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My XI

'The best puller and hooker of the ball I've seen'

Dec 01, 2015 Part three: Graham Gooch on the toughest competitors: Viv Richards owned every ground he walked out onto

Producer: Tanveer Gogada

Related:
  • Players/Officials : Viv Richards

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Alex on December 2, 2015, 23:09 GMT

His presence in the crease. if you ask me greatest batsman ever , i have to say viv richards. I never saw bradman bat , but he probably overhyped like babe ruth. He walked like a LION in the pitch and devoured everyone. I do not know anyone scared best bowlers but richards did. Abd can hit sixer now any position now but before Richards posess that skill. He lacked motivation for records because there was no one comparable to him at the time and everyone praising him so he lost interest in that aspect. Gavaskar, tendulkar sneaked past Richards on stats. He was an emperor in every sense in cricket pitch. Everyone there to serve richards with dollys and get spanked. Sehwag does same to bowler but he lacked the presence. One of great thing about richards is that no one knew what is his weakness was. Only way to get richards out was if he threw his wicket away. Lots of batsman wait out like lara and kallis, sachin when things go bad but richards on crease there is nothing bad.


Harsh on December 2, 2015, 17:07 GMT

In the final analysis it is very hard to rate where Viv ranks amongst the all-time great batsmen or cricketers.An average of 50.24 hardly reflected the true greatness of Viv .Viv was at equal ease on the seaming English pitches,the bouncy Australian tracks and turning pitches on the sub-continent.To score 291 at the Oval and average over 118 in 1976 in England,to average 96.50 in Australia in 1979-80 and average 0ver 70 in Pakistan in 1980 testify this.In his time Gavaskar of Greg Chappell marginally overshadowed Viv statistically but statistics hardly reflected Viv's true dominance.At his best Viv destroyed bowling like mowing the grass on a lawn .

What goes against Viv was he did not tackle the brunt of such a weak team as much as Brian Lara ,played on as treacherous pitches as Jack Hobbs and equal the longevity of Tendulkar .He also hardly proved his prowess against great spin bowling .However adding one day cricket to me Viv would rank 3rd ,behind Bradman and Hobbs.


Harsh on December 2, 2015, 16:31 GMT

Viv Richards pulverized bowling attacks more than any great batsmen in cricket history holding a cricket bat like an axe and strode to the crease with the magic aura of a great emperor .In full flow he often looked like an invincible army conquering territory after territory.He was so talented that if he wished he could have broken all the batting records.Viv posessed the power of a boxer ,the creative genius of a musical composer and the temperament of a soldier.No batsmen ever could turn the complexion of a match or win games as well as Viv Richards.He may not have had the statistical record of Tendulkar ,the technical correctness of Gavaskar and the elegance of Zaheer Abbas but would overshadow all of them in terms of impact created on the fate of a game.He also displayed contempt for genuine pace bowling more than any great batsmen including Bradman.

In his peak period from 1976-81 I rate Viv 2nd only to Bradman,averaging 86.2 in 1977-78 in Packer cricket and 60 overall.

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