor. There were only six sixes among his 6,996 Test runs
But there was also an imperturbable concentration, so often overlooked as a quality to be prized in a batsman. Bradman would accumulate remorselessly, day after day, his focus never wavering.
He might have lacked the swagger of Viv Richards, the aesthetics of Brian Lara, the power of Barry Richards. But no batsman in history could be relied on to score runs so regularly, to swing a game in his team’s direction. Which, ultimately, is what batting is all about.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...bradman-who-is-the-greatest-batsman-ptxmj07n6
THE GREATEST
Master blaster Viv Richards or the machine Don Bradman – who is the greatest batsman?
In a new series, two writers debate the best in sport. Today, two stars with contrasting styles at the crease
Friday March 20 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
Viv Richards
By Mike Atherton
Something hurt he bad, you could see,
As if he self alone could end we slavery!
In the words of the Caribbean poet Ian McDonald, Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards went out to bat as if he alone could turn back slavery. Many batsmen have scored more runs at a higher average, some could claim to have had more influence on an era, and style is in the eye of the beholder, but has any batsman had a more profound influence on the teams he played for?
As if lifted by a cricketing high tide, his teams rose proudly: Antigua, Combined Leeward and Windward Islands, Somerset and, of course, West Indies, who were unbeaten under his captaincy and who were unofficial world champions for the length and breadth of his career. His impact on each was profound.
I’m just about old enough to remember when he made a nation conscious of him, during that long, hot summer of 1976. Walking — sauntering, rather — proudly to the crease, eyes fixed on the horizon not the ground, jaw fiercely chewing gum, maroon cap fixed defiantly to his head, the peak ever so slightly tilted upwards, SS Jumbo ready for destruction. At Trent Bridge (232) and the Oval (291), in particular, England’s bowlers were pummelled. He plundered 829 runs in four Tests in that summer alone.
For a boy who had been brought up on the importance of a high left elbow and a straight bat, the way he thrust his front leg towards off stump — hovering in the air just as the bowler released the ball — and then whipped the ball through mid-wicket was eye-opening. I’d never really seen anyone play like that before.
Like many of the greats, he was entirely self-taught, stamping his own technique and style on a game that has always allowed for, and encouraged, self-expression. According to his younger brother, this signature stroke through mid-wicket was shaped by boyhood games in the local park, when the necessity was to avoid an angry fisherman who would stand behind the bowler’s arm and refuse to return the ball. So was the seed of bowlers’ destruction sewn
I played against him towards the end of his career when, possibly, the eyes weren’t quite as sharp, but there was no loss of pride and, therefore, performance. Cricket for him, you sensed, was a vehicle for something bigger; to show that the black man could be the equal or better than anyone in any field of his choosing. On such a mission, and with such a sense of purpose, how could advancing years possibly matter?
Comparative judgment across generations is almost impossible because of the advent of helmets and other protective equipment. We don’t know how some modern greats would have coped with the knowledge that you could be seriously hurt, something that earlier generations carried with them daily. Equally, Don Bradman’s average during Bodyline (still 57, but way down on his overall Test average) suggests the limitations that would be imposed on the best by, say, the four-pronged West Indies attack of the 1980s.
Richards, the scorer of 8,540 Test runs, never stooped to wearing a helmet despite facing some of the fast-bowling greats
Richards, the scorer of 8,540 Test runs, never stooped to wearing a helmet despite facing some of the fast-bowling greats
We know how Richards would have coped because he never stooped to wearing a helmet, as the bare-headed statue outside the ground named after him in Antigua suggests. He straddled eras: batting, like the champions of earlier generations, without protection but in a modern era when bowling became more hostile and aggressive. It helped, of course, that the fastest and nastiest were on his side, but neither against Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, nor against the West Indies fast bowlers in the domestic Caribbean competition, did Richards bow down.
There are those who will nominate WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, George Headley, Garry Sobers, Sachin Tendulkar, Barry Richards, Graeme Pollock and, of course, Bradman as the best batsman of them all, but I’m happy with my choice, as were other writers who chose Richards as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the 20th Century. For a combination of charisma, style, destructivity, productivity and influence, he stands tall.
Don Bradman
By John Westerby
Even in a team sport that places such precise values on the contributions made by its individual players, cricket’s statistics can never tell the whole story. There is always a context that the bare numbers cannot convey, a variegated backdrop shaped by the conditions, the quality of the opposition, the state of the game and more.
Yet there is one statistic so startling that tells a particularly powerful tale. Don Bradman's Test batting average of 99.94 is the most famous stat in the sport and, more than 70 years after he played his final game for Australia, he is still so far ahead of the rest of the field it almost defies comprehension. In the list of highest Test averages, second place is held, at present, by Marnus Labuschagne, with 63.43 from 14 Tests, or Steve Smith at 62.84 if you prefer someone with a longer career.
Either way, this suggests that Bradman is more than 50 per cent better than any other batsman to have played the game. Whether this is true or not, the gap between Bradman and the rest is so vast that, in any debate about the game’s greatest batsman, that figure of 99.94 dominates the discussion in the same way that Bradman subjugated the bowling attacks he faced. “The greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket,” John Woodcock wrote of Bradman, “indeed in the history of all ball games.”
Sir Don Bradman salutes the Oval crowd during his 232 that helped Australia regain the Ashes in 1930
Sir Don Bradman salutes the Oval crowd during his 232 that helped Australia regain the Ashes in 1930
GETTY IMAGES
As ever, there is a bigger picture to paint here, but in fact the statistics can only hint at the impact Bradman's batting had on the wider game, from the Ashes series of 1930. In that English summer, he made 131 at Trent Bridge, 254 at Lord’s, an astonishing 334 at Headingley, including 309 on the first day, and 232 at the Oval, for a total of 974 runs in a five-match series, a record that still stands. He was 21 at the time and would remain the pivotal character in Ashes contests until 1948.
He arrived at a time when Australia, as a young and uncertain nation, buffeted in recent decades by the First World War and the Great Depression, was on the lookout for homegrown heroes. We should not, perhaps, overstate the contributions made by a sportsman amid such traumas, but Bradman's unparalleled feats undoubtedly played a huge part in helping Australia regain its sense of selfhood, of placing sport at the centre of the nation’s identity, where it remains today.
In an effort to curb this force of nature, England created the biggest controversy the game has known, with the advent of Bodyline tactics in the 1932-33 series. By his own extraordinary standards, Bradman had an ordinary series, averaging a mere 56.57 and scoring only one hundred in the series. Does this indicate that he would not have been as dominant in a later era, when short-pitched bowling was more commonplace? The chances are that he would have adapted.
Standing 5ft 7in, his defining characteristics as a batsman were a stillness in his stance, the quickness of his eye and then the nimbleness of his footwork. Watch footage of him in action and you will be struck by how early he is in position for the stroke, particularly for the pull, for which his back foot would move well outside the off stump, enabling him to place the ball to his satisfaction and roll the wrists to keep it on the floor. There were only six sixes among his 6,996 Test runs
But there was also an imperturbable concentration, so often overlooked as a quality to be prized in a batsman. Bradman would accumulate remorselessly, day after day, his focus never wavering.
He might have lacked the swagger of Viv Richards, the aesthetics of Brian Lara, the power of Barry Richards. But no batsman in history could be relied on to score runs so regularly, to swing a game in his team’s direction. Which, ultimately, is what batting is all about.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...bradman-who-is-the-greatest-batsman-ptxmj07n6
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