blockerdave
ICC Chairman
The 80s is known as the era of the great all rounders - Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee all in their pomp.
It might be less well known that here were two other fantastic all rounders in the 80s that never played a single test match. Clive Rice was prevented from playing tests due to South Africa's isolation, and Franklyn Stephenson was banned from the West Indies due to his participation on the West Indies Rebel tours to South Africa in 1982/83 and 1983/84. Rice scored 26,331 first class runs @ 40.95 as well as taking 930 wickets @ 22.49. Stephenson wasn't perhaps in the same class as the others as a batsman, but still scored 8,622 runs @ 27.99 (including 12 hundreds) and taking 792 wickets at 24.26. I believe had he had test cricket to aspire to, he'd have done even better. He remains the last man to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in a county championship season.
Thanks to great work from creators such as @Mouseydread and @gleeso73 and fabulous logos from @Llewelynf I've created a "Fantasy" test league using the 80s teams. It's Fantasy because in this alternative reality South Africa are included and this means Stephenson never goes on a rebel tour, never gets banned and miraculously the West Indies side of the early/mid 80s gets even better. (There's no question had he not banned he'd have been ahead of the likes of Eldine Baptiste and Milton Small).
Though they had no all rounders in the same class, I've put Australia and Sri Lanka in the league too, so that's all "8" test nations of the 80s (including South Africa).
Format is everyone plays each other home and away twice (so 4 round robins in total), in 80s test match format (96 overs a day, no bouncer limit, no reviews). Top 4 go into semi-finals. I've also created 3 umpires from each country that were active in the era, and I've lowered their lbw and edge judgement stats to spice things up...
Aim is to see not only who wins the league, but which all-rounder comes out on top.
Team lineups are pitched towards the early 80s - pre-86 really, when most of the all rounders were at their peak, though this is a little early for Stephenson. I'll "evolve" the lineups as the tournament progresses - i.e. switching out Lloyd for Richardson in the WI, Boycott for Broad/Fowler etc in England etc.
I'll be playing as the away team in every game. Obviously the format means 112 round robin matches alone, so I may not ever complete this, but what I do play I'll write up here.
Hope people enjoy!
It might be less well known that here were two other fantastic all rounders in the 80s that never played a single test match. Clive Rice was prevented from playing tests due to South Africa's isolation, and Franklyn Stephenson was banned from the West Indies due to his participation on the West Indies Rebel tours to South Africa in 1982/83 and 1983/84. Rice scored 26,331 first class runs @ 40.95 as well as taking 930 wickets @ 22.49. Stephenson wasn't perhaps in the same class as the others as a batsman, but still scored 8,622 runs @ 27.99 (including 12 hundreds) and taking 792 wickets at 24.26. I believe had he had test cricket to aspire to, he'd have done even better. He remains the last man to score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets in a county championship season.
Thanks to great work from creators such as @Mouseydread and @gleeso73 and fabulous logos from @Llewelynf I've created a "Fantasy" test league using the 80s teams. It's Fantasy because in this alternative reality South Africa are included and this means Stephenson never goes on a rebel tour, never gets banned and miraculously the West Indies side of the early/mid 80s gets even better. (There's no question had he not banned he'd have been ahead of the likes of Eldine Baptiste and Milton Small).
Though they had no all rounders in the same class, I've put Australia and Sri Lanka in the league too, so that's all "8" test nations of the 80s (including South Africa).
Format is everyone plays each other home and away twice (so 4 round robins in total), in 80s test match format (96 overs a day, no bouncer limit, no reviews). Top 4 go into semi-finals. I've also created 3 umpires from each country that were active in the era, and I've lowered their lbw and edge judgement stats to spice things up...
Aim is to see not only who wins the league, but which all-rounder comes out on top.
Team lineups are pitched towards the early 80s - pre-86 really, when most of the all rounders were at their peak, though this is a little early for Stephenson. I'll "evolve" the lineups as the tournament progresses - i.e. switching out Lloyd for Richardson in the WI, Boycott for Broad/Fowler etc in England etc.
I'll be playing as the away team in every game. Obviously the format means 112 round robin matches alone, so I may not ever complete this, but what I do play I'll write up here.
Hope people enjoy!