Who performed best against the West Indies great pace bowling attack?

[Harsh Thakor]

There were very few batsmen who could effectively offer counter resistance to the great West Indies bowling attack.I would rate the attack of Marshall,Garner,Holding and Roberts marginally ahead of Marsha,,Ambrose,Bishop and Walsh. I would like to ***** which batsman faced the West Indian pace quartet best. This is my list in order of merit based strictly on performance of the bets batsman against the great West Indian bowling attack. 1.Graham Gooch made his 1st century at Lords in 1980 .In 1981 scored 2 hundreds including a blistering 153 n.o.at Kingston.In 1986 scored another century in West Indies.In 1988 scored 146 at Leeds averaging over 42 runs while in 1991 at Leeds scored 154 out of 254-rated amongst the top 3 best test match knocks of all time by Wisden.He alos averaged 43 on the 1990 tour of Wst Indies with one centuryNo batsman has counter-attacked the great quartet as well as Gooch who superbly drove,hooked and polled the greatest bowlers,all round the field.Overall averaged 48,05 v,West Indies. 2.Greg Chappell- Unfairly his knocks in the Caribbean in the 5 supertsests have not been officially counted.In 1979 he scored 621 runs at an average of 69 scoring 3 centuries versus Croft,Holding and Roberts.Later in 1979-80 he scored 124 at Brisbane.In the 1975-76 Frank Worrel Trophy he averaged 117 runs,scoring 3 centuries registered a record aggreagate of 702 runs for a skipper on debut.On merit he thus scored 7 hundreds v the West Indies.Techically perfect,playing in the V. Morally Greg averaged 59 v.West Indies 3.Dilip Vengsarkar- In 1983-84 home series v West Indies topped the Indian averages scoring 2 centuries at 53.12.Scored 159 at Delhi.In 1987-88 averaged over 100 scoring 2 centuries and a fifty.Dilip scored 2 centuries in the 1978-79 home series v.West Indies against the 2nd string attack.However failed to score a century ever in the Caribbean with 94 at Antigua in 1983 being his highest. 4.Alan Lamb In 1984 scored 3 centuries in a home series against West Indies at 42 average.In 1988 scored one century at an average of around 42 runs.In 1990 in Wet Indies he gave his best averaging 55 runs scoriong 2 centuries.Lamb mastered the likes of Marshall,Bishop.Ambrose and Walsh.Lamb brilliantly drove and cut the great paceman displaying exemplary ability to improvise.He judged the bounce with great precision. 5.Alan Border Hardly scored so many centuries but displayed the tenacity of a soldier or a woulded tiger.In 1984 scored 574 run sin the Carribean ,batting with the grit of a military commander.In Trindiad he scored a matchsaving 110 and 98 not out that saved the game agains all the odds.He also averaged 67 in the Frank Worrel trophy at home in 1981-92 with a gritty hundred at Adelaide. 6.Mohinder Amarnath In 1983 in West Indies played the 4 pronged attack better than any batsman ever.We were reminded of a counter-attack by a military batallion saving certain defeat.Mohinder drove,cut and hooked superbly with the skill of a surgeon.His 80 at Barbados was like a classic.Also scored a match-winning 89 at TRinidada in the historic run -chase in 1975-76. 7.Sunil Gavaskar I agree that 8 of his 13 hundreds were against the weaker bowlers but never forget his 129 at Delhi,his 236 n.o.at Madras and his 147 n.o at Georgetown against the full attack.He also scored 2 centuries at Trinidad v the likes of Holding and Roberts and averaged 55.91 in the 1975-76 series.His best innings I saw of him was his 90 on a broken wicket at Ahmedbad where he brilliantly dealt with the bounce.His Bradmanesque batting came against West Indies when he scored 774 in 197o-71 ,averaging 154.80 there and 732 runs at home,averaging 91.5.Though the attacks were not comprising of Garner,Roberts,Holding or Marshall at his best with this performance even averaging half of his official average he would have been outstanding..Against the best West Indian bowling attack in that form I would have backed him to average around 65 and score atleast 2 centuries in the 1978-79 series while in 1970-71 I would have backed him to average 75 runs and score 2 centuries . 8..Ian Chappell Played some great knocks in the 1975-76 series and in Packer cricket.In the home series in 1975-76 scored 449 match-winning runs,including 2 centuries .His 156 at Perth was a classic.In the 2nd supertest scored 141 v West Indies anda lso amasses some useful fifties on the World series test tour of the Carribean in 1979 as an opening batsman.Never forget he scored 5 centuries in the 1968-69 tour of West Indies in Australia. To me on actual performance,Gooch,Greg Chappell and Vengsarkar stood out.Had Gavaskar been able to face the full string attack in 1978-79 like Greg Chappell or Graham Gooch later in the late 1980's and early 1990's I would have backed him to be at the top and better their performances. Reply With Quote

[Dinx - the Jinx]

Among Indians, I think Amarnath was fearless against fast bowling, especially the windies. My dad used to praise him like anything

[StatsRock]

Your ratings are all over the place. Amarnath, Chappell, Gooch, Lamb are tops. Missing from the list is Kepler Wessels who scored bucketfuls of runs in the 1984-85 series against a red-hot pace attack. Vengsarkar's tons are over-rated and definitely not in the same wavelenght as that of the above four. Gavaskar had a good series in 1975-76 but horrible in 1982-83. In the home series in 1983-84, he was inconsistent.