when Bishop came he was express , but attenuated with injury , so , no , not express /pleonasm not double negative
Bond was fast much like Ryan Harris
Brian Lara, How Good Was He?
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Bond was fast much like Ryan Harris
half a squash ball and a sliver of sandpaper
For some reason I always remembered him getting bowled by Zoe Goss.
The guy was great to watch but mentally had his flaws but worth the wait for his best innings.
I remember one Test in West Indies he was going crazy in a hurry to hit Magill everywhere but I also thought at the time, why the hurry, this day has days to go and your team needs you to stick around, not rush and get yourself after a quick 50 to 80. I preceded to watch the next 15 minutes, complete fascinated that as much as it was entertaining it all seemed dumb for state of the match. I think it might have been Windies second innings of the Test and not even half way through the game and they did not have any decent lead. But that was just Lara, you had to take the good with the bad. It was just his way. When he was on, it was super to watch and for his team. He won about two Tests virtually off his bat in some of these games.
He rates up with the likes of Tendulkar and Ponting of his generation of batsmen.
The guy was great to watch but mentally had his flaws but worth the wait for his best innings.
I remember one Test in West Indies he was going crazy in a hurry to hit Magill everywhere but I also thought at the time, why the hurry, this day has days to go and your team needs you to stick around, not rush and get yourself after a quick 50 to 80. I preceded to watch the next 15 minutes, complete fascinated that as much as it was entertaining it all seemed dumb for state of the match. I think it might have been Windies second innings of the Test and not even half way through the game and they did not have any decent lead. But that was just Lara, you had to take the good with the bad. It was just his way. When he was on, it was super to watch and for his team. He won about two Tests virtually off his bat in some of these games.
He rates up with the likes of Tendulkar and Ponting of his generation of batsmen.
His table tennis tampering....
How many did he actually play against? Donald, Shoaib, who else?
He hit centuries against Lee.
He made 7 50s in 11 tests against Donald included 80/90/80 in consecutive tests at some point
Also made 96 against peak wasim
And waqar on a pitch where 3 innings totals were under 200.
Doesn’t really look like a glaring flaw. He also scored one against Gillespie when he was at his peak (albeit he was 145-ish at that point)
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Nah it's not really a glaring flaw, but it's one of those unique holes that every test great has. When I was part of some of the subcontinent cricket forums in the past, there used to be heated debates on pretty much every cricketer out there and we used to pick the obvious holes in every cricketer's record.
For example, Ponting's record in India, Sachin's record in the 4th innings, Warne struggling in India, Botham's record vs the West Indies, etc.
And one thing that often used to come up in discussions about Lara was that he lacked tons against top quality "express pacers". Bear in mind, we were dicing and slicing the records of every cricketer and so this is not something that's glaring.
Often these used to be the points in Tendulkar vs Lara vs Ponting debates:
1. Tendulkar could never really take the attack to the opposition in a way that Lara and Ponting often did.
2. Ponting struggled very much in India that often pegged him a notch down in the debates.
3. Lara never really had a single century against an ATG express quick like Donald, Steyn, Waqar, Wasim, etc., Tendulkar had tons against Donald, Steyn, Waqar, Wasim, Akhtar. Ponting probably had a few tons against them (have to check).
One thing we all agreed though was that McGrath was probably the guy with the least holes in his record.
Talking nonsense.
Lara made Test centuries against teams that had the likes of McDermott, Devon Malcolm, Merv Hughes and Gillespie too.
Not exactly fun facing that lot at their quickest or nastiest.
He could play all types of bowling when he was able to put his mind to the task.
Lara made Test centuries against teams that had the likes of McDermott, Devon Malcolm, Merv Hughes and Gillespie too.
Not exactly fun facing that lot at their quickest or nastiest.
He could play all types of bowling when he was able to put his mind to the task.
apart from Steyn and Marshall which express quicks had low averages , were low economy stats , and had really low strike rate
Now Starc has a sound record , but we are speaking 90's early noughties
you are speaking crap about Lara
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Lara at his best was the best to watch. Take the old cliche about left-handed batsmen being more elegant stroke-players on the eye and add in Lara's flamboyance and insanely quick bat-speed. It was batting perfection.
and flourish and lassoed backlift, chris broad undercase but w elan and brio
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Loved watching lara against world class spin
His footwork was umberlievable always to the pitch of the ball not allowing himself to be beaten by the spin.
His footwork was umberlievable always to the pitch of the ball not allowing himself to be beaten by the spin.
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Not sure if "never" is the right word to use here. Sachin certainly had his matches where he was completely untouchable.
On another note, there's not much debate in my mind that Lara, Tendulkar & Ponting were the "big 3" batsmen during their time. Tendulkar & Lara might just get a little bit of additional kudos due to the fact they were carrying their respective teams on their shoulders alone at certain stages of their careers. Punter did have the luxury of being part of an ATG team with no weaknesses.
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My lasting memory of his 400 is that he played about six to eight completely different sweep shots to target different parts of the ground and to counter lines, lengths and fields. Probably the best proponent of the sweep I've ever seen.
royboy2
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Probably the best pure batsman I've seen. Easily in the top 3.. IVA Richards, BC Lara & Sachin.
If I am picking a test side, Lara is 1st picked.
If I am picking a test side, Lara is 1st picked.
One thing I always find fascinating is when former players talk about these 3 batsmen, they always say Lara had the best manipulation of the field. You move away gully then he'll hit you in that position, you move midwicket and he'll smack you next ball through midwicket. It would've been a nightmare to bowl to him.
Ponting had the brutality. Tendulkar had the class. Lara had the flamboyance. Too hard to gauge who is the best batsmen but glad each had a different style.
I think if you just needed one of them get you 60-70 Tendulkar was the reliable one who would find a way regardless of his form, the conditions, the opposition. If it meant leaving 100 balls he could do it and get there in singles.
If you said to one of them ‘I need one of you to hit 100 off 150 balls’ the most likely to do it would be Ponting. He could dominate and maintain a tempo throughout an innings that others couldn’t and really impose himself.
If you said ‘go out and do something impossible’ Lara is the one who would do it.
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I think, while you're absolutely right about what you'd be selecting Ponting for, it'd be more like 120 balls. There was a period in there where the only recourse opposition had to stop him scoring was bowling a foot and a half outside off, only occasionally getting closer by that half a foot. He also had a habit of playing some incredible back to the wall knocks despite the majority of them not mattering as the side around him crumbled. That wonderful set of tons in the 05 Ashes series come to mind here.
And I think we should probably mention that what you say of Tendulkar there you could also say of Kallis, who even among this grouping is the bloke I'd pick to get to 70 without giving even a single chance at his wicket. Lara was also capable of similar flawlessness, but he only sporadically gave a s**t often enough to do it.
I’ve said this many times on here and in verbal discussions on elite cricketers, Kallis gets a bum rap because he was conservative.
‘He was selfish.’
‘He didn’t take games apart like other batsmen.’
‘He was limited.’
I would say that of, and I mean it with the utmost respect (aside from the selfish bit because he simply wasn’t) Rahul Dravid. Dravid was more limited than his contemporaries but it just so happened that his role was perfect anyway for him.
Kallis wasn’t limited at all. He could play simply the most exquisite attacking shots and hit the ball miles. He had every attacking shot in the book.
But it was not selfishness or boringness that made him play the way he did.
Kallis spent his career playing alongside guys like Cullinan and Smith and Gibbs and De Villiers and Amla and Boucher and Pollock who all played tremendously stroke filled cricket. It was Kallis making 40 centuries or whatever it was at the other end that allowed them to play that way.
Only Gary Kirsten of Kallis’ contemporaries went against that trend. In a team always stacked with elite fast bowling talent he could have easily said ‘I’m averaging 55 with the bat, I’ll turn that into 65 if you stop bowling me.’ But he didn’t. He played a gradually diminishing role with the ball but still bowled enough to take 250 test wickets.
He also suffered from probablynot having that ‘definitive’ innings in his career, a Laxman 281 or Lara 153* or Tendulkar 155. Probably also suffered from not saving his best for Australia. He still had a fine record against them but there was probably never a moment where fans would be thinking ‘oh great we will probably get on top and then Jacques will drag them back into the game.’
But quite simply you’re right he would be just as likely as Sachin to go out and make 70-80. What a player.
Re. Lara, I think he probably carried a bit of a stigma from that period after he made the 375 through to 1999 because quite simply he seemed to lose interest. And fair enough too, he didn’t handle the attention and pressure well. The torrent became an occasional spurt. Earlier in the thread I made a post detailing the three distinct statistical phases of his career and there was definitely a big void in that middle third.
But after 99 he definitely gave a s**t. Passed 50 every 2.85 innings or something, basically the same rate as Ponting and Tendulkar did for their career, and hit centuries at better than once every 3 matches which is significantly better than either of the other two. His early shakiness at the crease meant his average per innings was nothing supersonic, though, even in that period
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Sometimes.....
But overall good summary of what they all brought to the table.
Nothing is impossible but as a few general examples his 99 series was just as good as it gets. Three centuries, three totally different innings, but each in their own way utterly brilliant.
His 220 at Adelaide out of 380 against a good attack was a level of mastery very few batsmen ever achieve coming to Australia, particularly when their support cast is non existent.
Making 42 per cent of his team’s runs - 619 from memory - in a series on spinning decks against peak Muralitharan in 3 tests - I haven’t seen another batsman who could have done that going into the subcontinent. Even at the very end scoring 450 at 90 in Pakistan against Kaneria, Hafeez and Malik - in one of those matches he hit 63 and 122, West Indies didn’t make 500 for the match. Even at the other end of the scale late in his career he drew a match for them by crawling by his standards to a century off 310 balls against india. 196 against SA with 34 the next highest score. 202 at the Wanderers against Nel, Pollock and Ntini. The other batsmen scored barely 100 while he was at the crease. The list goes on.
It doesn’t make him a better player than other guys but he certainly had the highest ceiling.
The hands of stone
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Zoe Goss's bunny
The hands of stone
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I would say Lara had the most pure natural ability .
Could play shots noone else could
