Was South Africa the best team of the 1970's decade?How great?

[Harsh Thakor]

When I run down cricket history it is fascinating which teams established supremacy at its ultimate zenith or posessed cricketing talent of phenomenal proportions.At its best West Indies and Australia ruled the cricketing world like an invincible emperor.,running over all opposition.

Pakistan posesssed phenomenal talent and at their best a champion team but could not bind themselves together to consistently match the supremacy of the all-time great teams.

In my opinion one side that was man to man on par with the great Australia or West Indian teams at their best was South Africa of the 1970's.It had the best opening batsmen and amongst the top 5 batsmen of all time in Barry Richards.In Graeme Pollock it had the batsmen with the best test average after Bradman and left-hander in the Gary Sobers class,arguably even more talented.Mike Procter arguably was in all-round cricketing skill the best after Gary Sobers and a more talented fast bowling allrounder than Keith Miller or Imran Khan.Eddie Barlow and Clive Rice were accomplished allrounders,with staggering figures in 1st class cricket.Peter Pollock was genuinely fast and one of the premier pacemen of his day.Van de Bijl was one of the most lethal exponents of fast -medium pace bowling while Garth le Roux posessed devastating speed being almost as quick as Thomson or Holding.It had the best wicketkeeper batsmen since Les Ames in Denis Lindsay or Lee Ervine and a most talented leg-spinner in John Traicos or Denis Hobson later.We must take into acount the great performances of players like Barry Richards in World series supertests toping the batting averages as well as Mike Procter and Garth Le Roux.

The great West Indies or Australian teams of the 1970's did not have a great allrounder ,while the Proteas had 3 of them.South Africa had greater batting depth and were also a better fielding side.No team beaten Australian side ever so comprehensively as South Africa did in 1969-70,not even Clive Lloyd's invincible West Indies team.

The Calypso advantage lay in the hostility of their pace quartet which resembled an army continuously firing cylinders.The best batsmen became victims of their continuous bombardment,including Greg Chappell and ZaheerAbbas .It also had the most explosive middle order batting in line up with Viv Richards,Clive Lloyd and Alvin Kalicharan in addition to a solid opening pair in Greenidge and Haynes.Such batsmen could take the best of bowling attacks to the shreds,giving the opposition the ultimate battering.

Australia posessed the best opening fast bowling pair in Lillee and Thomson.The former was the epitome of fast bowling perfection and hostility while the latter took the bio-dynamics of speed to another zone in cricket .Similary the Chappell brothers were contrasting with Greg the technical perfectionist and run accumulator while Ian although rugged the best of batsmen in a crisis.They were other very accomplished batsmen like Doug Walters,Ross Edwards,Keith Stackpole and talented fast-medium pace bowlers in Max Walker,Geoff Dymock or Bob Massie.From a technical angle its batting was better than West Indies but I do not think they would have equalled the Calypso batting agression.What would give this team a cutting edge was the great tactical skil and motivational ability of skipper Ian Chappell.Umpire Dickie Bird ranked this team led by Ian Chappell as the best ever.To me even if it comprehensively trounced West Indies 5-1 the margin hardly reflected the difference between the 2 sides with umpiring being very partial.

Pakistan had the strongest batting line up of the decade with Majid,Sadiq,Zaheer Javed,Asif Iqbal,Mushtaq,Wasim Raja,Imran Khan etc
They had great pacemen in Imran and Sarafraz and an great allrounder in Mushtaq Muhammad but did not have such a potent bowling attack overall.It must be said that but for some dubious umpiring decisions in the 1st test at Barbados Pakistan would have drawn the rubber in West Indies in a 5test series against a team that had just demolished England by a 3-0 margin the previous season.It also drew with Australia in 1976-77 which was considered the best team in the world.

With a gun on my head I would back South Africa because of the abundance of all-rounders variety in bowling attack,batting depth and fielding standards.Mike Procter would have been the ultimate match -winnner as an allrounder,being the equivalent of Keith Miller ,Ian Botham or Imran Khan as a match winning allround cricketer.I would have backed South Africa to excel on the fast bouncy surfaces of Australia or West Indies or the seaming pitches of England.-,with the vast experience of the players in English county cricket.I would have backed the 1970's team to defeat the later top South African teams after its re-entry in 1991.Still the Proteas never proved it because of their test ban So on the basis of pure performance to me it is the West Indies team of 1979 which comprehensively beat Australia.It is also questionable how South Africa would have fared on the turning sub-continent pitches and whether they would have emulated the victorious post-1991 teams.Another criteria whether South Africa had a skipper who could motivate their players like Clive Lloyd or Ian Chappell.

So the 2 questions are pitting the 1970 South African team against the other titans and the other is the South African team of the 1970's decade against those of that decade.Again man to man South Africa but never proved like West Indies or Australia.

1970's South Africa

Barry Richards
Eddie Barlow
Graeme Pollock (C)
Peter Kirsten
Alan Lamb
Mike Procter
Clive Rice
Lee Ervine (W)
Peter Pollock
Garth Le Roux
Denis Hobson


1970's West Indies
Gordon Greenidge
Roy Fredricks
Viv Richards
Rohan Kanhai
Clive Lloyd(C)
Gary Sobers
Deryk Murray (W)
Andy Roberts
Joel Garner
Michael Holding
Colin Croft


1970's Australia

Ian Redpath
Rick Mckosker
Ian Chappell (C)
Greg Chappell
Alan Border
Doug Walters
Rodney Marsh (W)
Dennis Lillee
Jeff Thomson
Max Walker
Ashley Mallet

Edited January 31, 2020 by Harsh Thakor

[Vilander]

11 hours ago, Harsh Thakor said:

Pakistan had the strongest batting line up of the decade with Majid,Sadiq,Zaheer Javed,Asif Iqbal,Mushtaq,Wasim Raja,Imran Khan etc
They had great pacemen in Imran and Sarafraz and an great allrounder in Mushtaq Muhammad but did not have such a potent bowling attack overall.It must be said that but for some dubious umpiring decisions in the 1st test at Barbados Pakistan would have drawn the rubber in West Indies in a 5test series against a team that had just demolished England by a 3-0 margin the previous season.It also drew with Australia in 1976-77 which was considered the best team in the world.

This threads purpose is to hide this paragraph in the middle lol. Sorry pak was never a great team. Go f yourself ;)

[vvvslaxman]

Was Majid der dussen part of SA? If so . Yes they were the best

Edited January 31, 2020 by vvvslaxman

[vvvslaxman]

43 minutes ago, Vilander said:

This threads purpose is to hide this paragraph in the middle lol. Sorry pak was never a great team. Go f yourself ;)

Soda bottle was the best team lol 

[gazza]

Vvdb I would’ve thought would be in that SA side

[express bowling]

2 hours ago, sarchasm said:

India won twice as many matches with a better W/L ratio in 70s compared to Pakistan.

 

Very very true.

 

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;spanmax1=31+Dec+1979;spanmin1=01+Jan+1970;spanval1=span;template=results;type=team

[express bowling]

Sarfraz Nawaz is such an over-rated bowler

 

Averaged almost 33 with a SR of 71+ in that pace bowling era.

 

And with Imran as pacer partner and Shakoor Rana and Khizer Hyat to help him.

Edited January 31, 2020 by express bowling

[Vijy]

On 1/31/2020 at 5:09 AM, express bowling said:

Sarfraz Nawaz is such an over-rated bowler

 

Averaged almost 33 with a SR of 71+ in that pace bowling era.

 

And with Imran as pacer partner and Shakoor Rana and Khizer Hyat to help him.

and bottles.