Sort-of a 2300 question

[Rodina]

I'm dusting off some old notes on a 2300 campaign I started and I'm trying to turn it into something crisp and clean.

One of the NPCs in the campaign is a over-the-hill professional baseball player, but I wanted to - in a sidebar - compare him to other legends of sport. To wit:

Prior to, say, 1995 (assuming this would be determinative) who are the greatest legends of cricket and rugby - two sports about which I know nothing.

 

[simon_1969]

The greatest cricketer ever was the Australian Sir Donald Bradman. The guy's test average was 99.94 - the next best is 60, a player with an average in the 50s is one of the greats of the game eg India's Sachin Tendulkar or England's Sir John Hobbs or the West Indies' Everton Weekes. A batsman in the 40s is merely one of the two or three best in his country.

And he was also the reason for the famous "Bodyline" test series. For the 1932-33 tour of Australia, the English captain Douglas Jardine (boo, hiss, Pommie bastard - in the 24th Century Australians will still hate Jardine) realised that England had no hope of winning due to Bradman. So Jardine got his bowlers to bowl at the "line of the body" rather than the stumps ie aiming to injure the batsman rather than to get him out. A fractured skull or two later England won the Ashes (what the test series between Australia and England is called).

 

[themink]

Asa a Pom who has been Oz-tracized, I would love to be able to disagree with the previous post in any of the details (no matter how small and petty).

However, Bradman was the greatest cricketer that ever lived, bar none.

The Pommy gits who started bowling bodyline were playing a game that had similair rules to cricket, but it's just not cricket.

 

[Rodina]

The only cricket player I'd ever heard of is Graham Lloyd (my own last name), and there's this Indian restaurant I frequent, and the owner is convinced I'm related to the guy (I think as a cousin?) because his English is very poor (but his food is very good!) and when I came in the first time I put my name on the list, and he asked me if I knew Graham Lloyd.

I said, "Oh yeah, I know him. He's great." (I didn't really know, but I was being polite). Since then I -always- get a table in a hurry when I go there.

 

[Rodina]

But that bodyline can't get you an LBW, can it? I mean, your leg has to be on the line with the wickets for that, right?

 

[simon_1969]

You don't get them out LBW bowling bodyline. But you force the batsman to either a) duck if you are fast enought, b) play one of a limited range of defensive shots or c) just whack it (and get a ball at 100km/hour in the face if you miss it). And Jardine stacked the leg side with five fielders (a very unusual, very attacking field position) to prevent b). And then just kept on doing it for day after day. A good batsman can take bit of this, but with fast accurate bowlers like Jardine had in Larwood, you can't take it forever until you crack - either you make a stupid mistake and get caught or get your skull fractured. It also makes for very boring criket to watch.

Not that Australia has an unblemished history when it comes to test cricket. The Kiwis still haven't let us live down a certain underarm bowling incident.

 

[TWILIGHT]

Every cricketing nation has its blemishes. India recently...boo hiss..bowling with arm not fully outstretched indeed!...thats throwing !...anyway, from a Britons point of view....Sir Donald is by far the best batsman that ever lived.

 

[TWILIGHT]

...as a side note to the above, one of my previous characters was a middle order batsman for Wellon called Arthur Terry Perez. We beat Pakistan in the ICC (Inter-world Cricket Cup) of 2298. Hurrah! My character then died on Beta Canum fighting the Kafers...boo! You may scoff at what use a cricketer could be in a war, but let me tell you....Could he throw a bloody grenade or what!