cricket of yesteryear

[hehehewalrus]

cricketing stories of yesterday follows here.....(coming up soon)

[S.Balaji]

Dear Friends,

Like any other Indian , I am a mad follower of Cricket and I have also played decent cricket up to College level.

Like all average Indians, my attention got diverted to studies and could not play regular cricket.

Lets discuss about famous cricket matches of yester years and analyse here.

Thanks my friend for opening this thread

It was the great westindies series - 1970

Indian travelled to westindies under AJit wadekar's captaincy.

THe team had PROMISING YOUNGSTERS LIKE VISHY, GAVVY, SOLKAR, ETC

apart from senior guys llike - Pras / Chandra / Bedi/ Venkat

In the first match , Sardesai played well and scored runs.

SMG - Gavaskar , made his debut atlast and scored well in that match.

You know , the first run scored by SMG was actually a legbye !!!!

The great sunny went on to score 10000 runs which is a different story.

During that series, Gary SObers ( the greatest cricketer ) also played his part.

Infact, he dropped lot of catches from SMG . SMG himself wrote about this episode

Eventhough Dilip Sardesai ( father of Rajdeep sardesai of NDTV ) scored well ( infact a century and double century )

Sunny overtook every body in that series and went on to record highest number of runs in a series - 774 to be precise.

After that SUnny never looked back

I have just started this very interesting posting and in due course will post more memorable matches soon and interesting scenes


In the second test - SMG

[S.Balaji]

Dear friends,

Indian Cricket , in my opinion shall be split - like before Christ and after Christ --


Before SMG and after SMG

SMG was the first Indian cricketer to bring fame and name to Indian Cricket . He started with a bang right from the first series with Westindies and was very consistent.

I wish we categorise like :

before 1970 - bedi / pras / venkat / chandra / farokh / sardesai / ajit wadekar / subash gupte / lala amarnath etc etc

1970 - 1977 - The glorious period of SMG / GRV / Solkar / etc etc

1978 - 1989 - Kapil dev ( in my opinion , the greatest Indian Cricketer , even better than Sachin and SMG ) / Sandeep Patil / Binny / Madan lal / Kirti Azad / Yashpal sharma etc etc

1989 onwards - Sachin / Sanjay manjrekar / Dravid / Ganguly / Hajbajan / ANil Kumble / Srinath / Prasad /Azar / Jadeja


Looking forward to healthy discussions

[S.Balaji]

I wish to share with you all guys , a fantastic test between India and west indies - in Chepauk - 1974-75 series.

That series was instrumental in bringing out greats like :

1. Viv richards
2. Gordon greenidge
3. Andy roberts

The first test was played in Bangalore. India lost heavily ( pataudi was the captain ). In this match - Gordon greenidge and Viv made their debuts.

WHile Gordon scored well , Viv flopped. He was dismissed by Chandrasekar twice and had no clue to what he was bowling !!!

This fact was admitted by Viv himsel in one programme.

He was almost dropped for the next test in Delhi but luckily was selected. When he was nought , he was caught at forward shortleg and the bowler was Venkat but the Umpire did not rule him out.
Viv went on to score 194 not out !!!! in that innings and went on to establish himself as one of the most dangerous batsman in the world . He virtually ruled Cricket like an emperor.

More about this famous series soon dear friends.

[hehehewalrus]

Dear Friends,

SMG - Gavaskar , made his debut atlast and scored well in that match.

You know , the first run scored by SMG was actually a legbye !!!!
...
Eventhough Dilip Sardesai ( father of Rajdeep sardesai of NDTV ) scored well ( infact a century and double century )

Sunny overtook every body in that series and went on to record highest number of runs in a series - 774 to be precise.
After that SUnny never looked back

Dear bala sir,
a couple of points to add to your post.
there was not much difference between Dilip and Sunny in that series. SMG has 774 and Dilip had 642, which is basically a matter of 1-2 innings. Dilip himself said in one interview that the bowling attack was very weak, they had no genuine world class bowler.

SMG was the Dravid of yesteryear - damn good on decent attacks on good pitches, ordinary on bad pitches and great attacks(This does not mean I am putting him down, I am just referring to England 1974, England 1982 and WI 1982-83 and WI 1983-84. In Dravid's case, Pak 1998-99, Aus 1999-00, SA 1999-00, Aus 2004-05)

[hehehewalrus]

He was almost dropped for the next test in Delhi but luckily was selected.

I think this was because Lawrence Rowe had an upset stomach

When he was nought , he was caught at forward shortleg and the bowler was Venkat but the Umpire did not rule him out.

I think you have read the book 'The Burning Finger' by Madhav Gothoskar

Tell us your personal recollections of 2 great test matches, the ones at Eden and Chepauk. I think India won by 85 and 100 runs.

[alwarpet_andavan]

Hehe/Balaji
I thought i'd say something on this thread but on seconds thoughts, i'd rather read on.......
You guys are a mine of cricinfo

[S.Balaji]

[quote="hehehewalrus"]

Dear bala sir,
a couple of points to add to your post.
SMG was the Dravid of yesteryear - damn good on decent attacks on good pitches, ordinary on bad pitches and great attacks(This does not mean I am putting him down, I am just referring to England 1974, England 1982 and WI 1982-83 and WI 1983-84. In Dravid's case, Pak 1998-99, Aus 1999-00, SA 1999-00, Aus 2004-05)

Dear Walrus,

SMG also scored runs in 1976 when we toured West indies after the 74-75 series.

The bowling was spearheaded by :

1. Holding ( by that time, he was proclaimed the best bowler )
2. Andy roberts at his peak
3. Colin Croft

Sunny scored 2 centuries besides a couple of good inniings.

The series also included the famous win of India ( supposed to be the largest 4th innings total a team had chased and won )

That was one of those highs of SMG. Besides SMG also had faced :

1. Roberts
2. Holding
3. Vanburn Holder
4. Colin Croft
5. Marshall ( he did not do well initially but won over him subsequently )
6. Imran khan
7. Sarfraz Nawaz
8. Bob Willis
9. John Snow ( he did not succeed intially )
10. Wasim Akram
11. Richard Hadlee
12. Ian Botham
13. Jeff Thompson ( not at his best but )

Sunny had scored lots of runs against the above attach on various pitches including docile ones.

Suny did not do well against - Lilee .

Oops, this topic is getting diverted now. Lets focus on memorable matches of yesteryears.

[hehehewalrus]

hi Bala sir, alwarpetji
you guys drive the discussion. I will just chip in from time to time. will take care not to digress. Dont worry, we can talk till the cows come home!

Bala Sir, SMG was god between 1975-82. Rest of the time he was very good, NOT great. Some more similarities of SMG with Dravid: (Red indicates good/great)

Eng:
1971: 144@24.00
1974:217@36.00 (fabulous actually - the 57 and 101 were epics)
1972-73:224@25.00 (v Poor attack)
1984-85: 140@17.50
1979: damn good

Aus:
1981 Failure
1977-78 Okay(Feeble Aussie team)

WI:
1975-76 Damn good no doubt!
1970-71 Shillingford+Noriega(Poor attack)
1978-79 742 runs: Clark, Shivnarine, Marshall (Damn poor attack)
1982-83 Failure
1983-84 Good(never mind the 236 booster)

Definitely better than everyone except Lloyd, Chappell and Amarnath

[S.Balaji]

hi Bala sir, alwarpetji
you guys drive the discussion. I will just chip in from time to time. will take care not to digress. Dont worry, we can talk till the cows come home!

Bala Sir, SMG was god between 1975-82. Rest of the time he was very good, NOT great. Some more similarities of SMG with Dravid: (Red indicates good/great)

Eng:
1971: 144@24.00
1974:217@36.00 (fabulous actually - the 57 and 101 were epics)
1972-73:224@25.00 (v Poor attack)
1984-85: 140@17.50
1979: damn good

Aus:
1981 Failure
1977-78 Okay(Feeble Aussie team)

WI:
1975-76 Damn good no doubt!
1970-71 Shillingford+Noriega(Poor attack)
1978-79 742 runs: Clark, Shivnarine, Marshall (Damn poor attack)
1982-83 Failure
1983-84 Good(never mind the 236 booster)

Definitely better than everyone except Lloyd, Chappell and Amarnath

Hello Walrus,

1979- Oval - SMG scored 221 and it was a memorable knock. We could have won the match but for some poor decisions . Vishy was going strong when a drive halfcock was picked by Derick Randall in the covers and it was declared out.
The margin was just 7 runs in the match . It became a draw but it was one of those epic innings of SMG.

WI in India - 83-84

SMG scored 120 in Delhi . Before that match was Kanpur test when in the second innings, SMGs bat flew out of his hand while facing Marshall's delivery and everybody started abusing him and said that thats the end of SMG.
THis innings was a lightening innings wherein SMG started hooking all bouncers to show that he is good at that also.

There was another 90 in Ahmedabad in the same series which was another Tsunami !!!!. Unfortunately we lost the test.


I think we should approach this forum series by series.

Sorry I am goofing up.