Scorecard of the Day : The Hirwani test match

[The Outsider]

Subject to the Pitch conditions. Although' date=' there is nothing to suggest that Australian side would have been able to handle the pace of tht quality. Tbh, the bowling quality was in shambles during the Aussie era.[/quote'] I'll take exception to that - granted the quick rate of Australian scoring was a result of declining bowling stocks, but rewind to Waugh in '94-'95. That was one of the best exhibition of quality batting against top notch pace bowling.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[putrevus]

I'll take exception to that - granted the quick rate of Australian scoring was a result of declining bowling stocks' date=' but rewind to Waugh in '94-'95. That was one of the best exhibition of quality batting against top notch pace bowling.[/quote'] That 1994-95 West Indies just had two great bowlers although I don't think Walsh was in class of Holding, Garner and Marshall of the 1983 West Indies side which had four bowlers who never gave have any respite to opposing batsmen. Batting wise West Indies as good as 2000 Aussies if not better but bowling is where they will have an edge even with Warne.That foursome were just so fiery and it was like watching unfair contest where the other team had no chance. Indian team in 2001 pretty much beat the best Aussie side ever but I don't think they would have had any such chances against that West Indies attack.

[Khalpat]

That 1994-95 West Indies just had two great bowlers although I don't think Walsh was in class of Holding, Garner and Marshall of the 1983 West Indies side which had four bowlers who never gave have any respite to opposing batsmen. Batting wise West Indies as good as 2000 Aussies if not better but bowling is where they will have an edge even with Warne.That foursome were just so fiery and it was like watching unfair contest where the other team had no chance. Indian team in 2001 pretty much beat the best Aussie side ever but I don't think they would have had any such chances against that West Indies attack.

No I dont think batting wise West Indies of Eighties was any where near to Aussies of 2000. Aussies had Gilchrist coming at number seven. It was the bowling of Windies which gave them the edge. Hayden, Slater, Ponting, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Martin, Gilchrist was a much better batting unit then Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Richards, Gomes, Guss logie, Jeff Dujon. Only Richards was better then the Australian Counterparts.

[Tapioca]

Brillinat test match indeed. One thing that I have always wondered about is why was Shastri overlooked for the captaincy once Vengsarkar stepped down after the 1989 WI tour? Srikanth wasn't even a part of the WI bound test squad (played the ODIs though) but was made the national captain for the Pakistan series overlooking Shastri's credentials.

Srikkanth was part of the test team. He broke his hand during the one day series (Bishop, iirc) that preceded the tests and this put him out of the tour. It turned out to a blessing in disguise. At the end of the series, most of the Indian team stopped over in USA to play some exhibition matches that did not have BCCI's permission. Only four members (Srikkanth, Robin Singh, Karim and someone else) did not make it to this tour. BCCI banned all those who went for a year or so. The players threatened to go to the court and the suspension was revoked. Srikkanth was the only big player who was not involved in this altercation with the board. This may have played a part in him being made the captain. Vengsarkar's captaincy had been much criticised and it was a given that he would be sacked after the series.

[putrevus]

No I dont think batting wise West Indies of Eighties was any where near to Aussies of 2000. Aussies had Gilchrist coming at number seven. It was the bowling of Windies which gave them the edge. Hayden, Slater, Ponting, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Martin, Gilchrist was a much better batting unit then Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Richards, Gomes, Guss logie, Jeff Dujon. Only Richards was better then the Australian Counterparts.

Hayden and slater better than Gordon and Haynes , I don't think so, West Indies line up of Greenidge, Haynes , Richards, Clive the big Cat, Richardson, Gomes and Dujon would stack up with any batting line up in world of any era. Today even Samarveera has better batting avg than Haynes or Greenidge but that does not make him better player than them.

[Cricket Tragic]

Don't mean to digress the thread to Azhar, because I've realized that having a cricketing discussion on his batting is futile as hyper charged teenagers inevitably trash the thread with irrelevant match fixing stuff, but here is one thread discussing his batting, with some posts from me : http://indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=146903

Azhar wasn't a great player (nor was Abbas imo) but he played some truly breathtaking knocks. He had issues against fast bowling (like Abbas) but he played atleast 1 great knock in pretty much every country (barring the WI I guess).

[ravishingravi]

I'll take exception to that - granted the quick rate of Australian scoring was a result of declining bowling stocks' date=' but rewind to Waugh in '94-'95. That was one of the best exhibition of quality batting against top notch pace bowling.[/quote'] With all due respect to Walsh and Ambrose, I think pace quartet was something else. Not letting up. Btw I remember that series. It was my introduction to test cricket.

[Khalpat]

Hayden and slater better than Gordon and Haynes , I don't think so, West Indies line up of Greenidge, Haynes , Richards, Clive the big Cat, Richardson, Gomes and Dujon would stack up with any batting line up in world of any era. Today even Samarveera has better batting avg than Haynes or Greenidge but that does not make him better player than them.

Unfortunately both the teams also had the best bowling attack of their respective time so we can not compare their records against the then best attack but even if we compare the records of Gordon Greenidge against the other good attacks of the time such as Australia and Hayden against South Africa, there is no comparison. Hayden comes up as a winner. The same is the case when you compare Langer with Desmond Haynes. So head to head Hayden and Langer where much better batsman compared to Greenidge and Haynes. Ponting was better than Richi Richardson. No comparison with Sir Viv he was best among all. Steve Waugh better than Clive Lyod. No comparison of Dujjon and Gilchrist. So I dont know how you conclude that Windies batting was at par with Aussies. Yah I admit in bowling there is no comparison, windies were way ahead.

[coffee_rules]

Hirwani was recalled for the 2001 Oz series, but when Waugh and Co were preparing to Play Hirwani, Ganguly got Harbhajan instead.

[Sir john]

poor hirwani misses out kolkata 2001 test due to ganguly :sniffle:

[Sachin=GOD]

poor hirwani misses out kolkata 2001 test due to ganguly :sniffle:

and look what Bhajji did in that Test :winky:

[vvvslaxman]

Having watched the match live i can say it for certain not many teams in the current scenario would have survived against a half decent spin attack. WI didn't have any quality spinners. I can vividly remember the comment Richards made after the match about Hirwani. "One swallow doesn't make a summer". Someone like Warnie would have bowled out most of the sides for 25 to 30 runs on the pitch.

[Raghav_12]

Srikkanth was part of the test team. He broke his hand during the one day series (Bishop, iirc) that preceded the tests and this put him out of the tour. It turned out to a blessing in disguise. At the end of the series, most of the Indian team stopped over in USA to play some exhibition matches that did not have BCCI's permission. Only four members (Srikkanth, Robin Singh, Karim and someone else) did not make it to this tour. BCCI banned all those who went for a year or so. The players threatened to go to the court and the suspension was revoked. Srikkanth was the only big player who was not involved in this altercation with the board. This may have played a part in him being made the captain. Vengsarkar's captaincy had been much criticised and it was a given that he would be sacked after the series.

In those days BCCI used to behave more like PCB in terms of handing over bans and penalties. Sometime around this test match only, they had banned six main indian batsmen from cricket for writing columns in news papers.

[Raghav_12]

Coming back to the Hirwani Test ... it was a WI team that in a long time did not have their main superstars : Marshall, Garner, Roberts and Holding . Also missing were Grenidge and Lloyd . While Holding , Garner had retired in the recent past ... I think Marshall was injured for most of that year as he did not play in the 87 Worldcup. Lloyd and Roberts had left a long time ago. Walsh mentored by Michael Holding did a admirable job in filling his shoes but Patrick Paterson could not live upto the expectations. Walsh was the crowds favourite mainly because of his genial nature and his very sporting gesture in the Worldcup match against Pakistan that WI ended up losing. It was the debut series for Carl Hooper and I remember that hundred he scored in his first ODI. A certain boring commentator and "Cricinfo Expert" also made his debut in this series :--D. It was also the first series that we played after Sunny's retirement and another boring commentator opened the innings in his place :facepalm:. So those of you that still whine and moan about our current squad ... just imagine Kris Srikkant and Arun Lal opening the inngs :hysterical: . The series was supposed to have been a 5 test series but politics and greed lead to cancellation of the Nagpur test in lieu of 2 meaningless ODIs . Kapil Dev had a okish series and it was clear that he had entered the last phase of his career.

I would add "boring batsman" also in the list of adjectives for Sanjay Manjrekar. It was his debut series but he didn't last long. He got his nose fractured from a vicious bouncer of W Benjamin in Kotla test when he had scored just 10. IIRC he didn't make his come back until India's tour of Pakistan in late 89, where he was hugely successful. On the sidenotes, I wonder when we heard last of batsman getting some fracture (from a blow of ball while batting) on cricket pitch? I feel in late 80's or in early 90's it used to be relatively common. From my memory I recall few instances immediately from matches involving India. Sanjay Manjrekar (bouncer from Benjamin), Vengsarkar (some WI bowler in series being discussed here), Maurice Pringle (on bouncer from Srinath), K Srikant on WI tour. Is it only me who feel like that or others also agree?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ultimate_Game]

9. This and the Faislabad test are reasons why I believe the Australian XI of the early 00s would have beaten the WI from the 80s - Shane Warne.

Disagree. Didn't Donald break Hayden's hand when Hayden initially made it to Aus team, or Martyn was made to look like a novice by SA bowling initially, or that Langer couldn't do anything of note when he came into the side first up. All these guys failed when they made it to Test squad in 90s against WI and SA bowling, but flourished when they came back in 2000s when the quality of bowling had declined - no Walsh, Ambrose, Donald, Fanie De Villiers, Brian McMillan, Wasim, Waqar etc. The only decent fast bowlers at the time were McGrath, Pollock and an extremely inconsistent Shoaib who missed more matches than he played, and even Pollock was more of a line & length medium pacer than an out and out fast bowler. I am not adding Bond into the mix as he hardly played Test cricket. With such kind of a track record I have no doubts in my mind that Messers Holding, Roberts, Marshall, Garner would have had the better of Aussie batsmen. You wouldn't have seen Hayden advance down the track and hammer the WI bowlers too often for sure. At the end of the day I trust WI batting lineup of Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Richards, Lloyd, Gomes & Dujon to score more runs against McGrath, Gillespie, Lee/Kasprowicz, Warne than the Aussie lineup of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Mark Waugh, Martyn, Steve Waugh, Gilchrist against Holding, Marshall, Roberts, Garner. Essentially Aussies had two great bowlers in McGrath & Warne whereas WI had 4 great bowlers backed up by Rogers Harper & Richards as spinners.

[Tapioca]

Disagree. Didn't Donald break Hayden's hand when Hayden initially made it to Aus team, or Martyn was made to look like a novice by SA bowling initially, or that Langer couldn't do anything of note when he came into the side first up. All these guys failed when they made it to Test squad in 90s against WI and SA bowling, but flourished when they came back in 2000s when the quality of bowling had declined - no Walsh, Ambrose, Donald, Fanie De Villiers, Brian McMillan, Wasim, Waqar etc. The only decent fast bowlers at the time were McGrath, Pollock and an extremely inconsistent Shoaib who missed more matches than he played, and even Pollock was more of a line & length medium pacer than an out and out fast bowler. I am not adding Bond into the mix as he hardly played Test cricket.

The one time Australia faced sustained, hostile, four-prong fast bowling in the 2000s was in the 2005 Ashes. They cracked not reaching 400 even once. IMO,only Ponting came out of it with some of his reputation in tact

[Sidhoni]

I will carry this great feeling througout my life that I have hit a boundary on the bowling of Narendra Hirwani when I was 12 year of age. The bowler who clean bowled the great Viv Richards. :yay:

:omg: where and when.?

[The Outsider]

The one time Australia faced sustained' date=' hostile, four-prong fast bowling in the 2000s was in the 2005 Ashes. They cracked not reaching 400 even once. IMO,only Ponting came out of it with some of his reputation in tact[/quote'] Tapioca, the 2005 series did not have Waugh - whom I rate as the best Australian batsman since Chappell, and certainly the best against pace bowling. And as a generic reply to some other posts, there is no doubt that the Australian team of early 00s benefitted from not facing top notch pace attacks in general. However, I feel a lot of people here are not giving due weight to the Warne factor. I would say McGrath and Marshall balance themselves out, but WI despite the presence of Holding, Roberts, and Garner really have no answer to Warne's genius. As great as these bowlers were they were simply not in Warne's league. Pakistan in 80s were the only team able to put up a fight against WI - the single biggest and differentiating factor was not Imran's captaincy, but Qadir's bowling. Qadir, though nowhere in the Warne league, was able to bring the kind of variety that the WI batting was simply not used to facing. Similarly, India was the only team to stand up to Australia during their peak and again the reason was related to the leg spinner - the negation of Warne.