for cricket fans - dennis lillee

[Ken Gargett]

whether or not you think that DK Lillee was the greatest fast bowler ever to bowl a ball (and if you do not think that then you are wrong), i do not know too many who do not think that he had the greatest bowling action the game has seen. i still get goosebumps watching it.'

for younger cricket fans and those who want to relive the glory days, this short clip will show you the action, while garry sobers talks about it all, and then an amazing morning where lillee took 8-29 - in a session (actually, he took nine that session as australia sent the world back in and he got roy fredricks a second time, i think - surely the only time in a test where a player has been out to the same bolwer twice in a session?). against a collection of the greatest bats of the era - sobers, fredricks, gavaskar, greig, lloyd...

i remember it as tho yesterday. brilliant stuff.  

 

[Chucko8]

Amazing figures for an entire test match, let alone a single session

[99call]

Great post Ken, 

There is something unique about Cricketers recalling their careers,  they all seem to have photographic memories of, every over, every single.  

[Webbo]

Never seen this, thanks. Superb bowler.  Lillee is the only non West Indies quick in my all time XI (players i have seen in my lifetime, I'm in my mid 50s)

[Ken Gargett]

15 hours ago, Webbo said:

Never seen this, thanks. Superb bowler.  Lillee is the only non West Indies quick in my all time XI (players i have seen in my lifetime, I'm in my mid 50s)

wasim akram would be very hard to keep out. mcgrath perhaps in the world 2nd 11. i am talking proper cricket - tests. 

for me, the really hard position to fill in a world eleven are the openers - england has three leading contenders with hutton, hobbs and sutcliffe. gavaskar, hayden, greenidge. 

probably sutcliffe and hobbs? 

bradman

pollock

smith s. 

sobers

gilchrist

warne

marshall

lillee

akram

(holding - not sure how you keep him out, perhaps instead of marshall). 

other batsmen - tendulkar, headley, kohli, ponting. i have kept people in position, as in, i have not shoehorned another bat into the opening spot. 

as an old keeper, i am strongly of the view that the best keeper should get the gig, with one exception. gilchrist could win a game with the bat so quickly that he demands a spot. a very good but not great keeper. as a pure keeper, tallon or healy, knott next. 

i reckon i'd back this team to beat pretty much anything anyone wants to put up. 

 

 

[Ken Gargett]

ps - forgot barry richards. perhaps hobbs and richards as openers? toss a coin. 

[Ken Gargett]

and i forgot curtley ambrose. he'd challenge akram. 

[Webbo]

I started watching around 74 so these are all from that era onwards that I saw play  so not my all time XI my post 74 players only one  

1.Boycott 

2. Greenidge

3. Richards

4. Tendulkar

5. Smith

6. Botham

7. Knott

8. Warne

9. Lilllee

10. Holding

11.  Marshall

[Ken Gargett]

2 hours ago, Webbo said:

I started watching around 74 so these are all from that era onwards that I saw play  so not my all time XI my post 74 players only one  

1.Boycott 

2. Greenidge

3. Richards

4. Tendulkar

5. Smith

6. Botham

7. Knott

8. Warne

9. Lilllee

10. Holding

11.  Marshall

i spoke to a former aussie test keeper a while back - he was around the knott time and not marsh - and he made the interesting point that today's keepers were so much better than previous eras because of training, regular playing, fitness, diet, coaching etc. his era was more fun and then on the piss 7 nights a week. i was really surprised how adamant he was that today's keepers are that much better than he and his era.

tallon i never saw (although as my mum regularly reminds me, she used to play with him on her verandah when she was a kid - she was originally from bundaberg and so was tallon and he'd stay with the family when playing in brizzy). bradman always said tallon was streets ahead of anyone he ever saw. i remember talking to some older cricketers years ago and they were always surprised that today's keepers dived so much. they all said they never saw tallon dive. he never needed to. was always there. sadly he became a hopeless alcoholic in later life. 

i think healy was at least as good as knott - personally i think better, but understand if others would go for knott - i would argue that keeping to shane warne would have been a wonderful but extremely difficult thing to do (as an old keeper i would dearly have loved the opp to keep to warne for a few overs) but to do it so well was extraordinary.. but then as i said earlier, i don't think gilchrist was in the league of healy or knott but what he could do with the bat made him a certainty. 

even in a 70s and later side, i can't see justification for botham at 6. not sure but he rarely batted that high for england from memory. perhaps a mix of 6 and 7?  sure, a couple of extraordinary innings but he was not that good as a bat for that spot. good bowler but if you go kailis, you get a much better bat and a bowler pretty close. can't argue the other bowlers. botham never got a ton against the windies of that era which said a lot. 

i know it is sacrilegious not to have tendulkar in these sides and he was a great bat but if you take out the runs he scored v bangladesh and zimbabwe (sides he played way more than the other top bats in consideration), his average drops to 50. we'd all love a test avergae of 50 (his was only 53 overall). i know more to cricket than averages - voges finished over 60 and no one is thinking of him. lara, miandad, ponting, greg chappell, dravid, kohli, waugh, plenty of others all in contention but have no real problems with tendulkar and richards.

greenidge fair enough but boycott was simply too selfish for me to consider him for anything like this. and his average leaves him short as well. boycott played for boycott and bugger anyone else. if your side needed quick runs, you can bet boycott would not have been interested if he thought it might cost him. lot of people still think boycott's "issues" which caused him to pull out of the 75/76 tour were nothing more than concerns that lillee and thommo would expose him. and england probably never needed him more than they did that tour. sangakarra has an average of nearly 10 better than boycott. hayden plenty more as well.

all that said, i still think the first team i put up would give anything you or i could put together from the 70s a thumping. 

 

[Webbo]

8 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

i spoke to a former aussie test keeper a while back - he was around the knott time and not marsh - and he made the interesting point that today's keepers were so much better than previous eras because of training, regular playing, fitness, diet, coaching etc. his era was more fun and then on the piss 7 nights a week. i was really surprised how adamant he was that today's keepers are that much better than he and his era.

tallon i never saw (although as my mum regularly reminds me, she used to play with him on her verandah when she was a kid - she was originally from bundaberg and so was tallon and he'd stay with the family when playing in brizzy). bradman always said tallon was streets ahead of anyone he ever saw. i remember talking to some older cricketers years ago and they were always surprised that today's keepers dived so much. they all said they never saw tallon dive. he never needed to. was always there. sadly he became a hopeless alcoholic in later life. 

i think healy was at least as good as knott - personally i think better, but understand if others would go for knott - i would argue that keeping to shane warne would have been a wonderful but extremely difficult thing to do (as an old keeper i would dearly have loved the opp to keep to warne for a few overs) but to do it so well was extraordinary.. but then as i said earlier, i don't think gilchrist was in the league of healy or knott but what he could do with the bat made him a certainty. 

even in a 70s and later side, i can't see justification for botham at 6. not sure but he rarely batted that high for england from memory. perhaps a mix of 6 and 7?  sure, a couple of extraordinary innings but he was not that good as a bat for that spot. good bowler but if you go kailis, you get a much better bat and a bowler pretty close. can't argue the other bowlers. botham never got a ton against the windies of that era which said a lot. 

i know it is sacrilegious not to have tendulkar in these sides and he was a great bat but if you take out the runs he scored v bangladesh and zimbabwe (sides he played way more than the other top bats in consideration), his average drops to 50. we'd all love a test avergae of 50 (his was only 53 overall). i know more to cricket than averages - voges finished over 60 and no one is thinking of him. lara, miandad, ponting, greg chappell, dravid, kohli, waugh, plenty of others all in contention but have no real problems with tendulkar and richards.

greenidge fair enough but boycott was simply too selfish for me to consider him for anything like this. and his average leaves him short as well. boycott played for boycott and bugger anyone else. if your side needed quick runs, you can bet boycott would not have been interested if he thought it might cost him. lot of people still think boycott's "issues" which caused him to pull out of the 75/76 tour were nothing more than concerns that lillee and thommo would expose him. and england probably never needed him more than they did that tour. sangakarra has an average of nearly 10 better than boycott. hayden plenty more as well.

all that said, i still think the first team i put up would give anything you or i could put together from the 70s a thumping. 

 

I thought about Kallis but could not leave out Botham as he could just win matches when needed, certainly there are better bats and bowlers than him purely on ability but he had that undefinable extra. What he did to your teams (not just in 1981) was a force of nature and regardless of his skills every team was happy if he did not play against them.  At 5 I was unsure about Tendulkar and could have gone for Ponting who I regard highly.

Keeper was easy for me as I thought of Gilchrist but I want the best glovesman, if my keeper needs to make runs with that batting line up god help us. I don't doubt what your mate says about today's keepers but for me the likes of Knott (and others at that time) just made keeping like an art form with the ball melting into their gloves. Keeping against Warne is the key and that is where Healy has the advantage but Knott kept to Underwood on drying wickets which I think was equally difficult so I think he would have coped with SW.

Boycott? I'm a Yorkshireman and therefore there is no other choice than Sir Geoff.

The others I had to leave out nit mentioned yet  that pained me included, Akram, Hadlee, Pietersson.

Who would be my captain, I have no idea...