The West Indian batting line up of 80's vs Top class spinners.Winner?

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MechEng

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This battle is as interesting as imagining the Aussie batsmen of 1990's vs Marshall, Holding, Garner and Roberts.

What if the batting line up comprising of Greenidge, Haynes, Viv, Gomes, Lloyd and Dujon face massive turners like Murali, Warne and Saqlain on a turning pitch? Who wins?
 
I have never seen the Windies' 80s batting line-up, I've only heard about it. And from what I've heard I feel they would easy win.
 
In the current tour WestIndies are playing there level best and Gayle is to there no need to worry!but If Gayle would been in the tests it would be 100% better than the recent results.
 
JTN6R said:
In the current tour WestIndies are playing there level best and Gayle is to there no need to worry!but If Gayle would been in the tests it would be 100% better than the recent results.
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And your opinion on the actual question being asked in this thread is.......
 
We'll never really know, there were hardly any good spinners around in the late 70s and 80s for the WI batsmen to test themselves against. Lillee and Thomson's effectiveness in 1974/75 got everyone into the pace bowling arms race and spin was discarded.

Most spinners of that era (and earlier) were containing bowlers. Even the legendary Abdul Qadir and Bishen Bedi had a strike rate over 70, way off the modern Warne, Murali, Swann, Ajmal type who have strike rates around 60 or lower.

Anyway we can see how WI did against India and Pakistan, the only two teams that didn't sell out to pace bowling. Well Pakistan sort of did, but only later in the 80s and 90s. Here's the list: WI batsmen vs India & Pakistan, 1970-1995 Most of the averages are very similar to their career ones, maybe a slight drop. Gomes and Haynes are the only ones I can see that drop by more than 5. Averages of guys like Lloyd, Kallicharan and Hooper even go up.

All that said though, here in Australia the word was always that the WI weakness was against leg-spin bowling. That saw Bob 'Dutchie' Holland get selected as a 38 year old and do pretty well in 84/85, it saw Narendra Hirwani take a bag full of wickets vs WI on debut, and it probably got Shane Warne into the team a bit earlier than he deserved vs WI in 92/93. Allan Border also had a good Test vs WI in 88/89, not leg spin by spun away from the right handers anyway...
 
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sifter132 said:
We'll never really know, there were hardly any good spinners around in the late 70s and 80s for the WI batsmen to test themselves against. Lillee and Thomson's effectiveness in 1974/75 got everyone into the pace bowling arms race and spin was discarded.

Most spinners of that era (and earlier) were containing bowlers. Even the legendary Abdul Qadir and Bishen Bedi had a strike rate over 70, way off the modern Warne, Murali, Swann, Ajmal type who have strike rates around 60 or lower.

Anyway we can see how WI did against India and Pakistan, the only two teams that didn't sell out to pace bowling. Well Pakistan sort of did, but only later in the 80s and 90s. Here's the list: WI batsmen vs India & Pakistan, 1970-1995 Most of the averages are very similar to their career ones, maybe a slight drop. Gomes and Haynes are the only ones I can see that drop by more than 5. Averages of guys like Lloyd, Kallicharan and Hooper even go up.

All that said though, here in Australia the word was always that the WI weakness was against leg-spin bowling. That saw Bob 'Dutchie' Holland get selected as a 38 year old and do pretty well in 84/85, it saw Narendra Hirwani take a bag full of wickets vs WI on debut, and it probably got Shane Warne into the team a bit earlier than he deserved vs WI in 92/93. Allan Border also had a good Test vs WI in 88/89, not leg spin by spun away from the right handers anyway...
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This scorecard will give us a brief idea though.

1st Test: Pakistan v West Indies at Faisalabad, Oct 24-29, 1986 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
 
Yep you've picked out Qadir's ONLY 5-fer against the WI in 10 Tests, most of which were in Pakistan. Qadir's bowling average was 30.83 against WI, and given he was probably the best spinner of the day, I don't think we can say WI struggled against the best spin - ^that match aside :D

How they'd go against Warne/Murali though...we can only dream:yes
 
Good thread but there are some flaws:

1. Murali is not a bowler, rather a chucker.......period!
2. Personally I dont rate Saqlain highly at all.

Given that the West Indian lineup facing Warney on a turning pitch would certainly be difficult even for them.
 
MechEng said:
This battle is as interesting as imagining the Aussie batsmen of 1990's vs Marshall, Holding, Garner and Roberts.

What if the batting line up comprising of Greenidge, Haynes, Viv, Gomes, Lloyd and Dujon face massive turners like Murali, Warne and Saqlain on a turning pitch? Who wins?
Click to expand...

Not sure there is a definitive answer, but here is a match might amuse some and steer as close to a definitive answer as you can ever get in a hypothetical question

HowSTAT! Match Scorecard

Australia vs West Indies (4th Test, 26/01/89)

West Indies 1st Inns - 224 all out.
Greenidge 56, Haynes 75. Border 7/46

Australia 1st Inns - 401 all out
Boon 149, Border 75, S.Waugh 55no.
Marshall 5/29, Harper 0/86

West Indies 2nd Inns - 256 all out
Haynes 143.
Hohns 3/69, Border 4/50

Australia 2nd Inns - 82/3w

Australia won by 7 wickets

That was as strong a West Indies line-up as was about at the time, same (batting) line-up that destroyed England 4-0 in 1988 - Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson, Hooper, Richards, Logie, Dujon, Harper, Marshall, Ambrose, Walsh.

But seriously you can simply look at the results of series in India and Pakistan.

West Indies (1980s)

83/84 West Indies won in India 3-0
87/88 West Indies drew in India 1-1

80/81 West Indies won in Pakistan 1-0
86/87 West Indies drew in Pakistan 1-1

Interestingly West Indies have only toured Pakistan eight times. Doesn't prove the West Indies could play a top spinner with a stick of rhubarb on a spinning wicket, but it does show their 80s side didn't have a lot of trouble playing spin with only two defeats in the 80s in India and Pakistan combined.

India's only win was the Test where Narendra Hirwani took eight in each innings to end with 16/136 in the Test.

Wasim Akram took six wickets in the 1st innings, Abdul Qadir took six in the 2nd with Imran taking the other four in the 2nd when Pakistan beat West Indies so pace did a lot of the damage.
 
I don't think it would be that big a difference. that west indies side bowled teams out the game (even that india series you mention owzat has marshall and holding running through india taking stacks at around 20) and india's best spinner was mahinder singh or whoever.

looking back it's not like these west indian batsmen were averaging outrageous amounts in the 80s so not sure why they'd be able to hammer around a bowler like murali who has managed a brilliant average in an era filled with players with higher averages.

I think it would depend on conditions like it normally does, the aussie batting line up of the late 90s early 2000s was probably better and on australian bouncey flat tracks murali was gubbed all over the place and in sri lanka he tore them a new one.
 
The windies basically bowled you out through pace, or anyone who hung around got battered into submission with short stuff.

My point re the results is not that they won therefore could play spin, more that they weren't like England and capitulating despite their bowlers doing well against whatever quality spin was on offer. Unfortunately I had to cut short and come to work, but would have gone on to say what I'm saying here. This is a little before my time as well, so I can't comment on the spinner quality other than knowing Qadir was more than useful.

I do know that England employed some spinners against West Indies and it didn't worry them much, maybe as much to do with pitches as quality.
 
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