The floodlights cast a brilliant glow over the stadium, illuminating the pitch and electrifying the night with energy and the crowd buzzed with anticipation. 12 runs were required from the last over and the atmosphere was electric. At his bowling mark stood Joel Garner, a towering figure from the past, eyes narrowed in focus. And at the batting crease Rishabh Pant the rock star of today bounced on his toes, youthful energy radiating from him.
Garner crouched low as he sprinted toward the crease, his long limbs graceful yet powerful. As he neared the wicket, he rose tall, looming menacingly over the umpire, his imposing figure a reminder of the raw power he was about to unleash.
Big bird released the ball with effortless grace, it glided through the air harmlessly inviting Pant to go for a confident drive. But just as Pant committed, the ball dipped unexpectedly, hitting the wicket at the good length spot. In a dramatic twist, it reared up like a serpent, catching Pant off guard and turning the inviting moment into a perilous challenge.
Pant had already planted his front foot down the wicket when he suddenly realised the ball had taken off sharply from a good length spot, forcing him to adjust mid-swing. Pant had never seen anything like this before. How could a ball rear up like a serpent from the good length spot aiming for his ribs when the wicket was perfectly all right.
Pant was now caught in no man’s land fending the ball off his collar bones. The crack of bat on ball echoed and he edged the ball. Gasps and cheers followed as the legendary Viv Richards known for his sharp reflexes and athleticism, perfectly positioned at 2nd slip dived to his left, his body afloat parallel to the ground and plucked the white orb out of thin air.
Garner turned slowly, a hint of a smile on his lips underlining the event he had perfectly choreographed in his mind. In that fleeting moment, the beauty of cricket shone through: a timeless clash where legends from different eras pushed each other to new heights on the hallowed ground of the game. Hey almighty, hope this was true.
But it isn’t.
Because it’s but a figment of my imagination.
Only because I have long wondered how players from different generations would have fared
when pitted against each other. But what does this fictional event prove? Would the iconic players of yesteryears have prevailed over those of today. Let’s explore.
Just for the sake of the great game. Bits and pieces players. The phrase “bits and pieces” players was famously coined by former Australian cricketer and commentator Ian Chappell. He expressed that players who specialise in multiple areas—rather than excelling in a particular skill—often do not contribute as effectively as specialists, emphasizing that true specialists are crucial for winning games.
And specialists do change the course of matches with their skills. Like Wasim did in 1992 and Bumrah and Pant do today. Indeed the t20 variety probably does not offer the luxury of playing only batters or bowlers. Batters need to bowl and bowlers need to wield the willow. That’s how the game has changed. Serious all-rounders like Kapil Dev Ian Botham and Imran Khan would sit pretty in any era nevertheless.
This article can be labelled as an academic study bringing to discussion players from the past mainly in the 70’s onwards till the 90’s who were involved in playing limited over cricket but when T20 format had not yet started. And I have deliberately excluded players from earlier ages…batters and bowlers from the early 50’s may be as doing that would probably be unjustified.
A certain Sunil Manohar Gavaskar had scored 36 not out in the 1975 world cup labouring through most of the inning.
He has gone on record saying that he wanted to be dismissed on purpose because even staying on the crease had become torturous but he just could not put bat to ball. Yet the same Sunil Manohar Gavaskar did score a century towards the fag end of his career.
On 15th February 1987 against New Zealand in a match at the Nehru Stadium in Kochi, Gavaskar made 103 runs off 88 balls. That’s no mean feat even by today’s standards. That goes to prove only one thing.
That the only thing constant is change. And nowhere else is that more true than in Sport. So how would have Lillee and Thompson or Zaheer Abbass and Miandad or Martin Crowe and Richard Hadlee or Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar or Arvinda D’Silva and Chaminda Vaas have fared in today’s T20 format.
Let’s play.
From the names mentioned above only perhaps Chaminda Vaas has played the T20 format in the inaugural t20 World cup in 2007. So how would these great players do in the modern slam bang format? Would they survive? One thing across all formats of the game is probably true more than anything else that affects the game.
That specialists can adopt and change their game to anything. Because they have their basics right. And if you have your basics in place then innovation comes easier.
You can bend it like Akram
Big claim? Let’s take an example. 1992 World cup final at Melbourne. England are sitting pretty chasing
a modest total with Allan Lamb taking the match away from Pakistan. Captain Imran Khan tosses the ball to Wasim Akram. Akram unleashed mayhem and the rest is history. Bowling with exceptional pace and swing his first ball pitched on the middle stump and before Lamb could think of playing it the ball crashed into the top of off stump.
Lamb walked way shaken. Next, he targeted Chris Lewis, who had just walked to the crease. Akram, in his prime, delivered a mesmerising delivery that swung late, beating Lewis’s defence and hitting the wickets cleanly.
These two wickets from two balls not only destabilised England’s batting order but also ignited the Pakistani spirit, turning the match in their favour. Those two deliveries could be termed as the bowling
equivalent of the Surya Kumar catch in the boundary line that was the clincher in the 2024 T20 world cup that India won. Two historic deliveries wrote the name of two English batsmen into the history books. The point I am trying to make is that specialists will always do well in whatever format they play in. Because specialists know the tricks of the game.
They can bend and alter their game because they know the rules. And you can break rules only if you know them. In batting and bowling the guile of a certain Michael holding, the metronomic length balls of
Mcgrath, the dashing feats of Gordon Greenridge and Demond Haynes would definitely hold sway. And fielders like Derek Randall, Viv Richards or Rohan Bacchus would have thrived. Their dives would just be safer on better outfields. Because when the going gets tough, the tough get going. The stars of yesteryears would have taken to the new format like fish to water. And the game itself would have risen to wondrous standards.
Another reason why the stars of yesterday would have thrived in today’s game is because of the significant financial rewards now associated with cricket. With lucrative contracts and endorsements, these legendary players would recognize that their exceptional skills could be leveraged for greater success. Motivated by the prospect of financial gain, they would likely adapt their techniques to excel in the modern game, using their experience to maximise their impact and take full advantage of the opportunities available.
While today, power plays are a defined rule in the game, the epic players of the past had power play ingrained in their repertoire. Their natural talent and explosive style brought excitement to the field long before it became part of the official regulations. From timeless tests to the T20 craze,
Legends of the past would set the field ablaze.
