Selecting just one wicket-keeper for MY All West Indies Test XI, with six players already included – Joel Garner, Sir Curty Ambrose, late Malcolm Marshall, Sir Wes Hall, Lancelot Gibbs, Sir Gary Sobers – is probably the hardest, most contentious decision ever, even with great battersalso vying for thoselast four positions.  The batsmen would be relatively easier.

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In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com

Croft made this statement

And then proceeds to conclude....


HTF does Rohan Kanhai make it to an elite 8 of WI wicketkeepers when a whopping 3% of his test matches played were played as him as a keeper?

Ah mean.....homeboyism and hero worship is one thing. But this????


Makes a mockery of his entire article.

Barbados best ever wkpr was DAVID MURRAY

Trinidad best ever wkpr between DERYCK MURRAY AND DAVID WILLIAMS imo....I dont know of ERROL HUNTE....has to be wayyyy before my time.

Junior Murray superior to Michael Findlay?

Usually all time WI teams pick either Clyde Walcott or Dujon because of their superior batsmanship.

In reply to analyst-kid

Nothing else needed to be said.
Rohan was a great West Indies batsman; he could not be considered a great Guyana Wicketkeeper because of his productivity as a specialist wicketkeeper.

In reply to analyst-kid

williams was as good a keeper as denesh ramdin but ramdin was a much better batsman, which is why i give him the edge, but as a keeper, williams was phenomenal

In reply to openning

murray was probably the best wk of the 80s among all teams. i believe dujon once said that murray would glide into position whereas he'd have to dive.

In reply to Jumpstart

David Murray was unfaired by WI cricket

Maybe because of his locks

Maybe because he allegedly smoked weed

But as a keeper……there haven’t been any better in my time. He wasn’t bad with the bat either.

Then he went on the rebel tour and that was that for him.

The whole premise of having 5 fast-bowlers and a spinner as sure picks (even if one of those fast men is a supreme allrounder) ensures an unbalanced XI no?
Hunte
Greenidge/Rae/Haynes/BABU/Crampy
Headley/Prince/Weekes
Viv,Viv, Viv/Worrel
The Greatest
WALCOTT/Duj
Macko
Big Bud
Ambi
Sir Wes
Lancelot Richard
Das one Rass of a tail bit there's no one who could shepherd a tail bettervthan the Greatest. Duj was good at that too but with so few batsmen Walcott gets the pick

In reply to Jumpstart

I met David as a youth, and we attended the first coaching clinic conducted by Foffie Williams.
In my last game in Barbados, I kept wicket while David bowled.
Dujon played with the best team in the history of West Indies cricket. He kept Wickets to the bowlers that the team had at the time.
I was one of the people who devalue his keeping, but I have learned to appreciate eras and what each player brought o the game.

In reply to Brerzerk

Damn! U leff out Sobers???

Harsh IMO

In reply to Brerzerk

don't need a spinner when you have the fire power the WI had. if a spinner managed to be better than any of the world class pacemen we produced, then fine, but i am certainly not picking a spinner based on that balanced attack rubbish. maco, imran, waqar, wasim and glenn mcgrath proved quick bowlers with the right skills could be successful on the subcontinent and on wickets that don't favor pace bowling

In reply to Jumpstart

There is no way I will select an all-time team and not have Lance Gibbs for the West Indies or Shane Warne for Australia.

In reply to openning

i would....if we are playing in chennai or multan, my attack would be holding, roberts, maco, walsh(from 96-2000). if it was a world xi.....i'd put roberts, maco, mcgrath/imran and wasim. warne's record in india is poor

In reply to imusic

Sobers is "The Greatest" batting at 5!
I am showing that picking 5 pacers including Sobers plus Gibbs for a total of 6 bowlers unbalances the team.
The West Indies did not "unfair Murray".Dujon debuted as a #7 batsman with Murray at 8. By the 2nd or 3rd test Murray and Croft exited the team to join "The Rebels" in SA. Duj took the globlves and the rest is history. Until the 90's no "rebel" was forgiven and only one was able to make thevteam by then. Murray grew Locks years after the rebel tour

i INVESTIGATED a folklore talk that Viv (at the beginning of his career) watched David Murray batting against spin and learnt from watching him. Murray was an excellent player of spin bowling saving a Barbados Shell Shield Team many times.

I used to eat lunch with David at a restaurant in town 6 years ago and I asked him about Viv learning from watching him....he just stared at me and said "What's wrong with you? Thats my brother, thats my family!"

In reply to openning

When it comes to Guyana, I rank Milton Pydanna highly, a better wkpr than Babilul.

Reds Perreira always said the best WI wkpr he ever seen was Jackie Hendricks.

In reply to Brerzerk

I serve up:

1. Hunte
2. Greenidge
3. Headley
4. Richards
5. Lara
6. Sobers
7. Dujon
8. Marshall
9. Holding
10 . Ambrose
11. Gibbs

In reply to JoeGrine

From a man who knows cricket no less.
Good team sah. Man n man can quibble and tinker wid some minor changes if dem want.lf it is vs Oz down under Babu is my opener with Freddo and Crampy also ahead of Greenidg. Ah bias towards Walcott even with the speedster getting edges and the big man having to.dive

That is a good average not excellent. Well, maybe in the era in which he played ....

In reply to Kay

That's an excellent average in that time..........and even up to the late 90s. its only after pace bowling (and spin bowling later after the retirements of warne and murali)declined after 2002 that you had phonies like hayden, guys who could not make a note against the ambrose's, bishop's walsh's and donald's of the 90s, starting to beat crap attacks and averaging over 50. kanhai barely played against weak opposition. it had no bangldesh, and no teams in perpetual decline like the wi. pakistan was weak, india was improving in the 60s and peaked in the early 70s with a series win in england

In reply to Jumpstart

This is 2025, and you are selecting an All-Star team, meaning the best.
George Headley will be my opener with Gordan and Everon Weekes at #5.

In reply to Brerzerk

At Perth, Fredericks is the very first name on my sheet, even Sobers have to take a back seat . That 169 against Thommo, Lillee, Gilmour, Walker etc. is still talked about by my Australian friends as one of the finest knock they have ever seen.

In reply to imusic/analyst-kid

Folklore talk was Vivian and David Murray-Weekes allegedly were pals

How come no one talking about Conrad Hunte? West Indies greatest opening batsman!!!

In reply to openning

even better. most of these posers average under 45 in tests....and the majority of those average under 40

In reply to Castled

vuiv's reactions to the rebels were a lot more nuanced that a lot of the people and some players who ostracized the players

Conrad Hunte is the 1st name on my team. By the way Allan Rae has a better avg than Hunte but I don't believe he was better.

In reply to JoeGrine

I concur. Only question for me is Dujon v Walcott

In reply to Arlo

Hard to believe we can pick an all time West Indies team with no W in it. Weekes or Walcott before Richards for me. Both far better averages in test cricket. Look cuss coming!

That’s like picking Larry Bird or Luka over Steph Curry

Madness

POPPYCOCK
HENDRIKS is the best West Indies wicketkeeper and it is not even close.I will expand on this later.

In reply to imusic

thanks for the gentle cuss, Musicman

In reply to imusic

Link

1Michael Jordan's POWERFUL Words Left Larry Bird ...

Best keeper I have seen is Michael Findlay. He was cast aside because there was a need t o get Deryck Murray into the side.
Watching him standing up to the stumps with Roberts and Shillingford bowling was just amazing

The reason that assessing wicketkeepers is difficult is because the statistics used generally to assess them are wholly inadequate.It should not be the amount of catches a wicketkeeper takes but the percentage they dropped.If you are wicketkeeping and your team have the greatest fast bowlers in history then your figures will be better than those who were wicketkeeping when Vanburn Holder and Grayson Shillingford were bowling.

Jackie Hendriks is far and away the best West Indies wicketkeeper I have seen and I have seen them all since 1965.The other two who really impressed me are David Murray and Michael Findlay.
The author of this thread says that many people say Hendriks is the best gloveman and I would like to expand on that.In an interview in 2004 with Cecil Kippins a former International Test Umpire from Guyana he categorically said that without a doubt Hendriks was the best WI wicketkeeper ever.He also went on to say that when he saw Dujon,he asked why is this guy the wicketkeeper, since he felt he should be playing as a batsman and that wicketkeeping hampered his batting.Dujon ended up with a batting average of 31 which is well below where his batting ability suggested he should be averaging.In fact quite a few people had serious doubts about Dujon's wicketkeeping ability.His technique was not of the best but he made up for that with spectacular goalkeeping style catches which masked his deficiencies in technique.He did not drop too many catches is the retort of the masses and that is true.
Clive Lloyd also feels that Hendriks is the best as did the Late Basil Butcher,Lance Gibbs and many others.
My first memory of Jackie Hendriks was a match between Guyana and Jamaica at Bourda and Lester King was bowling to Winston English an all-rounder who was batting and he deliberately started batting outside his crease to unsettle the fast bowler. Hendriks seeing that went up to the wicket forcing English to get back in his crease.King then bowled a ball a little outside the leg stump and English tried to flick the ball and missed and off balance he stumbled forward and quick as a flash Hendriks had the bails off and English was stumped.
All the above information was given to me by Roy Fredericks many years later (1973) as I was a mere 11 years old watching the game with my transistor radio in my ear which told me that English was not bowled as I initially thought but that he was stumped.In the early 2000's I met Jackie Hendriks at a Wolmer's Alumni Luncheon where he along with Maurice Foster were being Honoured and I asked him if he remembers that stumping. He laughed and said of course and I told him I was there to see it live.

In reply to Dukes

was great for a wk of his time though. his batting average (31)is well above the wk's who would have played in the 80s. paul downton averages 19, saleem yosuf 25, jack russell 27, rod marsh 26 and even ian healy 27. but i agree with you, dujon's techniques wasn't the best, but the results were well above average. yes he had the best bowlers in the world but it could have not be easy keeping to bowlers, at least three of them who bowled sometimes in the very high 80s and many times 90mph and up. when espn cricinfo did their wi al time xi, hendriks was their wk

In reply to Jumpstart

The thread is looking for the best, not which era the best played.
Why is Don Bradman listed in every All-time team?

In reply to Dukes

Jackie played 20 tests, which is too small a sample to be considered representative of the best.
You asked me about Seymour, and I said the same.
More tests were played after the 1950s.

In reply to openning

for reasons other than cricket clearly...bradman played 37 tests against the english......and one series each against wi, SA and india and only played in two countries....his home and england

In reply to Dukes

No one is questioning whether Hendricks is the best glove man in WI history. I think that's well established that he is.

The question is does he make the all time XI as a keeper.

While Dujon is no way technically as skilled as Hendricks behind the stumps. His batting brings him into the conversation. Dujon was competent enough to play over 75 tests as a keeper. He played a few as a batman only. Dujon average 31 to Hendricks 18.

For me I am going with a very competent keeper who can contribute with the bat vs the better keeper who has lesser batting ability.

In reply to Jumpstart

If Don Bradman were from T&T, you would be jumping and waving, but respect should be given to every player, regardless of era.
Do you rate George Headley's contribution?
He will always be my opener in my Number one all-time test team.

In reply to openning
no i would not....at all.
george headley played 22 tests is never mentioned in a GOAT world xi. and for similar reasons, he only played 40 innings in 4 countries. Like bradman.....he never faced reverse swing, the four pronged pace attack, the doosra, the caromm ball, mass professionalization of the game...any of the major innovations that changed cricket at a fundamental level. greatest of their time certainly. but cricket before 1970 and after 1970 are two different sports. part of the reason sobers is revered the ways he is is because he conquered both the old cricketing world and the emerging new one symbolized by hell fire pacemen like Dennis Lillee

In reply to Jumpstart

That's your belief. I love history and the contributions of players in every era to the sport.
Can you imagine 50 years from now, and saying the same to the greatness of Sir Gary, Viv, Lara and others?

In reply to openning
uhhh yeah. test cricket has not changed that much, with the exception of bowling where pace bowling in particular has been disemboweled. people talk aboutt england scoring at 5 rpo in tests as if that never happened before.....and then i look at the scorecard for the second test of the wisden series of 1984 to show it did. Batsmen will still collapse in a heap when confronted by a truly nasty pace merchant as the example of england and australia showed between the end of 2013 and 2014, with only the very best surviving(ab de villears coming to mind)

In reply to Arlo

A team that has Lara,Richards and Sobers needs a wicketkeeper who averages 31 to shore up the batting???????

In reply to Jumpstart

1. Why did Headley play only 22 Tests?
2. If Headley was a white man he would be the second name penciled in on any all-time XI.

In reply to openning

In reply to openning

REALLY????
Headley played 22 test matches but the Second World War took place when he was 30 years old and lasted 6 years and WI played their first test after the war 2 years later so he missed 8 years!!!!! He is considered a great batsman.
Nurse played 29 test matches.. The reason Nurse can not be considered great is that after 25 test matches he was averaging 39 with 3 test centuries. Bill Ponsford has a statue at the MCG yet he only played 29 test matches for Australia between 1924 and 1934 and is uniformly considered a great Australian batsman by Australians. Do you think Michael Clarke will have a statue at the MCG or SCG?????
BTW Ponsford never hit a six in test cricket!!!!!!!
Joe Root played 17 test matches last year whereas Sobers played no test matches in 1964 or 1970 and 1 test match in 1967.
Kallis played 166 test matches yet he played test cricket for 18 years while Sobers played 93 test matches in 20 years.

In reply to Dukes

Four tests later, he ended with 6 tons, including two doubles, one against Australia, with Simpson writing he felt sorry for the youngster when he walked to the wicket, he felt sorrier for my bowlers as his innings progressed, the next double was his final test in New Zealand.
As a fan of Seymour, I believed he retired too early, especially after just scoring a double.
I was playing school cricket during the early years of Jackie's career, as a wicketkeeper; he was never mentioned.
Neither Jerry Alexander nor Jackie Hendrik was the Keeper that youngsters wanted to emulate; it is strange to hear his name mentioned as one of the best.
The Wicket keeper that we youngsters love was Renford Pinnock.

In reply to openning

The reason you and your fellow teenagers loved Renford Pinnock had NOTHING to do with his technical wicketkeeping skills.

In reply to JoeGrine

hence why i told opening bradman's name in all time xi's has very little to do with cricket. sometimes they even try to fit in graham pollock and barry richards' names in all time xis and neither played 10 tests.

As a Lil boy in the 60's I heard tale after tale about Jackie Hendricks being WI's best ever keeper and that was right after the story-tellers remarked how good Deryck Murray was.

In reply to Dukes

It is not about a man averaging 31 shoring up the batting. It is about the best possible XI.

Hypothetically an all time WI XI would go up against an all time XI from other countries. Let take an all time Australian XI for example.

Australia All Time XI

A wicket keeper who can give runs at number 7 would be insurance if a great all time bowling line up makes early inroads in the great WI top 6. Also, a wicket keeper who can score runs can help to press home an advantage.

Adam Gilchrist is not the best gloveman in Australia history but his keeping competency combined with his batting gets him into the all time XI.

In recent times, lots of teams have opted for very competent keepers who were superior batters over the best gloveman.

When Dhoni was selected for India, he was not the best gloveman in India. When Gilchrist was selected for Austrailia he was not the best gloveman in Australia

Most recently Ben Foakes despite being the best gloveman in England was often overlooked in favor of Bairstow and Buttler as they were superior batters.

Currently India's keeper his Pant despite there being better glovemen (previously Saha, now Barrath).


So back to the point, it is not about a man averaging 31 shoring up a great top XI, it is about the best possible XI.

My question to you Dukes, would swapping out Hendricks for Dujon (or Walcott) make an all time WI team stronger?

In reply to Arlo

Any All-time team consist of the greats of the game.

In reply to Arlo

also an avg of 31 would have been the best among wicketkeepers in dujon's time.

In reply to Jumpstart

that is correct.

The question is who keeps. Hendricks or Dujon? or even Walcott.

In reply to Arlo

Personally, I would only include one person from an all time xi from before 1970: sobers. Cricket changed dramatically after the arrival of lillee and thomson, which was the catalyst for WSC and the four horsemen. that kind of pace and hostility didn't exist before 1970. As i said before, cricket changed fundamentally and even players from the early 70s, like gavaskar(check his record in the 1983 series imn WI and the return tour exclusive of the two dustbowls at chennai and bangalore) found it difficult to adjust. The only Indian in that entire series to master the west indies was the legendary and severely underrated Mohinder Jimmy Aramanth, who scored 598 runs in the Caribbean visit. I am not sure how any of the pre 1970 players would react to lillee, thomson and imran trying to knock their heads off. so being conservative, I'd go with Jeff Dujon. I remember imran speaking about WSC on an interview, and he said it was the first and only time he saw batsmen wo came in to WSC as greats wilt under the pace bowling barrage.

Dujon was born into that kind of test cricket.

In reply to Jumpstart

Not so sure bout Freddo....Freddo loved taking on fast bowling...one of Wi premiere bats against pace.

In reply to Jumpstart

When Viv Richards was asked who was the best bowler he faced in his career he said Denis Lillee.He was asked why he said that and he replied it was because Lillee was always at you regardless of the circumstances.
Garry Sobers when asked the same question said Freddie Trueman for exactly the same reason.However the records will showRichards only faced Lillee in Australia where the slowest wicket in Australia has bounce and carry whereas Sobers faced Trueman on slow wickets in England and the West Indies.Of course Sobers briefly faced Lillee as well when he was in the twilight of his career. Lillee dismissed him for a duck twice but Sobers hit a masterful 254 as well.
One of the reasons you can get away with mediocre wicketkeepers who are essentially batsmen who put on the gloves is that there are few top class spin bowlers in many teams.England and the West Indies can get away with mediocre keepers as they do not have big spinners of the ball.The most challenging tasks of a wicketkeeper is when you are up at the wicket to somebody turning the ball significantly and you have to be able to anticipate and read how the ball is going to turn and bounce.Many times there is no spin bowler or if there is it is Chase and Warrican who hardly turn the ball.

In reply to Arlo

Putting myself in Lance Gibbs shoes the answer to that question is obvious!!!!!
But then again maybe Gibbs would not be in your all-time West Indies team because his bowling average is 29 and his strike rate is 79!!!

Here is an anecdote, the veracity of which is uncertain

Lance was playing for Guyana and the Late Milton Pydanna was the keeper.Lance told Pye, he was going to bowl a few flighted deliveries and then will bowl a quicker straight ball just outside the leg stump and the batsman will overbalance and could be stumped.Lance then fired a quicker one down the leg side and lo and behold the ball hit Pydanna in the mouth.
A true story is Lance famously told a wicketkeeper named Jackman that he would never play for Guyana again after he dropped Sobers who had less than 20 off Gibbs and went on to score a double century.

In reply to Dukes

Well I would have Lance in my team as I believe that an all time XI should be picked so that they same team plays in any condition. So for me a spinner is a must and Gibbs is the best WI spinner.

Lance preference may be Hendricks but Hendricks still doesn't make me team.

What can you tell me about Walcott's keeping? I haven't come across much about his keeping ability.

In reply to Dukes

that's why sobers in on my list, the only pre 1970 player at that. as i said, sobers mastered the best that two generations of international cricket had to offer, two worlds that were polar opposites at that. Trueman was aggressive yes, but like most english pacemen, there was a limit to his nastiness and venom. I remember Ian Chappell, of all people, saying in a documentary, that he thanked god that lillee didn't have the pace of jeff thomson because somebody would have been killed. Typhoon tyson had extreme pace but no batsman got injured by him the way thomson and lillee frequently injured batsmen. That's why i said i'd find it difficult to put a pre-70s player other than sobers on my list. The exponential increase in aggression pioneered by the Chappell gang coupled with the receding of the gentlemanly traits that underpinned the pre-professional game would have presented a massive challenge to players not expecting it

In reply to analyst-kid

i actually thought it was a strange statement at first. then i checked the stats. fredo averaged 42 as a batsman. his average in wsc was 34 though. he didn't even score a hundred. Ditto with lawrence rowe, at times the best batsman of the early 70s and went to the infamous 1975 tour down under averaging over 70

In reply to analyst-kid

was such batter was none other than The Babu, Rohan Kanhai!

In 1971 World XI vs Australia at Pert when the rampaging Dennis Lillee single handedly destroyed the world XI for 59 in the first inning taking 8/29. The Babu was the only one who countered Lillee in the second inning by scoring 118. The team went on to make 279 in that second inning. Lillee took 4/63 in the second inning.

In reply to googley

I am curious, any other sequence of knocks by Khanai that would back up your claim that "such batter was none other than The Babu"? I too was excited by Fredericks' 169 at Perth but need more body of work to acclaim him the one. I wait....

In reply to Jumpstart

How can you pick an all-time team but exclude greats from certain eras? Logical reasoning is that most greats would have the talent, skill and nous to adjust their game to whatever rules, conditions and opposition they faced

In reply to Brerzerk



In any sport, when referring to former top players, all of them are considered great.

Was Hendricks a great player?
No
Then why is he listed in any All-time team?

The reason why Bradman and Headley are listed, they were the best in the era they played.

In reply to openning

There has NEVER been a GREAT WICKETKEEPER!!!!!!!!!
Only BATSMEN and BOWLERS ARE GREAT!!!!!

Gilchrist is a GREAT BATSMAN who kept wicket!!!!!!

In reply to Dukes

Gilchrist and Kumar Sangakkara were two great players.
In the era when Hendrick played, he was not considered one of the world's best; that's how you become part of the ICC's player of the year and in line to be great.
As a Steeler, we had the Iron Curtain, 2 great receivers, 2 great linebackers, all of them are in the Hall of Fame, most of them will be among the NFL's greatest.
You are naming Hendrick because of former players telling you about his wicketkeeping, but will they select him in an All-time West Indies team?
I doubt it.

In reply to openning

I am naming Hendriks as the best ever West Indies wicketkeeper I have ever seen BECAUSE HE WAS THE BEST EVER WI WICKETKEEPER I HAVE SEEN.
The fact that Umpire Kippins and CLIVE LLOYD named him in their all-time WI teams merely adds legitimacy to my views but are not causative.
My views on wicketkeepers is consistent from childhood.I study cricket deeply and put a lot of thought into it.
The two skills I greatly admire in cricket are wrist spin and wicketkeeping.
I look at wicketkeepers very closely and I am different from most people in that I think you should pick your best wicketkeeper in red ball cricket. I look at wicketkeeping technique whereas most people do not have a clue as to what that means.
It is my opinion that the two best wicketkeepers in the region are Tevin Imlach and Carlon Bowen-Tuckett.

Why the hard-hitting Bramble not mentioned... It's Friday..