HEADLINE: “WEST INDIES ALL-TIME MEN’S TEST TEAM – A WICKET-KEEPER PLEASE!”

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..