The 606v2 Cricket Hall of Fame - Part 3

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Trying to make the case for Jayasuriya seems to have defeated many a 606v2 poster....

guildfordbat wrote:A few months ago and well before this excellent thread fell into the black hole of Jayasuriya, we discussed the case for Javed Miandad.

Whilst he was selected in the end, a fair bit of debate revolved around Javed's general conduct on the pitch. If only to show that the debate was merited, I'll supply a quote I recently came across in David Lloyd's entertaining book The World According to Bumble: Start the Car -

''Some players have no trouble getting on opponents' wicks. Pakistan's Javed Miandad was about as popular as syphilis during his time on the county circuit and so didn't need to do much to pick a fight with even the most placid opponent.''

skyeman wrote:


Bumble never did mince his words Think {but not 100%} that i did not vote on this one, but after recent events, i think that the character of a person may count as a big negative in the later thoughts of people in deciding whether or not they are classed as greats of the game, when they are on the peripheral. ie Boycott. Love him or hate him.

guildfordbat wrote:

skyeman wrote:


Bumble never did mince his words Think {but not 100%} that i did not vote on this one, but after recent events, i think that the character of a person may count as a big negative in the later thoughts of people in deciding whether or not they are classed as greats of the game, when they are on the peripheral. ie Boycott. Love him or hate him.

Hi Skye - suspect you were off on your diversity course when we voted on Javed.

I voted against Boycott very early on due to - what I think Hoggy called - his ''innate selfishness''. I've mentioned in the past that I could never vote in favour of Pietersen due to character flaws.

skyeman wrote:

Hi Gb, can i just ask please which way you voted on Miandad.

Fists of Fury wrote:As you know, there is a Hall of Fame already set up by the ICC, though looking through it there are some names in that list which are debateable as to whether they really belong in such company. That, then, is up to us to decide. Let's make our Hall of Fame elitist in every way, ensuring that only the most worthy of candidates are elected.

In order for a candidate to gain election to the Hall, they will need a yes vote of 75% or more... Every candidate must be retired from the sport, and no currently active players will be considered.

Mike Selig wrote:Fine summary Shelsey.

I'd only emphasise that the main purposes of this thread (if it can be put that way) are to educate and to debate.

It is meant to be quite exclusive, so if you feel someone deserves admission to the HoF it is expected you explain why; similarly if you don't, then you should also say: reasons can vary from "made an unpardonable mistake against the spirit of the game" (G. Chappel), "good to very good at everything, but not great" (I. Chappell), to whatever you feel like.

However it is expected that you offer a reason. Simply saying "yes" or "no" is frowned upon and may lead the Corporal to send his troops over.

Similarly it's usual to spend some time reading and researching claims and counter-claims before coming to a decision, particularly on players we may not know all that well. There should be no rush to vote.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Clem Hill

“Sir Clement of the flashing blade,
the pride and joy of Adelaide”

Though somewhat overshadowed by Victor Trumper, Clem Hill was a hugely consistent batsman who scored more runs in tests, at a better average, than his more famous contemporary. A childhood prodigy (he scored 360, then the highest score ever made in Australia, during a school match when he was 16), Hill was a gritty left-hander with a somewhat awkward looking, stooped stance. He was, however, a superb player of fast bowling able to pull “with surprising certainty”, according to Arlott, “even from outside the off-stump” and whose “Brilliant square and late cutting” made him, according to Wisden “delightful to watch”. In addition “in defence his style claimed admiration while his patience was unlimited”. Such was his skill against pace that it is reported Tom Richardson, Surrey and England fast-bowler, once remarked to him, “You make me feel I took up fast bowling for your benefit.”
At the time of his international retirement he was the leading run scorer in test cricket with 3,412 runs at 39.21, a record he held for twelve years until he was overtaken by Jack Hobbs. He was also the first man to score 1,000 test runs in a calendar year, a feat which was not equalled for 45 years, and he was the only Australian to score 17,000+ first class runs before the introduction of covered wickets.
Among his notable test innings were his 188 against England in Melbourne in 1898 (when he was still less than 21 years old) which helped lift Australia from 58/6 to a position from which they won the match, his 135 in partnership with Trumper (who made the same score coming in at 6), at Lord’s in 1899 and his 160 at Adelaide in 1908. This last innings was scored in between bouts of throwing up on the wicket after he’d been in bed with gastric flu for three days and England were well on their way to victory. Afterwards dubbed “Clem ‘Ill” by the press, he batted for 5 hours 19 minutes, pulling Australia from the mire of 180 for 7 with a record eighth wicket partnership of 243 (still the Australian record) with Queensland’s Roger Hartigan. England were beaten by 245 runs.
Hill also had scores of 96, 99, 98 and 97 (the last three in consecutive innings) against England, as well as his 4 hundreds. He is, as far as I’m aware, the only Australian batsman to be dismissed twice in Tests for the traditional Australian unlucky score of 87.
As well as being a great batsman, Hill was also an extremely good fielder who once, during a match at Leeds during the 1902 tour of England, threw a ball from near the boundary which knocked down the stumps at one end and rebounded to hit the stumps at the other. During the same tour at Old Trafford, Hill made a catch that Wisden claimed "will never be forgotten by [those present]". A Dick Lilley hit to square leg looked likely to clear the boundary. Hill himself said he raced 25 yards (23 m) for it with a view simply to save a boundary. In the event, he ran round 'close to the boundary' from his position at long on, aided by the wind seemingly holding up the ball to take the catch low down in front of the pavilion in his outstretched hands; one that Wisden said "few fieldsmen would have thought worth attempting".
As a personality Hill was regarded as honest and straightforward, traits which made him popular with his fellow players, but which may have contributed to his eventual retirement from test cricket which followed a stand-up brawl with one of his fellow selectors and his refusal, along with five others, to tour England in 1912. He is, however, still highly regarded in Australia, as is shown by the fact that he was elected to the Australian HoF in 2005, and that, in 2003, the South Australian Cricket Association named the new southern grandstand at the Adelaide Oval the "Clem Hill Stand" in recognition of his contribution to South Australian cricket.
During the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century, Clem Hill was the most successful and consistent batsman in the world. While others, like his fellow Aussie Trumper, may have been more stylish or spectacular, if you wanted someone to bat for your life, Hill, the early 20th century’s answer to Allan Border, would, in all likelihood, have been your man.

Stan McCabe

A perusal of Stan McCabe’s stats would show anyone that he was a very fine player. Averaging 48 in tests puts him up there, in statistical terms, with the likes of Harvey, Kanhai, May and Mohammad but, as he batted in a period dominated by batting giants such as Bradman, Hammond and Headley, it might be argued that his figures were not quite up to scratch. Like a number of other players already included in our HoF, however, with Stan McCabe stats are not everything.
Len Hutton said of him that he “Had qualities that Bradman hadn’t got” and that “It would be harder to think of a greater Australian batsman". According to John Arlott, McCabe “Had nearly all the virtues that could reasonably be asked of a batsman. … he was technically sound, brave, enterprising, entertaining, brilliant in stroke play, yet a shrewd judge of batting risks; a splendid team man, who rose to the major challenge; a pleasing personality; a capable all-round field and, to cap it all, was good enough to open the bowling for his country.”
As Arlott’s comments suggest, McCabe should not be judged solely on how many runs he got, but on how he got them and when he got them. As a batsman he was a master stylist. Fellow state and Australian batsman Bill Brown described McCabe as the "finest strokeplayer I ever saw", further adding "When Stan was in command, he was so magnificent to watch, and he left everyone, including Bradman, for dead. Certainly Bradman scored more runs, but Stan was the batsman you most wanted to be." Neville Cardus was also a fan, saying of him that "Genial, friendly, Stan was Australia’s most gallant and knightly batsman since Victor Trumper. In his brilliant strokeplay there was a certain courtliness. In his most aggressive innings, there was no brutality; his bat was never used as a bludgeon.”, while E. W. Swanton said that McCabe was from "the heroic mould" that his innings "like those of Hobbs, Macartney and Woolley were essentially qualitative" and that he "came as near as any player to one’s conception of the perfect cricketer".
Yet not only was he a scintillating batsman to watch, he was also someone who produced, more often than not, when he was most desperately needed to, a fact reflected in his three most famous innings. Innings which remain among the most famous in test match history.
The first of these innings took place at Sydney in 1932. Coming in after Larwood and Voce’s Bodyline had reduced Australia to 82/3, he conjured an innings of 187 not out, hooking and cutting the bowling all over the park. 25 fours, a s/r of 80 and a 10th wicket stand of 55 with Tim Wall of which Wall’s share was only 4, all achieved under intense mental and physical pressure, show how great an innings this was. Being a humble man, however, McCabe refused to read the next day's newspapers because they'd only contain "a lot of exaggerated praise that it wouldn't do me any good to read".
The second of his great innings came at Johannesburg in 1935. Chasing 399 to win, without Bradman and with Bill Brown already out, McCabe fashioned an innings of 189* on a spiteful 4th innings pitch. On the final day, having been advised by his captain to try and deal solely in boundaries as he was feeling unwell, McCabe added 130 to his overnight 59* while Jack Fingleton and Len Darling managed only 57 between them. Eventually, with storm clouds gathering and gloom descending, the South African captain appealed against the light in order to save his fielders from possible injury, such was the power of McCabe’s shots.
Perhaps the greatest of McCabe’s triumvirate was his 232 at Nottingham in 1938. On the start of the Monday of that test match Australia were 520 runs behind England’s 658/8 dec. with Fingleton, Brown and Bradman already out. McCabe was on 19* overnight. By the time Australia had reached 194/6 McCabe was easing into the 60s. At lunch Australia were 261/6, McCabe having scored 88 of the 120 runs made from the bat in the session. Immediately after lunch Australia were reduced to 263/7, with only McCabe and the bowlers left. O’Reilly made 9, McCormick 2. At the other end, in 47 minutes, McCabe scored 53. When Fleetwood-Smith came in at number 11, McCabe scored 72 out of the 77 runs they put on together IN 28 MINUTES.
In three and a quarter hours on 13 June 1938 seven Australians made 50 runs, Stan McCabe 213. Don Bradman said that he wished he could have played an innings like it. S.F. Barnes called it the best innings he ever saw, and added that he didn’t think even he’d have been able to keep McCabe quiet. What greater praise could you ask for?
Stan McCabe ticks all the boxes required for entry to our HoF IMO. He was a great batsman. A glorious strokeplayer hailed as a great by friend and foe alike. Yet also a man who was at his best when the chips were down and who played almost miraculous innings in such conditions not once, but a number of times. Add to that the fact that he was a good enough bowler to take Wally Hammond’s wicket 4 times in tests and you have a magnificent player.
Yet he was also a humble and popular man who, when once asked why he had never written his memoirs, replied “I don’t hate anyone enough”. Ray Robinson summed up his popularity by saying that "In McCabe the cricketer, you saw McCabe the man—urbane, sociable, unpretentious, straightforward, incapable of anything mean-spirited. In all the pre-war Test series he was the best liked by both his own team and his opponents."
Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Stanley Joseph McCabe a man who, to me, undoubtedly belongs in the exalted company of our Hall of Fame.

Bill Ponsford

Bill Ponsford was one of the greatest run accumulators and scorers of ‘Daddy hundreds’ that the cricket world has ever known. The only man other than Brian Lara to have scored 400+ twice in First Class cricket (429 vs. Tasmania in 1922-23 and 437 vs. Queensland in 1927-28) , he scored 200+ 13 times during his career and averaged 83 in Sheffield Shield matches, 65 in all first class cricket and 48 in tests. Some of the series of colossal scores he strung together were truly remarkable, particularly in Shield cricket. In 1926-27 for example, his innings in Shield matches were 214 and 54, 151, 352, 108 and 84, 12 and 116, 131 and 7, producing an aggregate of 1229 runs at 122.90, while in 1927-28 he produced 133, 437, 202 and 38, 336, 6 and 2, and 63 - an aggregate of 1217 at 152.12. His 336 against South Australia in January 1928 was his eleventh first-class hundred in consecutive matches in Australia.
Ray Robinson described Ponsford as the "founder of total batting, the first to make a habit of regarding 100 as merely the opening battle in a campaign for a larger triumph." Ponsford’s hunger for runs is illustrated by the story that, after he’d edged the ball onto his stumps, having scored 352 against NSW in 1926, he turned to the ‘keeper in disgust and remarked, ‘How unlucky can you get?’.
A big, heavy set man, Ponsford was, however, remarkably quick on his feet and dominated spin and medium pace bowling. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who usually opened the batting, he had something of a weakness against extreme pace, sometimes moving too far across his stumps and getting bowled behind his legs. This didn’t stop him playing some fine innings at the highest level, however. He scored centuries in his first two test matches, and 7 in total with, perhaps his most famous innings being his 266 at the Oval in 1934 when he put on 451 for the 2nd wicket with Don Bradman (still an Australian record, I believe), and his 181 in the test prior to that when he and the Don added 388 for the 4th wicket. Ray Robinson said of his partnerships with Bradman that Ponsford “was the only one who could play in Bradman's company and make it a duet.", while Bradman himself said that "There were more beautiful players, but for absolute efficiency and results where can one turn to equal [Ponsford]?"
While Ponsford’s partnerships with Bradman were often remarkable it is, perhaps, for his partnership with Bill Woodfull that he is best remembered. For both Victoria and Australia, "the two Bills", "Willy Wo and Willy Po" and "Mutt and Jeff” , as they were variously known, made 23 century partnerships, 12 of which exceeded 150 runs.
A quiet, shy man, Ponsford who, according to Bill O’Reilly, "spoke rarely and even then only if he could improve on silence.", was also one of the best Australian baseball players of his time, retiring from both games at the relatively early age of 34, in 1934 (although he continued to play club cricket until 1939).
However, despite his baseball career it is as a cricketer that he is best remembered. A Wisden cricketer of the year in 1935, he was awarded an MBE for services to cricket in 1982, was elected as one of the ten inaugural members of the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 1996 and, along with Arthur Morris, was chosen to open the innings for the ACB’s Team of the Century, in 2000. Despite being somewhat eclipsed by Bradman, (and he wasn’t alone in that),it can be seen that he is still highly regarded in his home country, and remembered as one of the greatest batsmen in Australian, and indeed world, cricket history.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Can I just ask if, having proposed them and outlined the case for them, it would seem strange if I didn't actually vote yes to all the names I put forward?

kwinigolfer wrote:Think I'll add my two cents worth in terms of "peer" recognition:

Just had a butcher's at the Aussie HOF and Ponsford was an original inductee, in 1996.
McCabe followed in 2002, Clem Hill (which, let's face it, is a crummy name compared to Victor Trumper) in 2005.

Very very difficult to discern the differences between the merits of the three Aussies, all legendary figures as I was learning the game, from Hoggy's excellent testimony, but am always interested in how players' peers regard them, as well of course about their impact on various aspects of the game, a la Jayasuriya.


PS: Am I correct in saying that Brian Lara was the only new inductee into the ICC Cricket Hall Of Fame in 2012?

guildfordbat wrote:Mike - a concern I have about Jayasuriya is that whilst he had impact and therefore along with it that ''bit extra'', did he have sufficient ''excellence''?

I ask that as a steer rather than a knock back. No need to answer now.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:MFC

Agree that Hill didn't have the same sort of lasting impact as those you mentioned, but it must be remembered that all of those you did are absolute shoe-ins for a list such as this. Hill (and others) are more marginal. Therefore the fact that they are not as well remembered is, perhaps, to be expected. I think the fun of this part of the discussion is discovering things about these players who, while they would not feature on many top 20 greatest cricketers of all-time lists, might still be viewed as worthy of entry to our HoF for various reasons.

Shelsey93 wrote:

.... And finally the question of whether he was the first to bat at the top of the order and attack the powerplays. Well, powerplays weren't introduced until 1991, but as guildford points out Sir Viv scored at an SR of 90, mostly from No. 3. But other than Richards its hard to find examples of batsmen scoring at that rate in the top 3 before 1996: Greenidge and Gooch both had SRs in the 60s, and the lack of memorable ODI openers from this era probably reflects that their job was usually considered to be purely to keep wickets in hand.

Shelsey93 wrote:...

To see whether the idea of opening with a hitter was copied off the back of Sanath, I've jumped to the 2002 Champions Trophy (having decided that the World Cup in England wasn't a fair comparison because of conditions). In that tournament the leading runscorers were Sehwag (SR 120), Sanath (SR 85), Gibbs (SR 94), whilst Gilchrist also scored a ton in the tournament and finished with an SR of 125. A clear change is evident, and from the limited sample of I've used that would have to be down to Sanath Jayasuriya and the Sri Lankans in the first instance.