Ray Lindwall Australian Premier Fast Bowler 1946–60

Australian Ray Lindwall raised the standard for fast bowlers in the ten years after the Second World War. Ray Lindwall represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946-47 to 1960. Raymond Russell Lindwall born on October 3, 1921, in Sydney and died on 23 June 1996 at the age of 74. Lindwall approached like a graceful robust wave, erupted a quick burst of speed and the positioning the arms at 45 degrees, and legs spread in the long stretch of the final stride.

When he was 11 years old, he watched the body line series, when English bowlers terrifying Australian bowler with beamer with wide eyes and arrogant way. At that time, he decided to become a fast bowler. He was not a flamboyant character like Keith Miller, but very much admired by people due to his phenomenal records.

He was a terrific athlete who could have excelled at several other sports had he not chosen cricket. Ray Lindwall could have easily been a rugby league international player when he ran 100 yards in just 10.6 seconds. The mechanics of his run-up and delivery were widely admired. Fred Trueman, who, like Richie Benaud (writing in the The 1970s), rated Lindwall the finest fast bowler he had seen, described Lindwall’s approach to the wicket as the most rhythmical of all.

Genuinely fast bowlers of earlier eras had rarely maintained their speed and menace for long in Test cricket but Lindwall did. No out-and-out quick bowler had previously taken even 100 Test wickets. He was not only becoming the first to 100 wickets but was the first past 200 as well and by the time of his last match in 1960 had 228 to his name (exactly half of them against England).

At that time only the fast-medium Alec Bedser of England, with 236, had taken more test wickets. Ray Lindwall in full cry was reckoned to be one of the great sights of the era. His action was not without its impurities. His arm was not as high as it might have been at the point of release, but this slanginess helped him make the ball leave the right-hander very late in the flight.

Once, Trevor Bailey said that he never encountered a genuine fast bowler who moved the ball in the air as much or as late as Lindwall. He further adds that he was also the most devastating exploiter of the new ball. By way of variation, Lindwall brought the ball back in off the seam.

Ray Lindwall’s ‘drag’, a method by which bowlers took advantage of the back-foot no-ball rule then in operation (no-balls were measured by where the back foot landed rather than the front foot) to steal some extra distance before release, was controversial but also perfectly common.

It gave batsmen less time to react than they have under today’s laws – and in Lindwall’s case, you needed every split second available. Ray Lindwall was the most feared fast bowler in the world in the later 1940s. With Keith Miller as his new-ball partner, Australia knew they had a combination of bowlers of rare power and menace, and neither of them was reluctant to use the bouncer.

They first came together properly in the Ashes series of 1946–47 – they had appeared in one Test before that against New Zealand but did not open the bowling – and Lindwall’s seven for 63 in the first innings of the final Test in questionable light was a chilling portent of torments to come.

When the sides met again in England 18 months later Lindwall made the new ball count in almost every innings and finished with 27 wickets at just 19.62 apiece, even though he played only a small part in one Test because of a strain. He bowled more than half his victims and when he shattered England’s first innings at The Oval with figures of six for 20 – England all out for 52, still their lowest total at home – and followed up with three for 50 in the second, seven of his nine victims had their stumps hit.

Bradman’s ‘Invincible’ won the Test series 4–0 and went through the entire tour unbeaten, Lindwall taking 86 wickets at 15.68 in all matches. The following year the South Africans prepared for the arrival of Lindwall and Miller by practicing against baseball pitchers, although as it turned out Lindwall was not at his fastest because of a groin problem.

He still took 12 wickets in the series at an average of 20.66 and claimed another 15 at 22.93 when England was trounced in Australia in 1950–51. It was then the turn of the West Indians to endure Lindwall and Miller on their own pitches. Lindwall captured 21 wickets to Miller’s 20. So dependable was his action and physique that Lindwall did not have.  

What could be remotely described as a bad series with the ball between making his debut in 1946 and the tour of England in 1953. Hence, during that time his average never rose above 23. So accurate was he that even if he did not take wickets, he rarely went for runs.

Ray Lindwall suffered a dip when England regained the Ashes in Australia in 1954–55 but within weeks was back among the wickets in the Caribbean, where he also scored one of his two Test centuries. Lindwall was a more than useful lower-order batsman although in what was generally a strong and successful side – Australia lost only nine of the 61 Tests in which he appeared – runs were rarely needed from him.

The hundred he scored in the third Test of the 1946–47 series at Adelaide made good what was already a strong position, but nevertheless the way he struck the ball was a fair indication of his class; coming off 90 balls. Although, it was at the time the second fastest scored by an Australian.

As a youngster, Lindwall was inspired by watching Harold Larwood bowl at Sydney during the Bodyline series and there was perhaps something similar in their styles. Lindwall was lucky in his mentors. He played his early cricket for the St George club in Sydney under the captaincy of Bill O’Reilly and Bradman took him under his wing during his first tour to England in 1948.

Wally Hammond ! England Giant Batsman 1927–1947

Wally Hammond was a giant among England cricketers. Their premier batsman in the period between Jack Hobbs and Len Hutton while offering them so much more besides. He was a superb slip catcher and a highly able fast-medium bowler who fared best in Tests on the harder overseas pitches.

Tall and strong, he could take great workloads in his stride and be rarely out of the action for long. Walter Reginald Wally Hammond born on 19 June 1903 and his first-class career lasted from 1920 to 1951.

There were similarities in style with Jacques Kallis as a Test all-rounder. Because both were bowlers who could have accomplished more if their batting had not taken priority. Both were natural fielders, but wonderful technician though Kallis was. Wally Hammond was certainly the more imperious, attacking and influential batsman.

England never lost when Hammond scored a hundred, as he did on 22 occasions – a national record until Alastair Cook overhauled him in 2012. He also lost only one of six series as England captain after giving up his professional status to take on the job. Hammond was not lucky though.

The only son of a Royal Artillery major who was killed in the First World War, his career stalled for two years over a battle for his services between Kent, the county of his birth, and Gloucestershire, the county he ended up serving for 20 seasons. The serious illness cost him a season at a crucial stage in his development and then when he did establish himself as the world’s best batsman. He was along coming a diminutive Australian called Don Bradman to steal the position from him.

When he led England on a tour of Australia after the Second World War, the team were not ready to resume serious Test cricket and he himself was 43 years old and not fully fit. But unsurprisingly his team took a hammering and he bowed out from international cricket a loser.

His retirement in South Africa, he lost most of his money in bad investments and spent his final years struggling with ill-health following a car accident before dying in Natal in 1965, aged 62. He had a reputation, too, as a somewhat moody and uncommunicative person. Which was sadly at odds with the cricket he played because teammates, opponents and those watching from the stands all testified to the glory of Hammond in full flow.

He was a batsman of the classical, majestic school,’ Bradman said. ‘Of lovely athletic build, light as a ballet dancer on his feet, always beautifully balanced Bert Oldfield, who stood behind the stumps for many of Hammond’s great innings against Australia, described him as ‘the perfect batting artist’. Tom Goddard, a Gloucestershire and England teammate, reckoned he was even better than Bradman.

Once Don Bradman said he never saw anyone so strong on the off-side as Hammond and it was for his cover-driving that Wally Hammond was best remembered. There is a celebrated photograph of him cover-driving, his trademark handkerchief hanging out of his right pocket.

In his early years, he was a particularly aggressive and adventurous batsman. Therefore, England’s demands meant that he had to rein himself in and grind out the big scores then needed to win Test matches in Australia, where games were played to a finish.

On the 1928–29 tour, which England won 4–1, Hammond contributed a then-record 905 runs. He batted seven and a half hours for 251 at Sydney, another six and three-quarter hours for 200 at Melbourne, and then spent a total of almost 12 hours at the crease in Adelaide while scoring 119 in the first innings and 177 in the second.

Wally Hammond appetite for runs was immense – what you might call Bradman que if it were not a phrase that would have annoyed him. He scored seven double-centuries in Tests (only Bradman with 12, Kumar Sangakkara with 11, and Brian Lara with nine have made more) and no one has scored more doubles against Australia (Hammond made four to Lara’s three, while Graeme Pollock, VVS Laxman, and Sachin Tendulkar scored two apiece).

In all first-class cricket, Hammond’s 36 scores of 200 or more has only been beaten by Bradman (37). His 336 not out against New Zealand at Auckland in 1933 was briefly the world Test record score before being beaten by Len Hutton’s 364 in 1938 and while the bowling may not have been the strongest. He made his runs at a tremendous rate, his whole innings occupying less than five and a half hours.

In all Tests, spanning 85 matches from 1927 to 1947, he scored 7,249 at an average of 58.45. He held the Test run-scoring record from 1937 until 1970 and of the 39 batsmen who, as of 1 January 2015, have scored more Test runs, only Sangakkara has done so at a higher average. These are seriously impressive figures, but he did experience some difficult times against Australia.

Moreover, notably in England in 1930 and 1934 when he ended up dropping down the order from his favored number 3 position in the hope of rediscovering form. Australia during his time possessed two great leg-spin and googly bowlers in Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly (who dismissed Hammond ten times in Tests) and they found a way to expose his relative weakness on the leg side. Even if he scored runs, they made sure he scored them more slowly than before.

It is hard to tell what extent he also suffered from the presence in the opposition of Bradman – whose 974 runs in just seven innings in the 1930 series obliterated Hammond’s 1928–29 record – but it was undeniably the case that if England were to compete with Australia, on a regular basis, they needed runs from their star performer. From 1930 onwards, Hammond outscored Bradman in only five of the 27 Tests in which they opposed each other – and in one of those Bradman was injured and did not bat.

But it would be easy to overstate these problems. Hammond added three more centuries in Australia to the four he scored there on his first tour, the last of them a match-winning 231 not out at Sydney in 1936–37, while his 240 at Lord’s in 1938 saw him at his majestic best. Nor did he reserve his best for international cricket.

Wally Hammond maintained a remarkably high standard in county cricket as well. He was dominating the national batting averages throughout the 1930s and regularly finishing among the leading catchers. That said, he perhaps touched a peak in 1928 during his first home summer as an England cricketer when in all first-class cricket he scored 2,825 runs, took 84 wickets and held 78 catches.

During Cheltenham Week in August he scored 139 and 143 and took ten catches against Surrey before following up with 80 runs and 15 wickets (nine for 23 in the first innings) against Worcestershire. Neither his catches for the season nor his catches in the match against Surrey have ever been beaten by an outfielder. Of the seven batsmen who have topped 50,000 first-class runs.

He took 732 first-class wickets at an average of 30.58. As an allrounder, he stands second only to Garry Sobers. He captained England side in 20 test matches, and winning four, losing three, and drawing 13.Wally Hammond’s average of 56.10 is clearly the highest, Herbert Sutcliffe standing next on 52.02, while only Hobbs and Patsy Hendren have managed more first-class hundreds than Hammond’s 167. His 819 catches put him fourth on the all-time list among non-keepers.

He represented England side in 85 test matches, scoring 7,249 runs at an average of 58.45 including 22 centuries, 24 fifties, with the best score of 336*. Overall in all first-class matches, Wally Hammond played 634 matches, scoring 50,551runs at 56.10 including 167 hundred, 185 fifties, 732 wickets, with the best of 9 for 23. These records clearly describe his caliber in the cricket world. He was a true English legend. 

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Richie Benaud Australia, 1952 – 1964

Richie Benaud, the Australian leg spinner displayed flair in everything he did. Whether it was aggressive batting, intelligent and varied leg-spin, brilliant close catching, instinctive and positive captaincy. Even though insightful TV commentary, which is probably what most people, too young to have seen him play for Australia, know him for.

Richie Benaud born on 6 October 1930 at Penrith New South Wales in a cricketing family. His younger brother John Benaud played 3 Test for Australia from 1972-73 to 1973-74. His father Louis, was a leg spinner, playing grade cricket in Australia. Richie was mostly inspired by his father's leg-spin abilities. He has been famous for more than 60 years and what underpinned everything with him throughout that time was a deep love and understanding of the game.

If he was to be remembered for just one thing, it perhaps ought to be leadership. Richie Benaud more than anyone led Australian cricket out of the doldrums in the late 1950s. His all-round cricket before he formally took over the national captaincy in 1958. He, along with his opposite number Sir Frank Worrell, did a great deal to revive general interest in Test cricket in a bold way. They conducted what turned into a truly epic series between Australia and West Indies in 1960–61.

That famous series started with the celebrated tied Test in Brisbane in which Benaud’s run-out for 52 with seven runs needed proved a major turning point during the game’s climax. Tactically he was razor-sharp, while never losing sight of the fact that a captain could realistically. The only hope to control so much of what happened during a game spanning several days and many hours. One of his most famous sayings was! “Captaincy is 90 percent luck and 10 percent skill. But don’t try it without the 10 percent.”

He certainly had that 10 percent and, like Mike Brearley, appeared to possess the uncanny knock of creating his own good fortune. Probably by being so good at anticipating what might happen next. If conjuring victory from defeat in the 1981 Ashes was Brearley’s defining achievement. Richie Benaud finest hour was a not dissimilar Houdini-like act at Old Trafford 20 years earlier, only a few months after the historic contests with Worrell’s team.

Then, with the series standing 1–1 after three matches and England 150 for one needing only a further 106 to take a 2–1 lead. He chose to forget that he was handicapped by a shoulder injury and, operating from round the wicket and into the rough. The bowled his country to unbelievable victory with a spell of five for 12 from 25 balls, thereby retaining the Ashes. If Brearley can claim to be England’s finest captain of all time, the same status might be accorded Benaud among Australian leaders.

He was inspired to bowl leg-spin by watching Clarrie Grimmett. Richie Benaud first played for New South Wales at the age of 18 and for Australia at 21. However, it took him time to fulfil his talents at the highest level. He smashed a maiden Test hundred in just 78 minutes at Jamaica in 1955. Where circumstances were extremely hard for the most taxing – six other centuries were scored in the same game – and it took him 25 matches to record his first five-for.

Richie also tasted a fair bit of defeat in his early years, finishing on the losing side to England in three straight Ashes series. English conditions were hardly conducive to leg-spin and he made a little impression with the ball on the 1953 and 1956 tours. Therefore, even accounting for his Manchester triumph in 1961 his Test wickets in England cost almost 40 apiece). Which is fairly high for his caliber? His best bowling analysis was 7 for 56 against India at Madras (now Chennai) in 1955-56.

Then things clicked on a tour of the subcontinent that followed straight on from the 1956 tour. Australia lost to Pakistan on a matting wicket in Karachi but Benaud then proved the decisive player with 23 wickets in three Tests in India in a series Australia won 2–0. A year later he produced what ranks among the finest all-round performances of all time in South Africa, where in five matches he scored 329 runs and took 31 wickets.

Only two other players – George Giffen and Ian Botham – have ever scored 300 runs and taken 30 wickets in the same series. Australia won that series 3–0. Moreover on the tour Benaud’s return in all first-class matches was a stupendous 817 runs and 106 wickets. When Ian Craig fell ill, Benaud was the natural choice to take over the captaincy against England in 1958–59. He took to the promotion effortlessly.

England was trounced 4–0 and if the methods of Benaud’s pace attack was questioned. This was at the height of the ‘throwing’ controversy – his own bowling was beyond reproach and he was leading wicket-taker on either side with 31 at 18.83. A year later Australia toured Pakistan and India again and this time won both series and Benaud was again the star with 47 wickets in the eight Tests at and a marvelous average of 20.19.

Then came the stubborn victories, both by 2–1 margin, over West Indies and England. With his shoulder problem causing him increasing difficulty. Because his effectiveness as a bowler began to diminish but he nevertheless retained the Ashes at home in 1962–63 with a 1–1 draw. He played one more series, at home to South Africa in 1963–64. Because initially as captain but then under Bob Simpson, before retiring from all cricket at the age of just 33. In fact, Benaud has left two- or three-years cricket to make his records more impressive.

If that was sad, the story of the second, triumphant phase of his Australia career was not. During it, he averaged five more points with the bat than he had earlier, and nine points fewer with the ball, while Australia won 19 Tests and lost only five. At the time of his retirement, Benaud had taken 248 wickets in 63 Tests Matches with the best of 7 for 72 and taking five wickets on 16 times and one time to grab 10 wickets in a match. As a mini all-rounder, he scored 2,201 runs at 24.45 with the highest score of 122 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 1957-58. Indeed, more than anyone else for Australia up to that point and second only to Fred Trueman among all nations.

He had also captured a record 266 wickets for New South Wales. And overall, he had a whole bag of tricks – googlies, flippers and top-spinners, countless variations in flight – and was very accurate by the standards of his breed. My entire experience of Richie is of him as a broadcaster, first listening to him and then, behind the microphone, working alongside him in the commentary box for Channel Nine and the BBC. He was indeed the guru of cricket commentary.

His selection of words and manner of delivery were always pitch-perfect. To a novice such he was generous of spirit, always happy to talk and pass on advice. It is easy in our business to fire from the hip but one of his great aphorisms is ‘Engage brain first before speaking’ and he was always very careful to avoid making sweeping statements about issues that might develop and force some revision.

His influence extended into many areas. He was a key adviser to Kerry Packer during World Series Cricket. A groundbreaking venture that was highly controversial at the time but for which all well-remunerated modern cricketers should be thankful. Taking together his contributions on and off the field, he must rank as one of the most significant cricketing figures of all time. Richie Benaud captain for Australia in 28 Test Matches with 12 wins, 4 lost, 1 tie, and 11 draws.

At the age of 84, he diagnosed with skin cancer in 2014. He fought with cancer with brave heart but eventually, he died in his sleep on April 10, 2015. Many great players attended his funeral like Shane Warne, Michael Clarke, Ian Chappell and his close family and friends. Richie Benaud handed the last baggy green cap to Mitchel Starc and Simon Katich. He was, in fact, most influential cricket personality post era of World War II. Many cricketers believe this is the second greatest loss after Don Bradman. His chirping voice will be forever missed by cricket lovers.

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Malcom Marshall - A Small Fearsome Bowler

One of the trickiest questions is who the best bowler was David Gower ever faced. Inevitably his mind turns to the West Indies quick men who gave him the most torrid times of my career. Trying to pick one out, given all their strengths and differences, is not easy but the palm would have to go to Malcolm Marshall.

I was far from the only batsman of my generation who felt like that. And perhaps most persuasively of all, his West Indian peers rated him ever so highly. Andy Roberts and Michael Holding both conceded that he was probably the best.

My respect and admiration for him was one of the reasons why in 1990 I joined Hampshire, where he had long been an established star – respect, admiration and an instinct for the preservation that saw this as a sure-fire way to reduce the chances of me having to face his bowling.

‘Macko’ had blistering pace when he wanted it and could pepper you with bouncers when he felt like it. But he also possessed the nous to temper that pace when conditions suggested he would fare better by slowing down, pitching the ball up and swinging it late both ways.

Everything about him was quick, from the sprinting run-up to the quick action to the ball that whistled around your ears. His instinct for assessing conditions was only matched by his knack for working out what tactics, and what field settings, worked best for each opponent. He knew his mind and knew what he was trying to do.

He was among the sharpest of competitors. Andy Roberts was credited with, pardon the pun, marshaling the long line of great Caribbean fast bowlers of the 1970's and 1980's. But Malcolm Marshall took things to a new level of sophistication.

They know about fast bowling in Bridgetown and I remember once watching him from the stands there playing for Barbados in an island game: he was moving the ball around to the alarm of the batsmen in an exhibition that had the small gathering of locals looking on with me purring their approval of a master technician at work.

What made him stand out? I reckon he was my equivalent of the previous generation facing Jeff Thomson in his pomp. ‘Thommo’ may have had a couple of miles an hour on Marshall but at the speeds at which they were operating that did not make a lot of difference.

The great thing about Thommo was that he would keep coming at you all day long, and he would keep getting a bounce. Marshall was the same: always coming. He had a lovely fluid action that disguised quite how much effort he was putting in and it was amazing that he never seemed to get tired. You needed to be aware of that extra effort. He wouldn’t necessarily bowl at the speed of light all day, but he could step things up at any moment if he wanted to.

David Gower remember at Antigua in ’1986 when England was battling to avoid yet another defeat at West Indian hands. I’d managed to bat a long time for 90 when out of nowhere on a docile pitch Marshall managed to bowl me a snorter of a bouncer – and one of those balls that ‘got big’.

In truth, I would contest the validity of the dismissal (honest!) as I was given out caught behind even though the ball narrowly missed my glove before flicking my shoulder. But it was the fact that Marshall had suddenly extracted so much extra bounce that produced the wicket.

Malcolm Marshall was relatively small for a fast bowler at 5ft 11in and this made him predominantly awkward. The Marshall bouncer tended to skid on to you. If a taller man dropped the ball short, there was a fair chance it would go over your head.

But his best bouncers gave you nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. A lot of people besides Mike Gatting, who once famously and painfully misjudged a hook shot against Marshall, found this out to their cost.

Malcolm Marshall broke my right wrist on that 1986 tour, although I didn’t realize it was broken until about a year later when an X-ray on another blow. However, this time from Merv Hughes, highlighted the damage. I just thought it hurt, a lot. I first came across him on a Young England tour of West Indies in 1976 and even though he was only 18 years old it was clear that he was someone I might be coming up against a lot more in the future.

In fact, because of the emergence of World Series, he was chosen to tour with West Indies just two years later after only one first-class appearance for Barbados. He had to wait a few years to become a regular in the Test side. But his early promotion meant that he was able to learn on the job from some of the finest of fast bowling minds. He also learned a lot from joining Hampshire as a replacement overseas player for Roberts.

His breakthrough year was 1983 when he took 21 wickets in a home Test series against India before hot-footing to England to take 134 wickets in the championship for Hampshire (it is now almost 50 years since anyone took more wickets in an English season – Derek Underwood with 136 in 1967 the last to have done so).

Shortly after, he took 33 wickets in six Tests in what are usually arduous fast bowling conditions in India, having been given the new ball for West Indies for the first time on the suggestion of Holding.

It was a role he relished and after that he just got better and better. Even though he was playing in a mighty the powerful attack, he regularly proved himself the dominant fast bowler on either side, never more so than during the 1988 series in England when he took 35 wickets in the five matches at just 12.65 apiece.

West Indies never lost a Test series in which he featured and by the time of his last Test in 1991 he stood as the leading wicket-taker in West Indies history to that point (376 in 81 matches), with an average of 20.94 unmatched by any out-and-out fast bowler of the 20th century.

Malcolm Marshall, raised by his mother and grandparents after his father died when he was an infant, grew up idolizing Garry Sobers but his dreams of becoming a fully-fledged all-rounder never quite materialized. Even if he was a more than useful lower-order batsman (he scored seven first-class hundreds, but his Test-best was 92).

He was a great cricketer but also a lovely man who gave his all for the teams he played for. He was mortified at missing out on Hampshire’s cup final wins of 1988 and 1991, especially as he had also tasted defeat by one run in the Nat West Trophy in 1990, but this made victory all the sweeter when it came in the Benson & Hedges Cup in 1992.

There was never any element of him keeping things to himself; on the contrary, he enjoyed sharing information and this made him a wonderful coach in his later years, notably at Natal where he mentored Shaun Pollock among others.

Malcolm Marshall early death from cancer in 1999 at the age of 41 was a desperate loss to all his many friends in the game and beyond. But he left memorable cricketing memories in their fans. He was a true legend of all time.

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Don Bradman Australia, 1928 – 1948

Indeed, the greatest batsman ever born in the history of cricket. His figures and feats are ones with which you simply cannot argue. Don Bradman record is so far ahead of anyone else’s that one can scarcely believe one man could be so dominant through a career spanning 20 years.

Whereas most players, if not every other player but him, went through dips in form, he maintained his supremacy each year, every year. That was what really set him apart. As Wally Hammond said, Don Bradman whole career demonstrated his merciless will to win. One can only admire the mental strength he must have possessed.

As with WG Grace, it often became a match between the opposition and him. ‘He spoilt the game,’ Jack Hobbs said. He got too many runs.’ Australia lost only two series in which he played. Both were against England. The first was in 1928–29 when Don Bradman was appearing for the first time and was dropped for one game after making an innocuous debut (his response when he was recalled was to score two hundred in the remaining three games).

The second came in 1932–33 when Douglas Jardine deployed his infamous Bodyline tactics. That series represented Bradman’s most serious failure and yet he averaged 56.57! Although, that’s wasn’t true failure in other people’s books. These were the only two series in which he averaged less than 70. You’ve seen brief glimpses of footage of him batting and wondered about some of the field settings, which hardly seemed designed to slow down the scoring.

He himself has conceded that the game in those days was in some respects very different from the way it later became. When Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar were granted an audience with him in the 1990s. An interesting conversation ensued in which ‘The Don’ was asked how he might have fared in the modern era.

He said he would not have scored so many runs exactly because of defensive fields; in his day, fields remained attacking for far longer, even when batsmen were scoring quite freely. There was no such thing as a deep point or sweeper in those days and he also conceded that the standard of fielding was much better in the modern game.

His admission that he might have averaged nearer 70 than 100 had he played in the modern era prompted some jokes along the lines of ‘Not bad for a 90-year-old’, but his comment was perhaps a serious and revealing one. To an extent, the transformation in fielding standards supports to explain one of Bradman’s key strengths, which was the phenomenal speed of his scoring.

Don Bradman two Test triple-centuries were both scored in matches in England restricted to four days. The first one in 1930, when he brilliant scored 309 of his 334 runs in one day, including a hundred in each of the three sessions. In that series, consisting of four matches lasting four days and one (the last one) played to a finish. He scored 8, 131, 254, 1, 14, 334 and 232 for an aggregate of 974 which still stands as the record for any series, even though many series since have been played over more matches and more days.

That innings of 334 was at the time the highest ever played in a Test match and meant that he held the records in both Test and first-class cricket, having earlier that year scored an unbeaten 452 (in just under seven hours) for New South Wales against Queensland in Sydney. He was just 21 years old at the time.

His personal view was that his innings of 254, made in the second Test at Lord’s, was the best of his career. For him, though, scoring fast did not mean taking foolish risks. His method was so clinical and efficient – if not always pretty enough for some purists – that he hit few sixes and rarely hit the ball in the air (he had an unorthodox grip that did not lend itself to aerial shots).

And even if we concede that the standard of fielding was not as high then as it is now: it was the same for everyone in his time and he still stood head, shoulders and a fair bit of the body above his peers in terms of productivity. He was clearly an interesting character. Talk to the likes of Ian Chappell, who knew The Don well, and what comes back is not all sweetness and light. He appears to have been prickly and critics will call him self-centered and self-interested.

It was well known at the time that Don Bradman did not see eye to eye with several other Australian players, the Irish-Australians Bill O’Reilly and Jack Fingleton among them. When Australia – without Bradman, who was recovering from illness – happily toured South Africa under Vic Richardson in 1935–36, only for Don Bradman to be appointed captain in his place for the following winter’s series against England, it was not a popular decision with all parts of the dressing room.

But Don Bradman proved as ruthless and as successful a captain as he was a batsman, and the results brooked little argument. A classic example of his leadership style came in that 1936–37 series against England when he reversed his batting order on a rain-affected wicket so that by the time he went in, at number 7, conditions had improved, and he was able to score what proved to be a match-winning 270.

His contribution went beyond just the playing feats. He also had a role in management and was a very influential member of the Australian board. Some feel he might have done more to see that players were better remunerated in the period leading up to their decision to take Kerry Packer’s dollars, but he also played an undeniably beneficial role in eradicating ‘chucking’ and in encouraging the teams to play enterprising cricket ahead of the famous 1960–61 series between Australia and West Indies.

With a similar ambition in mind he was also instrumental in Garry Sobers, the world’s biggest drawcard, joining South Australia the following year. I met him briefly once in Adelaide on one of my early tours, a chance encounter walking round from the dressing rooms to the dining room. He was struck by how small he was, a reminder that many of the finest batsmen – Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara Ricky Ponting, and Sunil Gavaskar also come to mind – are not great hulks.

He was 5ft 8in tall and not powerfully built. You imagine that when you meet such a revered figure there will be a golden aura surrounding them, a great charge of energy when you shake hands, and pearls dropping from his lips when he speaks. He exuded coolness, calmness and a normality that hid the great ability and determination. One of the first cricket books I ever read, and pored over, was his masterly Art of Cricket.

While it is hard to compare different societies and different times, Bradman carried the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, just as Tendulkar did for Indians in a later era. In Bradman’s case, Australians were feeling acutely the consequences of the First World War, which had left their relationship with Britain under strain, as well as the Great Depression. Sport gave them an identity and Don Bradman provided them with their most reliable champion.

But the burden took its toll, which only makes his achievements more remarkable. Bradman himself said that his concentration was what set him apart from others. He was famously single-minded in practice as a child, using a single stump to hit a golf ball against a water tank outside the family home in Bowral in rural New South Wales where he grew up, the fifth child of a wool trader and carpenter.

He was 17 years old when he made scores of 234 and 300 for Bowral, the former against a young O’Reilly (off whose bowling he was dropped twice before reaching 50). This led to an invitation to attend a practice session at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and ultimately to an offer to play for the St George club.

Don Bradman and Stan McCabe 1938

In his first match for them – and his first-ever match on a turf wicket – he scored 110. A little more than a year later he was playing his first match for New South Wales and scoring another hundred. What was particularly striking was how Bradman was equal to each new challenge that was presented to him. He made a success of his first season of state cricket and his first season as a Test cricketer, despite being dropped after one game.

When doubts were expressed that he would struggle in English conditions on his first tour in 1930 his response was to hit 236 at Worcester in his first match and he went on to make 1,000 runs before the end of May. Such indeed were his powers of concentration that he was never out in the 90s in Test cricket (he scored 29 hundred).

He was surely fortunate to play in an era tailor-made for batsmen. Scoring in state cricket in Australia was huge and before Bradman had arrived on the scene Bill Ponsford twice played innings in excess of 400. Far fewer Test matches were played in those days but even so three other batsmen besides him made Test scores of more than 300 in the 1930s.

In the series in which Don Bradman made his debut, Wally Hammond topped 900 runs. Bradman therefore had plenty to aim at in terms. Just how well he succeeded can be measured by a first-class career average of 95.14 and career Test average of 99.94, which remain well ahead of all his rivals. He played at a time when big scores – huge scores – were a necessity, and Don provided them like no batsman before or since.

Eddie Gilbert and Donald Bradman at the Woolloongabba
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Viv Richards West Indies, 1974 –1991

Of all the batsmen played in Test cricket, Viv Richards was the one you most feared would take the game away from you. He possessed a magnificent physique and a powerful personality and was highly driven by a fierce pride in being among the first Antiguans to represent West Indies. His close friend Andy Roberts having beaten him to the honor by a matter of months.

At a time when few West Indies cricketers had emerged from outside the main islands, they both knew there was something special about that. Later, when he took over the West Indies captaincy from Clive Lloyd, it was pried again that spurred him to build on the good work done by his predecessor and make sure the team maintained their pre-eminence.

Viv Richards quickly gained a fearsome reputation as a batsman, scoring 192 in his second Test match away to India before putting together a string of big scores in his annus mirabilis of 1976. Which he began by making runs against Denis Lillee and Jeoff Thomson in Australia as an opener. He later settled in the pivotal number 3 position behind Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. And he crowned with an astonishing series in England in which he plundered 829 runs in just four Test matches, including a glorious 291 runs at The Oval.

That was his personal response to Tony Greig’s ill-advised prediction that England might make West Indies ‘grovel’. People learned to choose their words carefully when Viv was in the opposition. You’d come up against him on a handful of occasions in county cricket before, but the first-time bowler really experienced the full impact of his batting was in the World Cup final of 1979.  

When he played an innings of absolute brilliance, aided and abetted by Collis King. England had West Indies in some trouble before those two got together and England rather ran out of bowling! English bowler just couldn’t separate them, at least, not until it was too late, Viv finishing with marvelous 138 not out. There were to be a few more days like that, some of them when David Gower was captain and charged with setting fields to a man who could be impossible to contain.

The most extreme example of that came in a one-day international at Old Trafford in 1984, the first meeting of the sides that summer. On that occasion, England had them in even greater trouble at 166 for nine. What followed was a masterclass both in batting and in how to manage a difficult situation, with Viv Richard manipulating the strike in order to keep his partner – Michael Holding – out of trouble.

Amazingly Viv Richard was toying English bowlers: wherever captain put the fielders seemed to make no difference and during the last 14 overs of the innings that they stayed together Viv faced all but 27 balls and scored 93 of the 106 runs they put on. Viv Richards and Holding set the world record for the highest ever 10th wicket partnership in a one-day cricket history.

It was much the same two years later when he scored what was then the fastest Test hundred in history off 56 balls in his beloved Antigua later, the record was equaled, by Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq, and then beaten by Brendon McCullum in 54 balls against Australia. Vivian Richard was the first all-rounder in ODI history, who took five wickets, and score a century.

Vivian Richards simply took the mickey. If you put the field out, he would run two; if you brought it in, he would hit the ball over the top for four or six. It was unbelievable, godlike stuff. Viv had a very distinctive batting style. Everyone thought they had a chance if they bowled straight at him because he liked to play across his front pad and work the ball to leg. Bowlers were sure he’d miss one, but he seldom did. The robust power was the other thing that struck you. He wasn’t particularly tall at 5ft 10in, but he had the shoulders of a boxer.

He never seemed intimidated by anyone or anything, even if he got hit, as occasionally he did in the Caribbean playing inter-island matches. He took the blows but never showed the pain and certainly never admitted to it. His decision to never wear a helmet during a period when every other player in the game wore one as a matter, of course, was an audacious statement of superiority and one he never had reason to regret.

Even at the age of 38, playing in the championship for Glamorgan against Hampshire, his eye was good enough for him to take 14 off the last over from Malcolm Marshall – four, six, four – to win a game. As they thought we’d had in the bag. Going into the last hour Glamorgan, five wickets down, still needed 112 to win and we thought Viv Richards had miscalculated: fat chance.

He took pride in launching vendetta-like assaults on the best fast bowler in an attack, as Bob Willis discovered to his cost during the 1980 series in England. Viv learned a a lot from the mauling West Indies suffered at the hands of Lillee and Thomson in Australia in 1975–76.

Where they lost five of the six Tests, but also from World Series, which is where he would have had some of his severest tests. In 14 World Series “Supertests” Viv scored 1,281 runs at an average of 55.69, a record that none except Greg Chappell and Barry Richards could remotely match.

In the official Test cricket, his return was 8,540 runs and 24 hundred, and at the time he was chaired off the field has drawn the 1991 series in England 2–2 to ensure he maintained his record of never losing a series as captain, only two batsmen had scored more runs in Tests and only three had made more hundreds. Whether or not he was captain, Viv Richards embraced the role of leader, both within his team and in the wider sense of representing the people of the Caribbean.

The West Indian community may not have heaped expectations on his shoulders in quite the same way as the Indian population did with Sachin Tendulkar. However, nevertheless a lot of hope was invested in his performances and he rarely let his public down. In fact, he improved pretty much every team he played for, including Somerset (whom he helped win their first trophies before the relationship soured and he was controversially sacked), the Leeward Islands, Queensland, and Glamorgan.

Sporadically, his pride spilled over into strange territory, with him once failing to lead out his West Indies team because he had gone to the press box to harangue an English journalist about something he had written, but he was by and large a principled man with a fiercely competitive streak. There was so much more to him than simply his batting and captaincy, useful off-spin bowling and brilliant fielding, initially in the covers, later at slip.

The first-time thousands of people were aware of him was when he executed three brilliant run-outs during the 1975 World Cup final. He remains the only West Indian to score 100 hundred in first-class cricket. In 1986, he was the first batsman who scored a Test century with a mind-blowing strike rate of 156.

Vivian Richard was born on March 7, 1952, in Antigua. Viv was the greatest batsman of all time, voted one of the five cricketers of the Century by a 100 members panel of cricket expert in 2000. The other two were, Sir Donald Bradman, Shane Warne, Sir Gary Sobers, and Sir Jack Hobbs. Viv Richard was first ODI batsman, who has won 20 Man of the Match awards.

Viv Richards was very impressive in both forms of cricket. He was managed to score 8,540 runs in 121 Test matches with an average of 50.23 including 24 centuries and 45 fifties. As a West Indies captain, his record is so impressive by winning 27 Test matches out of 50 Test matches and just lost 8 matches.

More than 36,000 runs in first-class cricket with 114 centuries with the highest score of 322. Also, nearly 7,000 runs including 11 hundred with the 189* highest score in One Day cricket truly speak his greatness. Moreover, Vivian Richards was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in 2009. Furthermore, he was a very useful right-arm off-spin bowler, and occasionally he took the priceless wickets. He took 118 wickets at 35.83 in 187 ODI matches.

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Kapil Dev - Greatest All Rounder in the History of Cricket

India has been blessed with many great batsmen and spin bowlers. But they have often suffered from a shortage of great fast bowlers and all-rounders. So, Kapil Dev had one of each. Kapil Dev Ram Lal Nikhanj was indeed the greatest all rounder in the history of the game. Kapil Dev's father as belonging to Okara district of Pakistan. So, after partition, he moved to Chandigarh.

His pace was in fact never of the express variety. But he had full control on both sides swing bowling, particularly his outswinger was very lethal. The medium pace rather than fast in his early years, and something less than that later. But he had seemingly endless reserves of bustling energy, swung the ball, and knew how to take wickets. Kapil Dev was famous with the nickname of the ‘Haryana Express’.

Even though he lost some nip towards the end of his long career1978-1994). His magical stats remained impressive given the unhelpful bowling conditions in which he was often operating. Only two other fast bowlers have taken 200 Test wickets for India, Zaheer Khan, and Javagal Srinath. Both had averages on the top side of 30’s, whereas Kapil’s 434 wickets – which stood as the world record for a few years – cost 29.64 apiece.

He is one of them Indian players to do the Test double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets, Kapil is the only one who averaged more with the bat than the ball. Above all, though, Kapil Dev earned a place in history as the man who captained India to victory in the 1983 World Cup. An upset result that converted the subcontinent to one-day cricket and amazed cricket pundits who had written off his team as no hopers before the tournament.

By doing his bit as a player – 12 wickets and 303 runs, with a thrilling 175 runs were plundered off Zimbabwe in an afternoon of mayhem at Tunbridge Wells. The innings played in a crucial situation when Indian batting was struggling but Kapil came and mastering the strokes to all parts of the ground. Kapil Dev instilled the belief in his players that they could go all the way, never more so than in the final when they were defending a meager total of 183 against West Indies.

Kapil Dev bowled 12 miserly overs and took a breathtaking running catch on the boundary to dismiss Viv Richards. India cricket being the fickle creature it is, he lost the captaincy within a few months but recuperated it in 1985 and kept it until India’s defense of the World Cup failed at the semi-final stage in 1987.

What also marked him out was his background. Kapil Dev born in Chandigarh and raised in the countryside at a time when most Indian Test cricketers came from middle-class families based in the big cities, he broke the mold. One of the “Big Four” Test all-rounders who dominated in the 1980’s – Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee was the others. Most cricket legends believe that Kapil was probably the least dangerous bowler. His figures would certainly suggest that.

But he was very effective in his early years, making his Test debut at the age of 19 and being instantly at home on the big stage as effortlessly as Botham. Kapil clocked up the 1,000 run and 100 Test wickets double within 15 months of his first game and the 2,000 run–200 wickets double in four and a half years.

Kapil Dev was just a prodigious natural talent in everything he did. In those days, he did a lot of twisting and turning in his action, but it got him sideways on and in a position to swing the ball. He needed watching very carefully. As a lower-order batsman, Kapil Dev came closest to matching Botham for destructive and entertaining hitting. Like Ian Botham, he was far better than the ‘slogger’ a label that some might have attached to someone who so obviously delighted in finding the boundary.

He could strike the ball in a classical fashion and was sound enough technically to score three hundred against powerful West Indies pace attacks of various vintages. Hence, at one occasion in 1983 seeing off Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner to make a game safe in Trinidad. In all, he scored eight Test hundreds, two more than Imran.

Still people remembering that Quite late in his career, at Port Elizabeth, he halted a rampaging Allan Donald-led South Africa pace attack in its tracks with a superbly measured counter-attacking century. Kapil scored almost entirely with the tail for company. When he went in, India were 27 for five, which soon became 31 for six.

Of India’s eventual 215 all out, Kapil’s share was an excellent 129 runs. Kapil made something of a specialty of making light of a crisis. While others fretted, he coolly went about fixing things with some measured blows. The classic example of this, of course, was at Lord’s in 1990 in an epic Test, which saw Graham Gooch score a triple century in the first innings and a mere single one in the second. One of the silkiest hundreds you could ever wish to see from Mohammad Azhar-ud-din.

Kapil Dev again found himself batting with the tail as India struggles to bat to avoid the follow on. With 24 runs needed and the last man in, Kapil came on strike against Eddie Hemmings and spotted an opportunity few others would have contemplated. He beautifully struck four straight sixes in four balls down towards the Nursery The end, where men in hard hats constructing the Compton and Edrich Stands came under fire, and Kapil Dev did the job in an excellent way.

It was fantastic to watch, and a very brave effort. Imagine if he’d got out attempting one of those shots? Botham gets on very well with him. He loves him because of their shared passion for golf! Kapil has developed into a remarkable player and has numerous business ventures linked to the sport – and their shared approach to cricket.

They played the game in the same uninhibited fashion and I think their desire to outdo each other spurred them on. Both were close to their best in 1982 when England and India faced each other for six Tests in India and three in England. In what was a largely turgid series on the subcontinent, both hit hundreds in Kanpur, Kapil batting in sparkling fashion for 116 off 98 balls.

Then, in England, he hit 89 off just 55 balls at Lord’s – had he reached his hundred it could have been the fastest in Test history to that point – followed by 65 off 55 balls at Old Trafford and 97 off 93 balls at The Oval, where Botham himself scored a rapid double century. He retired from Cricket in 1994, holding the highest Test Wickets were taken in longer version of cricket. The record was broken by Courtney Walsh in 2000.

Kapil Dev was the first bowler in the history of the game, by getting more than 400 test wickets and the first player to get 200 wickets in ODI format. Kapil was known for his graceful action and potent outswinger. For many years, he was India's main strike bowler. As a natural hard-hitting batsman, his skill is to play hook and drive effectively. His ability to counter-attack on opposition always help India in a critical situation. He lives in the heart of cricket lovers who had watched him on TV.  Read More - Subhash Gupte – India’s Greatest Spin Bowler of 1950’s / Nayan Mongia – Most Competent Indian Wicket Keeper / 50,000 Runs in All Forms of Cricket