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Yep leaving the best side in the world 4/10!!
Good interview, highlights about 3 min in
Lillee vs McGrath
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Yep leaving the best side in the world 4/10!!
Good interview, highlights about 3 min in
Duritz - get your lad to watch this - this is fast bowling - this is presence - this was DK - note he was the world record holder when he retired despite missing a fair chunk of time with wsc and injury
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Those last few minutes on Boxing Day were the most exciting test cricket I ever saw. The chant of 'Lil-lee' captured a nation.
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Gee... Some bad shots played there. That first wicket, Haynes, slashing at a wide one. Count your lucky stars there DK. Most of the lbw's looked high to me and more than half of the wickets were tail enders. Now I get the whole Lillee thing - obviously very good at cleaning up the tail.
Actually Lillee if he had a weakness was cleaning up the tail, never bowled a great Yorker.
His record of knocking over the best players is why he is what he is.
His record of knocking over the best players is why he is what he is.
I was thumbing thru the Cricketer Mag's "Ashes Legends" last evening where a group of experienced cricket journo's selected the top 10 all time greats. The usual suspects where there Bradman, Barnes, Botham...but no McGrath, however there was mention of a DK Lillee in the list. I then pondered the performances of both men against Rest of the World teams - I didn't even bother checking GD McGrath's stats after recalling DK took something like 8/29 against the worlds best at the time.Gee... Some bad shots played there. That first wicket, Haynes, slashing at a wide one. Count your lucky stars there DK. Most of the lbw's looked high to me and more than half of the wickets were tail enders. Now I get the whole Lillee thing - obviously very good at cleaning up the tail.
Stuart MacGill dominated that rest of the world team
Gough
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Reading about Mitch Johnson today, it struck me that what made McGrath great was his durability. Look at the other fast bowlers on Australia's leading wicket takers, and Lillee still leads, most fast bowlers are bust after 250 wickets. McGrath was like a metronome.
Miller and Lindwall seem to have played until a pretty advanced age.
Though obviously the war delayed their careers which may have actually been physically beneficial to them (though they both served)
McGrath proved a lot of axioms about fast bowling wrong. You don't need to be express pace and you don't need to bowl swing either.
Viceregal
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Greatness is by definition a measure of impact, of the subjective impartation of awe, of effects of the psyche of the observers - it is the epitome of the vibe frequently decried in this thread as valueless against the unmoving rock that is the majesty of statistics (feel free to correctly interpret the last phrase there as being delivered in ironic tones)
We don't call people great just because they are consistent - 'though consistency over time is a almost a pre-requisite ...
When we think back over the times in our lives that are memorable - they stand out because they were different in some way - they touched us on the inside and resonated with more than our minds.
I lived through both the time when Lilee dominated and when McGrath was our first bowler - I have the utmost respect for McGrath and his attitude, his durability, and his consistency and was saddened when he left the game ... yet I still remember what it was like to watch Lilee bowl and just how exciting it was to be part of it.
If I was picking a team of Australian cricketers where each was at the top of their game - I would want to pick batsmen who bowlers hoped never to bowl against and bowlers who batters feared to face ... and yes you need the batsman who can anchor and the bowler who can restrict but they are not the first ones you pick.
If the batsman facing McGrath is trying to work out how to score runs past his restrictive consistency and the batsman facing Lilee is trying to work out how to stay alive (ok more Jeff for that line!) then I think the second batsman is in a worse mental place.
If you were the captain of the team that had both Lilee and McGrath in it ... who would you give the first over to, who would get the more favoured end to bowl at, who are you thinking might knock over that early wicket ...
When it comes to greatness - impact and dignitas overcomes statistics and consistency.
I respect both and they were both fantastic players - but when it comes to who was greater ...
We don't call people great just because they are consistent - 'though consistency over time is a almost a pre-requisite ...
When we think back over the times in our lives that are memorable - they stand out because they were different in some way - they touched us on the inside and resonated with more than our minds.
I lived through both the time when Lilee dominated and when McGrath was our first bowler - I have the utmost respect for McGrath and his attitude, his durability, and his consistency and was saddened when he left the game ... yet I still remember what it was like to watch Lilee bowl and just how exciting it was to be part of it.
If I was picking a team of Australian cricketers where each was at the top of their game - I would want to pick batsmen who bowlers hoped never to bowl against and bowlers who batters feared to face ... and yes you need the batsman who can anchor and the bowler who can restrict but they are not the first ones you pick.
If the batsman facing McGrath is trying to work out how to score runs past his restrictive consistency and the batsman facing Lilee is trying to work out how to stay alive (ok more Jeff for that line!) then I think the second batsman is in a worse mental place.
If you were the captain of the team that had both Lilee and McGrath in it ... who would you give the first over to, who would get the more favoured end to bowl at, who are you thinking might knock over that early wicket ...
When it comes to greatness - impact and dignitas overcomes statistics and consistency.
I respect both and they were both fantastic players - but when it comes to who was greater ...
sherb
Hall of Famer
He was a gun.
Destroyed Australia in Perth in 75/76, the only test the Windies won on that tour. Fredericks destroyed Lillian Thomson in that test as well, amazing innings.
sherb
Hall of Famer
classic duritz
Jesus man, I hope I never have to sit next to you at a dinner party.
sherb
Hall of Famer
It's an interesting discussion provided you ignore all of his posts.
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Heard Rudi Webster on it some years back - that was the defining moment for the team - they decided they were sick of being beaten the wanted to win - they knew they had the talent but something was missing.
Rudi told them to believe in themselves and they did. Tony Greig told the English press he wanted to make them grovel (bad choice of words) they united behind a common cause and the rest is history. The late Malcolm Marshall told me Roberts taught him heaps
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The Windies were still in transition at this stage, and they were a bit of a mix of older and younger players. As well as that, I just think they weren't as good overall as the Australians they were facing, and weren't as good as what they would become. A fair few of the guys that would become legends for them were yet to really hit their straps and reach their primes as international cricketers:
Michael Holding - 21 years old
Viv Richards - 23 years old
Gordon Grennidge - 24 years old
Andy Roberts - 24 years old
Bernard Julien - 25 years old
Alvin Kallicharran - 26 years old
Inshan Ali - 26 years old
Lawrence Rowe - 26 years old
Len Baichan - 29 years old
Vanburn Holder - 30 years old
Clive Lloyd - 31 years old
Deryck Murray - 32 years old
Keith Boyce - 32 years old
Roy Fredericks - 33 years old
Lance Gibbs - 41 years old
Wasn't this the series where Lillie and Thommo absolutely terrorised the Windies, and inspired Clive Lloyd to go with four express bowlers at all times and start the 'Fire in Babylon'?
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Ask Brian Lara who he feared. He was basically GMcG's bunny. And if the most wickets in fast bowling history doesn't make you "destructive", what does?
McGrath might've been boring, but he got the job done, arguably better than any "quick" ever. His line and length disabled Lara time and again, and shut down many top orders.
Also, and this needs to be highlighted - DK didn't have to share his wickets with probably the greatest bowler ever to bowl. McGrath did.
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Yeah but Lillian Thomson batted like a girl.
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Lol... The discussion I created and fostered amongst (to quote a mod from a different board) "the most boring group on bigfooty" goes gangbusters when I breathe oxygen into it, yet it is thriving DESPITE me... Oh now I've heard it all.
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Batting averages through the modern era haven't increased by much at all actually
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/423412.html
Lillee took more 10 wicket hauls in 54 less tests, averaged more wickets per test and was quicker to 100, 200 and 300 wickets than McGrath. Also Lillee had one of the all time highest percentages of dismissals of the top 5 batsmen of a side (I can't be bothered looking it up but it was huge).
Both great bowlers but Lillee was more likely to win a match for you or get a crucial breakthrough against the run of play. That said there's not much between them and I bracket them with Hadlee and Akram as the next 4 behind Malcolm Marshall in my top 5 quicks of all time.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/599788.html
this is an interesting article which covers Mcgrath and Lillee. Both of them took a high proportion of upper order batsman.
the other thing to consider is Lillee didn't play with the greatest spinner of all time
Royal Flash
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Very interesting piece and it shows that when it come to the best ,as all these guys were, there is very little between them.
My memory of the figures was wrong as I recalled only Younis as having a better record than Lillee but that's incorrect.
I didn't realise Lillees figures blew out so much in his last 14 tests either but he had very bad knees by the end and had a wretched run in 82-3 against England and a terrible 1983 World Cup before finishing in decent fashion against Pakistan in 1983-4. However his figures in his first 56 tests are outstanding and if you add his test figures against the Rest Of The World side in the early 70's (as they should be) along with his WSC supertest figures then his record is absolutely elite.
That's a good point about Warne also but I've always thought both Warney and McGrath benefitted the other. Both men helped the other by their constant accuracy and pressure never giving opposition batsmen a release valve from either bowler. Batsmen were invariably strangled, frustrated and outclassed by them before falling victim to one or the other.
Anyway I prefer Lillee to McGrath by a little bit but I have no real problems with people who see it the other way. Both men were champions pure and simple.
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