Which decades were the most competitive in International cricket?

[pensionplan]

India was useless away? We won a Test series in England in 1986 after a long gap and we never won a meaningful away series after that again till well into the 2000's when guys like RD and VVS came along. Plus we won the cricket WC in 1983 that was away too. The 1985 B & H mini WC cup win the Test series in 1986 in Australia where India were robbed of a Test series win by some rain at Melbourne and by some really blatant umpiring mistakes at Sydney stole the series away from us. Also in my recollection in the 79-88 time frame despite WI's being a class apart rest of the teams be it England' date=' Australia, India, Pakistan and NZ were all very good and that created a lot of exciting Test match cricket with great players all around that had some very good bowling sides. So there was no shortage of competitive cricket in that time frame IMO. It all depends on how one looks at a particular period and add up things.[/quote']

Maybe I am biased coz I haven't seen lot of Test cricket in the early 80s...started watching only from 85 so before that what happened was only thru reading. But thr out the 80s the WI were super and it did not make for much competitive or high quality cricket. Well ya it was competitive...more like Ban v/s Zim type competitive. I mean come on an Indian team could challenge Aus in Aus. We lost to SL in SL. England couldn't beat us at home. We lost Tests to England at home. Ind-Pak was the worst Test cricket ever played in the history of Test cricket...bloody ultra-mega-super-duper defensive cricket it was. Among all this crap when WI would enter' date=' people just gave them their chopped off necks on an altar.[/quote']We all have our biases that aside I do not think the world beating Australian teams of the 00's would have been a match to the early 80's WI'an teams. Four of Marshall, Holding, Garner, Roberts, Croft would have made it awfully tough for Waugh brothers, Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Taylor, Gilchrist type line up and on the contrary WI's batting line up would have comfortably handled McGrath, Warne threat just as they did with the Lillee, Pascoe, Thommo type attacks or Imran, Wasim attacks or Hadlee and co attacks or Wills, Botham and co attacks or Kapil and spinners attacks. So just because WI was winning easy does not mean the other teams were Ban/Zim competitive. Come on the quartet of Imran, Botham, Kapil, Hadlee whose peak years were in the 78-88 span when WI's were the best played for other teams and so did a ton of others great bowlers and batsman. So yes the WI'ans team with the 4 pronged attack of that span would have pretty much done the same thing to any of the 90's and 00's teams. Let us get that straight. And also by the way if I start to write about Indian abroad struggles of the 90's abroad then it looks much worse than the 80's performance or for that matter of the 90's English struggles versus Australians and many such scenarios. That is not the domain only of the teams of the 80's playing the WI'ans.

[Nirvanam]

in some ways Sachin is the last of those legendary heroes... sad but true. his species have retired... warney, lara, murali, mcgrath... and there are phoneys like ponting...

come on Pawning is no phoney...I have been critical of him in the past and he is definitely not in the class of Sachin and Lara...well, but which other batsman in the rest of test cricket history is in their class other than Bradman, anyway...lol! However Pawning is Australia's best batsman after Bradman. I wish we had lot more footage of Bradman we could have known exactly why he was so much ahead of his peer Hammond. But Pawning is definitely an ATG. He has a weakness when it comes to high quality spin but then all other batsmen have one weakness or the other except of course the 3 virtuosos and gavaskar. By the way, any of you remember Gavva having a weakness? By the time I started watching him it was already 85 and I have seen him play some real good, fast knocks too. So skill wise was he any lesser than Sachin and Lara?

[Nirvanam]

We all have our biases that aside I do not think the world beating Australian teams of the 00's would have been a match to the early 80's WI'an teams. Four of Marshall, Holding, Garner, Roberts, Croft would have made it awfully tough for Waugh brothers, Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Taylor, Gilchrist type line up and on the contrary WI's batting line up would have comfortably handled McGrath, Warne threat just as they did with the Lillee, Pascoe, Thommo type attacks or Imran, Wasim attacks or Hadlee and co attacks or Wills, Botham and co attacks or Kapil and spinners attacks. So just because WI was winning easy does not mean the other teams were Ban/Zim competitive. Come on the quartet of Imran, Botham, Kapil, Hadlee whose peak years were in the 78-88 span when WI's were the best played for other teams and so did a ton of others great bowlers and batsman. So yes the WI'ans team with the 4 pronged attack of that span would have pretty much done the same thing to any of the 90's and 00's teams. Let us get that straight. And also by the way if I start to write about Indian abroad struggles of the 90's abroad then it looks much worse than the 80's performance or for that matter of the 90's English struggles versus Australians and many such scenarios. That is not the domain only of the teams of the 80's playing the WI'ans.

Ya maybe WI 79-86 would have beaten Aus 99-06 in a 5 Test series played in Aus. However at Sydney, Adelaide Aus would've managed to win one and draw one. I think a 3-1 victory to WI 79-86 is kinda realistic. The real difference between 80s and 90s was that there weren't many good bowling teams in the 80s. Apart from WI and late 80s Pak no other team could put together 2 very good bowlers and 1 decent Test quality bowler in their line ups. All the great talent seemed to be concentrated in WI during that decade. The great talents were very few in the other teams so you saw them perform acts of individual brilliance like the 4 Great ARs, Gavva, Miandad, etc. But as a team until about 1988 there wasn't any team that could challenge WI. Whereas in 90s almost all sides had very good bowling attacks and hence more results too. India was irresistible at home..Kumble, Raju, Srinath world class attack in India. Pak had Ws who were good everywhere, Aus had McWarne, NZ had very decent attacks in Cairns, Nash, Doull, etc. England had good attacks too...Malcolm, Gough, Caddick. Saffers had amazing amazing amazing attacks..Donald, Pollock, Ntini, McMillan, DeVilliers, Craig Mathews, Meyrick Pringle. Windies had Walsh, Ambrose, Bishop, Benjamin, Patterson, Cuffy...all decent bowlers. All the ATGs of the 90s...the bowlers especially peaked in the mid 90s between 94 and 98/99. That is one of the reasons why Sachin and Lara deservedly are in a different universe of batsmanship (edit - and if u are Outsider or PK, it was an ultra super duper Vedic universe at that). They routinely faced very good, on the prowl type bowling attacks and bested them. It was the best time to watch cricket man! Such auspicious alignment of the stars did not happen in the 70s and 80s although the number of stars themselves were kinda equal in all 3 decades.

[pensionplan]

Ya maybe WI 79-86 would have beaten Aus 99-06 in a 5 Test series played in Aus. However at Sydney, Adelaide Aus would've managed to win one and draw one. I think a 3-1 victory to WI 79-86 is kinda realistic. The real difference between 80s and 90s was that there weren't many good bowling teams in the 80s. Apart from WI and late 80s Pak no other team could put together 2 very good bowlers and 1 decent Test quality bowler in their line ups. All the great talent seemed to be concentrated in WI during that decade. The great talents were very few in the other teams so you saw them perform acts of individual brilliance like the 4 Great ARs, Gavva, Miandad, etc. But as a team until about 1988 there wasn't any team that could challenge WI. Whereas in 90s almost all sides had very good bowling attacks and hence more results too. India was irresistible at home..Kumble, Raju, Srinath world class attack in India. Pak had Ws who were good everywhere, Aus had McWarne, NZ had very decent attacks in Cairns, Nash, Doull, etc. England had good attacks too...Malcolm, Gough, Caddick. Saffers had amazing amazing amazing attacks..Donald, Pollock, Ntini, McMillan, DeVilliers, Craig Mathews, Meyrick Pringle. Windies had Walsh, Ambrose, Bishop, Benjamin, Patterson, Cuffy...all decent bowlers. All the ATGs of the 90s...the bowlers especially peaked in the mid 90s between 94 and 98/99. That is one of the reasons why Sachin and Lara deservedly are in a different universe of batsmanship (edit - and if u are Outsider or PK, it was an ultra super duper Vedic universe at that). They routinely faced very good, on the prowl type bowling attacks and bested them. It was the best time to watch cricket man! Such auspicious alignment of the stars did not happen in the 70s and 80s although the number of stars themselves were kinda equal in all 3 decades.

Admittedly you have not watched enough cricket between mid-70's to late 80's. That is all I got to say when I see the list of bowlers you got in there from the 90's and brand those attacks good and suggest the attacks from the 80's barring WI'es was not good. Hardly the case. Also Lara and Tendulkar have not faced any better bowling than say a batsman like a Richards or a Chappell or a Gower or a Border or a Miandad or a Gavaskar. So no they are not in a different universe due to the fact they faced routinely better attacks. Actually in my personal opinion players like Miandad, Border and Gower have faced better attacks overall in their career's in comparison to Tendulkar and Lara. So while you can believe in what you want to believe others can do the same too especially if they have watched both the era's and know the players well based on what they have watched first hand.

[Nirvanam]

Admittedly you have not watched enough cricket between mid-70's to late 80's. That is all I got to say when I see the list of bowlers you got in there from the 90's and brand those attacks good and suggest the attacks from the 80's barring WI'es was not good. Hardly the case. Also Lara and Tendulkar have not faced any better bowling than say a batsman like a Richards or a Chappell or a Gower or a Border or a Miandad or a Gavaskar. So no they are not in a different universe due to the fact they faced routinely better attacks. Actually in my personal opinion players like Miandad' date=' Border and Gower have faced better attacks overall in their career's in comparison to Tendulkar and Lara. So while you can believe in what you want to believe others can do the same too especially if they have watched both the era's and know the players well based on what they have watched first hand.[/quote']I think you did not understand my stance properly. What I said was that in total numbers, the amount of greats in the 70s is more or less the same as the amount of greats in the 90s. The only difference is in the duration and time of peak performance. While in the 70s the individual peaks of the ATGs did not all coincide during a particular period, in the 90s many of the ATGs peaked at the same time. So when you look at the careers of individual batsmen...the 70s and 90s batsmen have faced almost equally deadly bowlers. The 70s greats faced those deadly bowlers at their deadly heights at various different points in the 70s but the 90s fellows faced their deadly bowlers at their deadly heights around the same 3-4 yrs in the 90si i.e. mid 90s. For ex, Gavaskar faced Roberts and Holding at their peaks in the mid-late 70s...he faced Underwood at peak in the early 70s, he faced Hadlee at his peak in the 80s, Imran at his peak in the early 80s, Marshall in the early-mid 80s. Whereas Sachin faced Donald at his peak in the mid 90s, Walsh and Ambrose in the mid 90s, McGrath, Warne in the mid 90s, Wasim, Waqar in the mid 90s (ODI). All these fellows peaked during the mid 90s and fate had it that Sachin and Lara were the batsmen who bested all of them during those 3-4 years when they all peaked! Fate did not give a similar chance to Gavaskar, Richards, and Chappell...it gave them a chance at different points of time over the decade.

[pensionplan]

I think you did not understand my stance properly. What I said was that in total numbers, the amount of greats in the 70s is more or less the same as the amount of greats in the 90s. The only difference is in the duration and time of peak performance. While in the 70s the individual peaks of the ATGs did not all coincide during a particular period, in the 90s many of the ATGs peaked at the same time. So when you look at the careers of individual batsmen...the 70s and 90s batsmen have faced almost equally deadly bowlers. The 70s greats faced those deadly bowlers at their deadly heights at various different points in the 70s but the 90s fellows faced their deadly bowlers at their deadly heights around the same 3-4 yrs in the 90si i.e. mid 90s. For ex, Gavaskar faced Roberts and Holding at their peaks in the mid-late 70s...he faced Underwood at peak in the early 70s, he faced Hadlee at his peak in the 80s, Imran at his peak in the early 80s, Marshall in the early-mid 80s. Whereas Sachin faced Donald at his peak in the mid 90s, Walsh and Ambrose in the mid 90s, McGrath, Warne in the mid 90s, Wasim, Waqar in the mid 90s (ODI). All these fellows peaked during the mid 90s and fate had it that Sachin and Lara were the batsmen who bested all of them during those 3-4 years when they all peaked! Fate did not give a similar chance to Gavaskar, Richards, and Chappell...it gave them a chance at different points of time over the decade.

Nothing you said here remotely justifies that Lara or Tendulkar faced better attacks in the 90's than a Border or a Gower or a Miandad consistently faced during the late 70's thru the most part of the 80's . You are all over the place trying to explain your stance.

[Nirvanam]

Nothing you said here remotely justifies that Lara or Tendulkar faced better attacks in the 90's than a Border or a Gower or a Miandad consistently faced during the late 70's thru the most part of the 80's . You are all over the place trying to explain your stance.

Well that's just an opinion based on my own unique biases/criteria of how I perceive the relative greatness of batsmen...don't see what is there to justify over there. Everyone has his unique biases/criteria to judge greatness...nothing wrong with that, innit?

[jibranpatel15]

the decade has to be the 90's as we saw in the WC played that decade was devided by 3 teams and all other teams were competetive as well.