Barry Richards or Sunil Gavaskar?

[Harsh Thakor]

Barry Richards and Sunil Gavaskar would comprise in many experts all time xi's.Their batting styles differed like chalk and cheese.Barry would destroy bowling attacks by the scruff of the neck while Gavaskar would wear down attacks like a boulder blocking traffic.Barry would be the ultimate match-winner and Gavaskar the champion in batting for your life. The question comes down to who would be a more appropriate choice in all-time team to accompany Jack Hobbs.In terms of raw ability Barry was ahead and even technically he was marginally ahead of Gavaskar.However as Mike Procter stated that if he backed any batsman to get a hundred it would be Gavaskar.Gavaskar set all the batting records facing the greatest of bowling attacks.In contrast Barry even if he averaged 72 runs played in only 4 test matches.Gary Sobers in an Introduction to the book 'In a League of Their Own' which consisted of 100 Cricket Legends selecting their all-time 11 called Gavaskar the best batsman he had ever seen .He also stated that Barry never proved himself as an all-time great as he hardly played any International Cricket.To Sobers Barry only proved his natural ability like Lawrence Rowe. To Gary Sobers classing Bary with Viv Richards would be like bracketing Lawrence Rowe with Tendulkar. I differ with Gary.To me Barry's record in first -class cricket in addition to his great batting in Kerry Packer World Series Cricket class him with the likes of Viv Richards.Don Bradman chose Barry in his all-time team in place of Hobbs,Hutton and Gavaskar.Cricket is not all about statistics and no batsman could dominate bowling with such an explosive impact combining perfect technique.Barry destroyed bowling with the impact of a bomber plane but executed strokes with the precison of a technician.His 207 v.Australia in 1977-78 in the 5th supertest and 124 not out in the 1978 supertest final against Australia were 2 classics.In these innings he overshadowed the mighty Viv Richards at his best.He topped the batting averages in Packer Cricket at 79.Barry was like Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar rolled into one. His 1583 runs at 109.86 including a score of 356 in 1971-72 in Australia proved his greatness. Sunil Gavaskar 's statistics make him arguably the best opening batsman of all but he could not take the bowling attacks to the sword like Barry.True,he revealed shades of his prowess in domination wen scoring a century of 94 ball sin Delhi v.West Indies and 90 at Ahmedabad in the same series but generally Gavaskar was an accumulator.At times his batting was too laborious to win game,although his 221 at the Oval in 1979 almost pulled of a famous 4th innings victory,while his 102 played a major role in India reaching the record 4th innings winning target in a test match.Infact in Gavaskar's era Vishwanath was a better match-winner.However Gavaskar's consistency was phenomenal and he could master the worst of tracks like when scoring 96 at Bangalore v Pakistan.In some books Gavaskar was the best batsman of the 1970's,which is arguably correct.However if I chose a partner to Jack Hobbs then Barry would be my choice instead of Gavaskar.Barry would dominate the bowling from the word go and win more test matches than any opening batsmen.This does not deny Gavaskar a claim to being the best opening batsman of all time or the best in the world of his era.It just maens Barry would contribute more to a team's victory.I credit Gavaskar for bearing the brunt of so much pressure.However at the back of my mind had Barry had a full International career he would have even eclipsed the likes of Sachin Tendulkar or Viv Richards.His batting posessed every component of a perfect batsmen like a surgeon,technician and executioner combined into one.Barry was more complete than Viv Richards or Greg Chappell. 17 cricketing legends chose Barry in their all-time xi including Bradman,Martin Crowe,Richard Hadlee,,Derek Thomson and Shane Warne.58 legends chsoe Sunil Gavaskar including Gooch,Greenidge,Clive Lloyd,Michael Holding,Andy Robers and Greg Chappell.26 chose Grenidge but only 14 chose Sir Jack Hobbs.Suprisngly many Wst Indians including Holding,Roberst and Marshall chose Gavaskar and Greeenidge instead of Barry Richards. compiled from from S.Rajesh of cricinfo The biggest compliment to Barry Richards, in the context of the Legends of Cricket series, is the fact that he finds a place in this elite list despite having played a mere four Test matches. In those four Tests - all in a home series against Australia - Richards gave more than a glimpse of just what international world cricket was missing, but his reputation as one of the very best batsmen to ever play the game was built mostly on his exploits in first-class matches - where he played mainly for Hampshire, Natal and South Australia - and, of course, in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. Richards finished with a first-class tally of 28,358 runs, 80 centuries and an average of 54.74, but even these numbers don't do full justice to the sort of batsman he was. Here's a sample of some of his first-class achievements: Between 1968 and 1976, when Richards played in the English county championship for Hampshire, his average in the competition was in the top 20 in each season. During this period he scored 15,607 first-class runs for the county at an average of 50.51. Three times he carried his bat through a completed innings in first-class cricket, including an instance for Hampshire against Nottinghamshire in 1974, when he scored an unbeaten 225 out of a team total of only 344. His highest first-class score of 356 came in 1970-71 for South Australia against Western Australia, a team whose bowling attack included Dennis Lillee, Graham McKenzie and Tony Lock. Of the 356, 325 came in one day, off a mere 322 balls, as Richards slammed 44 fours and a six. Only five players had scored more than 325 in a day in first-class cricket anywhere in the world, and Richards became the third batsman to score 300 in a day in Australian first-class history. Nine times he scored a century before lunch; five of those were made on the first day of the match. During his time with Natal, he scored four centuries in a season four times. And then, of course, there were Richards' classy performances in World Series Cricket. His knocks in first-class cricket had made him a much sought-after name, and the deal was clinched when he went to Perth to play league cricket for Midland-Guildford in the 1976-77 season. As he confirmed later, money wasn't the main reason he signed on the dotted line: "The money was only incidental to a last opportunity to play in the company of world-class cricketers again." In the first of the three Supertests he played that season for WSC World XI, in Sydney, Richards got starts in both innings but couldn't convert them into huge scores, scoring 57 and 48. Then came a truly magnificent display in the second match, which justified all the hype. Opening the innings with his Hampshire team-mate Gordon Greenidge, Richards scored a wonderful 207, adding 234 for the opening wicket before Greenidge was forced to retire hurt. That brought the other great Richards, Viv, to the wicket, and for the next few hours the Australian bowlers didn't know what hit them. Viv was generally a more destructive batsman, but on this day Barry outshone him, scoring 93 in the next 90 minutes, even as Viv made only 41. When Barry finally fell, the scoreboard read 369 for 1 in 60 eight-ball overs. In the next Supertest, Barry made a half-century in the first innings but fell for a duck in the second as WSC World XI, chasing 272 for victory, fell 41 runs short. He finished the three matches with an aggregate of 388 runs in five innings, second only to Viv's 502. (Click here for more details.) In the next season there was another Richards special, this time in the final of the World Series Supertests: in a tense, low-scoring game, where neither team had scored more than 219, WSC World XI needed to score 224 in the fourth innings. Richards stamped his presence on the chase with an outstanding unbeaten 101; the next-highest score from one of his team-mates in either innings was 44. At 84 for 4 the Australians had a slight edge, but Richards took on Dennis Lillee and Gary Gilmour and ultimately led his team to a five-wicket win. Overall Barry Richards played only five Supertests, but he clearly left his mark - in eight innings he scored two hundreds and two fifties and averaged almost 80, which was easily the highest. Since he wasn't from Australia or West Indies he didn't play as many matches as the others, but that's hardly his fault. Performance of top batsmen in World Series Cricket Batsman Team Matches Innings Runs 100 50 Average Barry Richards World XI 5 8 554 2 2 79.14 Vivian Richards West Indies and World XI 14 25 1281 4 4 55.69 Greg Chappell Australia 14 26 1415 5 4 56.60 David Hookes Australia 12 22 769 1 7 38.45 Clive Lloyd West Indies and World XI 13 21 683 1 3 37.94 Gordon Greenidge West Indies and World XI 13 23 754 1 4 35.90 Ian Chappell Australia 14 27 893 1 5 35.72 However, in the one-dayers, called the International Cup ODIs, Richards wasn't as successful, averaging less than 24 and scoring only two half-centuries in 19 innings. As the table below shows, though, most of the other top players didn't do much better either. Sunil Gavaskar's Test career Period Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Debut series 4 774 154.80 4/ 3 July 1971 to Jan 1975 13 693 27.72 1/ 6 Feb 1975 to Jan 1980 45 4434 59.91 18/ 16 Feb 1980 to Sep 1985 47 2939 40.81 7/ 14 Oct 1985 onwards 16 1282 58.27 4/ 6 Career 125 10,122 51.12 34/ 45 Despite having played during a period when run-scoring was considerably more difficult than it is today, Gavaskar achieved some incredible numbers, becoming the first to get to 10,000 Test runs and 30 centuries. During the two decades in which he played, only six batsmen scored more than 4000 runs at a 50-plus average. Top batsmen between Jan 1970 and Dec 1989 (Qual: 4000 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Javed Miandad 101 7701 57.04 22/ 36 Greg Chappell 87 7110 53.86 24/ 31 Allan Border 111 8488 53.38 23/ 46 Viv Richards 108 7849 51.98 24/ 37 Sunil Gavaskar 125 10,122 51.12 34/ 45 Geoff Boycott 67 5505 50.50 16/ 29 One of the most remarkable aspects of Gavaskar's career was the success he achieved against West Indies, the best team of the 1980s. He scored 13 centuries against them, which is the second-highest for a batsman against one opposition; only Don Bradman, with 19 against England, has more. Bradman's overall rate of scoring hundreds was obviously much better than Gavaskar's, but in this case the rates were comparable: Bradman's 19 came in 37 Tests, while Gavaskar needed 27 matches for his 13 hundreds. Some of his runs against West Indies were scored when the attacks weren't quite as fearsome - in his first series, in 1970-71, West Indies had a spin-heavy attack, while in 1978-79 the best bowlers were away playing in World Series Cricket, but even in the other series Gavaskar had some memorable battles against the West Indies' fast bowlers. Fittingly, some of his most memorable landmarks came against them: in the 1983-84 series in India, he made his 29th hundred, to equal Bradman's record, and then went past it in Chennai. Both were special innings - the first one, in Delhi, came off a mere 94 balls, while the second was a marathon that lasted more than 10 hours and ended a run-drought of 36 runs from his previous five innings. Of the 2749 runs Gavaskar scored against West Indies, almost 30% came at a single venue - the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. He played five Tests there, and only once did he fail, scoring 1 and 32 in the 1983 series. Despite that, he was the Bradman of Port-of-Spain, averaging 99.12 at the ground. He is also one of only four batsmen to score more than 750 Test runs at an overseas venue, and remains the only one to do it since 1950. Among the grounds he played in, only at two venues did he score more runs - the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Best batsmen against West Indies between 1970 and 1990 (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Dennis Amiss 9 1113 74.20 4/ 2 Sunil Gavaskar 27 2749 65.45 13/ 7 Wasim Raja 11 919 57.43 2/ 7 Greg Chappell 17 1400 56.00 5/ 7 Gundappa Viswanath 18 1455 53.88 4/ 7 Ian Chappell 12 997 52.47 3/ 4 Ian Redpath 11 956 47.80 3/ 5 Geoff Boycott 17 1286 44.34 2/ 9 Dilip Vengsarkar 25 1596 44.33 6/ 7 Allan Border 21 1479 42.25 2/ 11 Opening the innings was a tough job in an era when there were plenty of top-class fast bowlers around, but Gavaskar handled the pressures superbly. Apart from the West Indies attack, he played 18 Tests against Imran Khan and 14 against Ian Botham. While both are among the five bowlers who dismissed him most often, Gavaskar had more than his fair share of success against them. He scored four centuries in the 18 Tests he played against Imran - including in each innings of the Karachi Test in 1978, and a memorable unbeaten 127, when he carried the bat through the innings against a rampant Imran in Faisalabad in 1983. (In fact, Gavaskar is one of only two batsmen to score centuries in each innings of a Test three times; Ricky Ponting is the other.) Botham dismissed him eight times, but mostly after he had made reasonable contributions. The bowler who dismissed him cheaply most often was Malcolm Marshall, who too nailed him on eight occasions, seven of them before he touched 25. Of course, the fact that Gavaskar usually faced the first ball of an innings also meant the bowlers had the opportunity to dismiss him off the first ball of the match - this fate befell him three times, with Geoff Arnold, Imran and Marshall the successful bowlers. Bangladesh's Hannan Sarkar is the only batsman to share this record with Gavaskar. Till the turn of the century Gavaskar was one of only six openers to have scored more than 3000 runs at a 50-plus average. (Three batsmen - Matthew Hayden, Graeme Smith and Virender Sehwag - have joined the club since then, which is another stat to suggest that opening the innings has become comparatively easier in the last decade.) Edit/Delete Message

[maniac]

Don't get it.....why is a guy who just played a grand total of 4 tests so overrated? Now people will bring in his exploits in rebel tours and Kerry packer cricket but the bottom line is they don't count. He has played 4 games,All at home against one team......And maybe had one good Tamasha tournament with a grand total from what I can see from the above stats of 5 games. Did he play against WI,PAK,Ind(at home with our spin attack)? Stop rating these people Gavaskar any day