Stylish batsmen you liked

Cricket wouldn't have been so interesting without stylish batsmen. Though runs matter irrepective of how you get them, cricket wouldn't have been so popular if there were no stylish cover drives, pulls, straight drives. It would be nice to dicuss the batsman you liked and disliked for their style. Here is my list...

Mark waugh, Martyn, fleming, Wishart, Lara, Salim Malik, Kambli

Gayle, Afridi, Younus, Langer, Dravid, F.Wallace, Atherton...dont like them

Stylish eh.

I think a batting elegance thread was done a while back. I think.

yup Zaheer fits right in there.

oh right. That's who he is talking about. hehe.

Ramdin is another stylish one that comes to mind.

stylish batsmen i like
lara,kallis,tendulkar,sarwan,chanderpaul,s fleming,k sangakara,ganguly
batsmen i don't like k petterson,d ganga,laxman,yousuf

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

 My favourites are the usual suspects - Barry Richards , Mark Waugh , David Gower , Ted Dexter , Viv Richards and Gary Sobers.

       Richards just played every shot beautifully , wonderful balance and the straightest of bats. He read the length of a delivery so quickly that he seemed to have an age to get into position to play a shot , even against the quickest of bowlers.

      Waugh was the finest player through midwicket that I ever saw . When settled, good balls went through that region and the bowlers looked mystified as to how he did it.  A lovely timer of the ball , he rarely used more effort than was absolutely necessary.

      Gower infuriated me and thrilled me in roughly equal measure.  Blessed with wonderful timing , his boundaries were languid in execution and delightful on the eye . Simply put , he oozed class.  The frustration came in some of his dismissals , sometimes I just thought he wasn't at the races and it drove me to distraction.  His career stats just don't do justice for an extraordinary talent that wasn't completely realised in my opinion.

     Lord Ted was the golden boy of English cricket in the 1960's. There was no finer sight than Dexter in full flow. No Gowerlike finesse when Ted was firing , he bludgeoned the ball to the fence and often over it!  He liked nothing better than advancing to fast bowlers - I can still see him slaughtering Wes Hall in 1963 , the ball disappearing to all corners in an assault as brutal as I've ever seen.  A great , great player who emptied bars all over the world.

    Viv Richards was a one off and the most arrogant of batsman. He didn't walk to the wicket , he  seemed to take to the field as an actor takes to the stage. The atmosphere seemed charged and the anticipation of the upcoming contest between bowler and the man seemed almost matadorial.  Richards intimidated bowlers the world over and he did it from ball one.  No matter what the score , what the conditions or who the bowler was , he intended to dictate the proceedings - in the main he did too!  His pulling of short pitched ball outside of offstump that clattered into the stands obver midwicket were outrageous - the faster it was delivered , the further it went.  He never wore a helmet and never batted without his trademark chewing gum - truly one of the alltime greats.

   Sobers had everything , the complete cricketer. A terrific bowler capable of great pace , legspin and orthodox off breaks ,but it was his batting that dazzled the paying public.  In a double hundred against Australia , in Oz , Ritchie Benaud is quoted as saying he'd never seen the ball hit harder.  Sobers creamed the ball , the bat speed was a sight to behold - nothing was held back when he attacked.  His cover drive was murderous and many a fielder regretted stopping one of his ful-l blooded drives.   As hard as he attacked the ball , he still executed the shot with perfect technique - his balance , like all great players was wonderful.


Edited by Sledger - 18 January 2008 at 6:10am

Barry Richards batted straight out of the MCC coaching manual.  Everything he did was orthodox and he had every shot in the book.  He's by far the best opening batsman I've seen.  What was remarkable too was his scoring rate. In his day 2.5 runs per over was looked on as more than enough - Richards was an order of magnitude over that!
       On a special day at the WACA he took the Western Australian attack apart.A certain D.K.Lillee was in the lineup, and received the same treatment as the rest. Richards scored 325 in a day's play - you'll never see the likes of that again!   He was simply brilliant and sadly he played just 4 tests before isolation - he averaged over 70 in that solitary series and that against Australia!


Edited by Sledger - 18 January 2008 at 6:25am

I have to go with Richards. He opened throughout his career , so always faced the new ball. He was really fantastic and he'd walk into any test side if he was 25 today.

Sounds so romantic!! Wish i could ever see him batting

I am not fortunate enough to see Barry batting. Have only heard about him. What about Graeme Pollock? He is considered to be the greatest left handed batsman ever by most I guess. How stylish was he?