Greatest overseas win
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 2:28 am
For England's 500th overseas test, the BBC has been conducting a poll of England's greatest overseas win. Results are here:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/51104016
There is some recency bias there, no doubt (reading the exploits of Paynter in the bodyline makes it amazing to me that he only got 2%, but there aren't many left alive that would remember that series), but it's hard to argue with Melbourne 2010 as the winner. The perfect performance, largest margin of victory overseas since 1963 and largest in Australia since before WWI. And I get to brag and say I got to be there
It's easy in retrospect to say the sides were mismatched, but it didn't feel like it at the time necessarily. England went into that game at 1-1, having just been blown away by Mitch1 at Perth. They'd lost Broad, and despite dominating at Adelaide they'd been in a heck of a precarious situation at Brisbane before being rescued by an amazing second innings. So it was by no means a given that they were the better team at that point. It was a tremendous performance by the England side that between 2009-2012 were, if not the best in the world, right up there, and the strongest England side in my lifetime.
The top 5 were all great though. I actually voted Melbourne '82.
Thoughts?
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/51104016
There is some recency bias there, no doubt (reading the exploits of Paynter in the bodyline makes it amazing to me that he only got 2%, but there aren't many left alive that would remember that series), but it's hard to argue with Melbourne 2010 as the winner. The perfect performance, largest margin of victory overseas since 1963 and largest in Australia since before WWI. And I get to brag and say I got to be there
It's easy in retrospect to say the sides were mismatched, but it didn't feel like it at the time necessarily. England went into that game at 1-1, having just been blown away by Mitch1 at Perth. They'd lost Broad, and despite dominating at Adelaide they'd been in a heck of a precarious situation at Brisbane before being rescued by an amazing second innings. So it was by no means a given that they were the better team at that point. It was a tremendous performance by the England side that between 2009-2012 were, if not the best in the world, right up there, and the strongest England side in my lifetime.
The top 5 were all great though. I actually voted Melbourne '82.
Thoughts?