FREE BATTING AND FAST BOWLING West Indies worthy winners of world cricket tournament

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33878, 25 June 1975, Page 12

FREE BATTING AND FAST BOWLING West Indies worthy winners of world cricket tournament

(By

R. T. BRITTEN DEN)

The first Prudential world cricket tournament, a spectacular success in nearly every

way, found a worthy winner in the West Indies. Free batting and fast bowling have usually been the West Indies’ principal assets, and these qualities were put to splendid use in the two-week tournament.

The West Indies had some heavy scorers, and for consistently good batting performances was rivalled only by England, which suffered.’ as did Australia, from a difficult pitch when these two teams met. In Andy Roberts and Bernard Julien, the West Indies had bowlers who could not only take wickets, but bowl economically. One is as important as the other in limited-over cricket. New Zealand performed about as well as expected, but there was particular satisfaction in the success of the captain. Glenn Turner, whose aggregate of 333 was far and away the best of the tournament. The bowling success was Gary Gilmour, of Australia, who in only two matches, took 11 wickets — one more than Julien and Boyce.

The West Indies had a string of successful batsmen, and its almost entire reliance on seam and pace bowling was thoroughly justified. It dropped the offspinner. Lance Gibbs, early, as Australia finally dispensed with Ashley Mallett in favour of Gilmour, One of the unexpected results of Australia’s performance was the lack of success of its fast bowlers, Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee. Each took only four wickets, but Thomson, used more sparingly than Lillee, was able to contain opposing batsmen to less than three runs an over, whereas Lillee cost 4.21. Keith Fletcher headed England’s batting and John Snow, recalled to the colours, had the best bowling average, and cost less than anyone in the tournament save Bishen Bedi, of India, who played only two games. New Zealand’s batting, apart from that of Turner, was a little disappointing; but the figures make no allowance for the pressures put on batsmen who come in with only a few overs to go, and with a pressing need for runs. Of the bowlers, Richard Collinge was the most successful, and his

run-cost compared very favourably with others of his pace. Pakistan produced some exhilarating batting, but had no bowler able to contain opponents for long. Only a few Indian batsmen were required to play an innings until the thirdround match loss to New Zealand. Abid Ali was the best performer — a dashing 70 in his only innings, against New Zealand, and most wickets for his team at a reasonably economical rate.

The following are the averages for the leading players, of those who played at least two innings and bowled 15 overs or more.

BATTING West Indies Runs Avge Murray 105 105.0 Kanhai 109 54.5 Lloyd 158 52.7 Kallicharran .. 197 49.2 Julien .. .. 48 48.0 Fredericks 116 23.2 Greenidge 88 22.0 Boyce 41 20.5 Australia Gilmour .. .. 42 42.0 Turner 201 40.2 Edwards 146 36.5 Walters 123 30.7 G. Chappell 138 27.6 Marsh 78 26.0 Thomson .. .. 51 25.5 I. Chappell 121 24.2 McCosker 120 24.0 England Fletcher 207 69.0 Amiss 243 60.7 Denness 113 56.5 Old 89 44.5 Wood 83 41.5 Hayes 90 30.0 New Zealand Turner 333 166.5 G. Howarth .. 80 26.7 Hastings 76 25.3 Morrison 91 22.7 Parker 81 20.2 Pakistan M. Khan .. .. 209 69.7 Javed 52 52.0 Zaheer 136 45.3 Raja .. .. .. 91 30.3 Mushtaq .. .. 89 29.7 Sadiq 85 28.3 India Gavaskar .. .. 113 113.0 Engineer 78 78.0 Gaekwad 59 29.5

BOWLING West Indies Wkts Avge R.P.O. Julien .. 10 17.7 2.95 Boyce .. .. 10 18.5 3.56 Roberts .. 8 20.6 2.91 Holder □ 36.8 4.35 Lloyd . 2 62.5 3.47 Australia Gilmour .. 11 5.6 2.58 Thomson 4 32.2 2.93 Walker 6 35.0 3.67 Mallett .. 3 52.0 4.46 Lillee .. 4 55.7 4.21 Walters .. t 85.0 5.00 G. Chappell 0 England — 4.88 Snow .. 6 10.8 1.81 Old .. 7 12.3 2.65 Greig .. .. 6 14.8 2.87 Lever .. 5 18.4 2.55 Arnold 3 20.0 2.02 Underwood 2 20.5 1.86 New Zealand D. Hadlee 8 20.2 3.52 Collinge 6 22.8 2.85 II. Howarth . 5 29.6 3.70 McKechnie 4 38.7 3 52 R. Hadlee 3 Pakistan 41.3 3.44 I. Khan 13.8 4.06 Sarfraz .. 5 19.4 4.04 Malik .. .. 3 22.0 3.66 Javed .. 3 29.3 4.63 Pervez .. .. 2 29.5 3.93 Masood 2 India 64.0 4.27 Bedi 2 17.0 1.42 Abid All 6 19.2 3.19 Lal 28.2 4.23 Amarnath 4 34.7 4.63 Venkat 0 — 3.03