The finest team to grace the game!

Statistics and sports go hand in hand, even more so in case of cricket with the innumerable parameters that are a part of the game. Though statistics never quite tell the complete story, they quite often present a very fair analysis and allow one to make a sound judgment. In cricket, there have been many classic arguments and debates such as 'Who is the greatest batsman?', 'the greatest bowler', 'The finest team in history' etc. Reaching a conclusion on any of these debates can be extremely difficult and time consuming and having been involved in these arguments myself more often than not, I sure do know how best to approach these and what the focus is supposed to be on. As a cricket fanatic, I have always wanted to delve into the fascinating world of statistics and apply the findings to reach some conclusions. In this case, I am trying to find out which has been the greatest test team to grace the game. Numerous parameters and stats combined with some sound interpretation of these figures will undoubtedly stir the imagination of those not into cricket statistics and history and also prove to be a great source of information for those already in love with the game.

I have tried my best to interpret the stats in a very simple manner and though almost most of them are very self explanatory, wherever they require any kind of interpretation, I shall provide sufficient explanation and detail out any historical information and comparison that might help put things in perspective.

Test cricket has always been the most fascinating version of cricket and the only one that I quite truly consider capable of providing the right judgment on the calibre of a player. In the 130 odd years of test cricket history, there have been some glorious players who have been part of some brilliant teams. The ones that come to mind are the 'Invincibles' led by Don Bradman in the years just after the second world war, England's team in the mid 1950's led by Peter May, Frank Worrell's fantastic West Indian team of the early 1960's, the rather unfortunate South African team of the late 60's, Ian and Greg Chappell's Australian outfit of the early to mid 1970's, the Caribbean juggernaut of the 1970's and 1980's led by Clive Lloyd and later by Vivian Richards and then finally the all conquering Australian units led by Steve Waugh and then by Ricky Ponting. Of these, though it is very hard to pick just two for comparison, I ultimately and also logically decided to compare the performance of the West Indian teams of Lloyd and Richards and the Aussie teams led by Waugh and Ponting. The simple reasons I picked these two teams is that they have dominated every other team for a good part of a decade which is unprecedented in the history of the game and also because they are much more closely separated in time which makes it comparatively easier to apply similar metrics.

Firstly, it is very important to fix the time frame or the period of play for both teams before comparison. After considering quite a few factors, I have decided to compare the West Indian team's performance between 1980-88 (9 years) with the Australian team's performance between 1999-2007(9 years). Though the West Indian team was very strong from about 1976, they did lose some great players during the Packer series of 1977-78. Hence I have decided to focus on their performance from 1980. Also, Allan Border and Mark Taylor's teams of the 1990's were very good but were not as consistent and dominant like their successors Waugh and Ponting. Hence the period 1999-2007.

I have formulated set of metrics with a few of them being fairly straight forward, but I also have added a few other interesting factors which might prove to be helpful in coming to the conclusion as to which has been the greatest team. For the sake of ease of understanding, the way the points are allotted is very simple. The score is 1 point for whichever team has a better performance in each metric. In a case where there is any complex calculation, I shall provide the required information for the sake of clarification.

For every metric, the link to the source used for comparing (Cricinfo statsguru) or the stats are provided so that you can try and work out your own metrics and indulge in other very interesting comparisons.

1. Overall record (win-loss ratio): The West Indies during this period played 76 test matches and have an astounding record of 40 wins, just 7 losses and 29 draws. The win loss ratio comes up to be a remarkable 5.71. The remarkably high number of draws is generally because of the style of play in those days. Quite a few outfits preferred to play slow and draw rather than lose by trying to be aggressive.

When we shift the focus to Australia, their record is just as remarkable. They played 102 tests, winning 76, losing 13 and drawing 13. The lower number of draws is attributed to the exceptional scoring rate of the Australian teams who on an average scored close to 3.5-4 and over thus giving themselves enough time to bowl out the opposition. The Win-loss ratio of 5.84 is almost the same and there is hardly anything to choose at this stage. So, both teams get 1 point each.

The stats for West indies can be found here and the corresponding metrics for the Australian team can be found here.



2. Home and away records- Most teams in any sport tend to have an advantage when they play at home and this is something that very much applies to cricket as well. The team has a great idea about the home ground and pitch and is more often than not a step ahead of the opposition. The home record will present a clear picture as to how often the great teams have been able to drive home the advantage of playing in familiar conditions with home crowd support.

Away records present a great way of judging how well a team has been able to acclimatize to new conditions and whether they have found a way of dealing with the hostile and often partisan crowds.

The West Indians have a truly world class record at home in that period. They won 15 , lost just 1 and drew 10 out of 26 tests played at home. Australia have en even more spectacular record playing 53 tests, winning 44 and losing just 2 whilst drawing 7. This gives them a stunning win-loss ratio of 22 which is higher than the rate of 15 for the West Indies. Though the West Indies have played fewer tests and whether they might have surpassed the Aussies if they had played more is something that cannot be determined. Going by the figures, Australia take the honours here and gain 1 point.

The home records for the West indies can be found here and those of Australia can be found here.

When it comes to the away records, it is seen that the Caribbeans emerge the better team with 25 wins and just 6 losses when compared to Australia's 29 wins and 11 losses. The West indies gain 1 point here.

3. Win percentage: The overall win percentage i.e. the number of matches won/total played is clearly in favor of the Aussies as they won 75% (76 of 102)of their games as opposed to the Windies winning a shade less than 60% (40 of 76). The Aussies gain one point and at the moment lead 3-2.

4. Number of series lost- This is a very good indicator of the dominance of the team against all opposition and shows how many teams have managed to stand up and triumph in the period of total domination. The West indies lost just 1 series and that too an ill tempered contentious one against New Zealand in 1980. The Aussies lost 1 against Sri Lanka in 1999 0-1 and then two more. The first of them against India 1-2 in 2001, best remembered for VVS Laxman's immortal 281 at the Eden Gardens and second was quite possibly the greatest series of this era 1-2 against England in 2005. So the West indies gain 1 point and the scores are level at 3-3.

Now we move on to some of the more detailed parameters and the comparison of these is very vital in order to reach the right conclusion. Detailed analysis and explanation along with the stats will be provided in the following sections.






5. Number of massive wins (ranging from an innings win to a win by 7 wickets) and a win by margin of runs>150--> (gives indicator of strength in batting & dominance).

The West Indian team won 33 matches out of its 40 (82.5%%) by a huge margin which is rather astonishing considering that it did come up against some very good teams in Australia (early 1980's), England and also India and Pakistan. The mighty Aussies won 57 games out of the overall 76 won by a huge margin i.e. about 75%. Though extremely close to call, the point goes to the West Indies also because of the quality of opposition. The Aussies did come up against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh which made huge wins lot easier to come by. Score is 4-3 in favor of the West Indies at the moment.

The stats for both teams can be found here and here.

6. Number of times match won after conceding lead- (indicator of bowling strength and second innings batting)

The West Indies in their heyday conceded the lead 17 times out of 76 and won 3 games and lost 5 of these whilst drawing 9. This gives a win loss ratio of 0.6 which is not very impressive.

Moving on to Australia, they have a more impressive record with 8 wins 5 losses and 8 draws out of the 21 times they conceded leads giving them a win-loss ratio of 1.6.
The score now stands level at 4-4.

The stats are available here and here for Australia and the West Indies respectively.


7. Number of times team has won chasing more than 200 in last innings and successfully defending less than 200-- (indicates great batting and bowling performance under pressure)

Quite remarkably, both the teams have won 6 times, lost thrice and drawn 4 times when they are faced with a target of over 200 in the 4th innings. The similarity is quite astonishing and reflects how close the two teams are when compared.

While defending a score of less than 200, Australia have never won, lost 4 times and drew once. This indicates two things, one that the team almost always set a high target and defended it easily but on the rare occasions that they set a low target, they have not been able to conjure up some magic to defend it despite some great efforts as against England at Trent Bridge in 2005 defending 129 and India at Chennai in 2001 while defending 155 losing by just 3 wickets and 2 wickets respectively on these occasions.

The Windies on the other hand also never won when the target was less than 200, lost 3 times and drew once. This is very slightly better and can be disregarded. So,the scores still remain level and the comparison gets even more interesting.

8.Number of times team dismissed less than 200 (indicator of frequency of top order not performing)

The West Indies team was dismissed for less than 200 12 times in the period i.e. 12 in 76 games while the Australians were dismissed for a score less than 200 12 times in 102 games. Though this difference can be attributed to the poor bowling quality of other teams playing Australia, this does show that the West Indian top order was a little less reliable than that of the Australian batting which rarely folded up for low scores. The score is now 5-4 in favor of the Australia.

The stats can be found here and here for the West indies and Australia respectively.


9. Performance of top batsmen of the team in the period (includes the centuries, averages) when compared with the overall fray.

Index: M-matches R-runs Avg-batting average 100-100's scored 50-50's scored

Read as: Batting average(number of matches played)

Player M R Avg 100 50 Average against top teams of period

Viv Richards: 72 4826 50.27 14 26 (Aus-46.76(17) Eng-56.4(24) Pak-58.35(9) India 44.15(15))


Gordon Greenidge: 69 4675 46.75 10 23 (Aus-43.5(16) Eng-47.2(23) Pak 24.27(6) India 56(14))


Desmond Haynes: 75 4478 39.62 10 25 (Aus-41.33(17) Eng-49.36(23) Pak 20.5(10) India 30.86(15))

Also provided are the performance of the great West indian batsmen against the leading bowlers of that era.

Index: no of dismissals(no of matches)

Bowlers: Kapil Hadlee Botham Imran Lillee/Lawson/Alderman

IND NZ Eng Pak Aus

Richards --------> 5 (15) 3 (7) 7 (19) 1(9) 3(4)/4(12)/4(9)

Greenidge--------> 5 (14) 6 (10) 5 (19) 5(6) 3(3)/8(11)/2(8)

Haynes --------> 6 (15) 6 (10) 6 (19) 6(10) 2(4)/4(12)/2(9)


Viv Richards and the other two batsmen also to an extent have performed fairly well against the top bowlers of the period. The rate at which the bowlers have got their wickets has not been high except in a couple of cases.

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When this is compared with the performance of the Australian outfit's top 3 batsmen, we can clearly observe the that the quality of bowling faced by Australia has been overall poorer. This is reflected by very high averages for the batsmen. Yet, it has to be accepted that the Aussie batsmen have been in the best form this decade and the points go to them. The score now stands at 6-4 in favor of Australia.


player M R Avg 100 50 average agst top teams of period

Ricky Ponting: 91 8306 64.38 31 31 (SA-67.73 (12) eng-52.81 (20) India 59.36 (12) )


Matthew Hayden: 85 7742 55.69 27 27 (SA-61.19 (12) eng-45.65(20) India 64.31 (12) )


Adam Gilchrist: 93 5478 48.91 17 25 (SA-47.12 (12) eng-45.12 (20) India 29.87 (15) )


Bowlers----> Muralitharan Harbhajan/Kumble Flintoff Ntini/Pollock

Ponting -----> 3(9) 6(6)/4(8) 5(11) 4(9)/3(8)

Hayden-------> 5(6) 7(8)/4(8) 6(11) 7(9)/2(8)

Gilchrist----> 4(6) 7(8)/8(11) 5(11) 2(9)/0(8)


In the case of performance against top bowlers, the Aussies seem to fall short. Ponting has been found wanting against spin most times and Gilchrist and Hayden have also been dismissed regularly by more than one bowler. In the ability to counter the best bowler from the opposition, the West Indies have performed better and gain one point. The score is 6-5 in favor of the Aussies.

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10. Bowling (performance against all opposition and dependency of team on bowlers i.e. performance in absence of frontline bowlers).

Given below are the stats of the star bowlers who took these teams to great heights. It is said that test matches are won by bowlers and this has been proven true by these legends.

Index: M-matches W-Wickets Avg-bowling average 5&10-no of 5 & 10 wicket hauls.

M W avg 5 10 average against top teams of period

Malcolm Marshall: 78 373 20.42 22 4 (Aus-22.51 (19) Eng-19.18(26) Pak-20.7 (12) India 19.26 (14))

Michael Holding: 45 184 23.38 9 1 (Aus-15.67 (10) Eng-24.63 (17) India 27.73 (11))

Joel Garner: 49 210 20.62 7 0 (Aus-22.24 (14) Eng-17.93 (19) Pak-19.2 (4) India 43.00 (3))


In the matches not involving the lead bowlers, the performance of the West Indies does drop. When all 3 were missing, they lost 2 and won 1. When Marshall, their best bowler was missing, the win-loss ratio fell to 1.5 from the amazing 5.7 overall. When all 3 were playing, they had a win loss ratio of 16 which is quite unbelievable and shows that they were true match winners.

Not involving lead bowlers:

Malcolm Marshall: played-18 won-6 lost-4 draw-8

Marshall, Holding and Garner missing-- 1 win and 2 losses in 5 games.

all 3 present----> won 16 lost 1 in 26 games

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M W avg 5 10 average against top teams of period

Glenn Mcgrath: 80 364 20.67 18 3 ( SA-26.52(9) Eng-20.62(18) India 17.65(10) )

Shane Warne: 78 395 25.92 23 6 ( SA-27.27(12) Eng-23.01(19) India 39.40(9) )

both players missing---> won 8 lost 2 out of 12 games

without Glenn Mcgrath--> won 16 lost 4 out of 22 games (notably lost 3 out of 3 against Eng and 1 of 3 against Ind)

without Shane Warne----> won 18 lost 4 out of 24 games (2 against India)


Though Australia's performance is better than West Indies statistically, the facts are that they lost all 3 tests to England when Mcgrath was missing and they also lost to India twice when Warne was not around. This does show that they had the bench strength but were able to put it across relatively poorer attacks which were not even as good as the replacement attack of Australia. Hence the scores remain the same.







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11. Performance of wicket-keepers

Both the teams had fantastic batting wicket keepers who were exceptional behind the stumps and also contributed handily with the bat on more than one occasion. Though Jeff Dujon was a good player, Adam Gilchrist was a once in a generation batsman who could fit into a team purely as a batsman and had a quite jaw dropping strike rate of 82. A match winner par excellence, he had the ability to turn the game on its head in a session. He played many an important knock that stunned the opposition. His fantastic keeping to both Mcgrath and the legendary Shane Warne wins the points. The Aussies lead 7-5.

Here are the stats for the keepers.

Wicket Keepers:

M Runs Avg 100 50 Catches/Stumpings

Jeff Dujon 38 2747 38.15 5 14 182/5

Adam Gilchrist 93 5478 48.91 17 25 362/37

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12. Performance of the bowlers against the top opposition batsmen of their period.

A key factor that goes into the great performance of top test teams is the fact that the bowlers are able to dismiss the leading opposition batsmen cheaply. This goes a long way in establishing a position of strength. The stats below show how the great bowlers of the West indies and Australia fared against the great batsmen from other teams.

Performance of bowlers against top batsmen of period


Malcolm Marshall---> England (Gooch (16) Lamb (13) ,Botham (7) Gatting (7) Gower (5))
Australia (Border (11) Boon (10))
Pakistan (Imran(5) Javed Miandad (3))
India (Gavaskar (7) Vengsarkar(10) Amarnath (6))


Michael Holding ---> England (Gooch (7) Boycott (6) ,Botham (5) Gower (5))
Australia (Kim Hughes (7) Border (5) Greg Chappell (4))
India (Gavaskar (7) Vengsarkar(4) Shastri (6))

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Glenn Mcgrath---> England(Atherton(6) Stewart(6) Vaughan(6) Trescothick(6) Pietersen(5))
South Africa (Smith(5) Gary Kirsten(4) Gibbs(3) Kallis(3))
Pakistan (Inzamam(3) Mohammed Yousuf(3))
India (Tendulkar (5) Dravid(5) Laxman(5))
West Indies(Brian Lara(8) Chris Gayle(4))


Shane Warne ---> England (Trescothick(8) Strauss(8) Flintoff(7))
South Africa (Prince(11) Boucher(9) Gibbs(6) Kallis(5))
Sri Lanka (Jayawardena(4) Sangakkara(4))
India (Dravid(5) Laxman(4))
West Indies(Brian Lara(3) Chanderpaul(2))



This is a clear illustration of the fact that in both cases, the bowlers managed to snap up the leading batsmen quickly thus creating a vice like grip on the match. There is almost nothing to separate the two teams. Hence the points are shared. The score is 8-6 to Australia.

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13. Funnily though, I retained this for the last. Both the West Indies and Australia had fantastic opening pairs. They set up many a match and helped chase down numerous targets easily. They faced the best of bowlers and came out on top more often than not. Undoubtedly, the teams owe much of their success to the world class opening pair they had.

The records of the opening pair are given below.

M R Avg 100 50
Gordon Greenidge/Desmond Haynes (WI)--> 148 6482 47.31 16 26
Matthew Hayden/Justin Langer (Aus(----> 111 5655 51.88 14 24

Again as it has been so far in this incredible statistical venture, it is too close to call. Ultimately, I have to give it to the Caribbean pair because they came up against much better bowlers in their time than the mighty Aussies who did not really have many a great bowler to contend with most times. This does not diminish their aura in any way but just shows that a team's strength is best measured by its opposition. The score is 8-7 in favor of Australia now.

14. Performance against leading teams of era (comparing with performance of other teams also in period to reflect how far ahead the team was)-> The West Indians and the Australians strode the world like lords and conquered every team. They had an exceptional record in almost every situation and consistently triumphed both home and away.

The performance of the Calypso kings of the 1980's against each team can be found here.

The Aussies also conquered all opponents quite easily but also had weak teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and also faced the declining West Indies team. Their stats with Zimbabwe and Bangladesh filtered out can be found here.

It can be noted that their W/L ratio comes down a touch to 5.30, still and exceptional record.

Again, it is very important to read into the stats and not look at them superficially. The West Indians had more draws but against the leading teams, they performed quite brilliantly. Pakistan were probably the only team to challenge them and they dominated England and Australia easily. Australia on the other hand did not have any tough opposition other than India. They lost a total of 9 games to these opponents and did not really manage to conquer the sub continent especially India. Here, the West Indians were different as they did not lose a single series after the controversial defeat to NZ by 1 wicket in 1980. Australia did lose a couple of test series to India and England which blemishes their overall record somewhat. The final score now stands at 8-8.



Also, when we have a detailed look the performance of the other top teams (among themselves except matches against WI) of the respective periods, i.e. by comparing their W/L ratios, we can make some interesting observations. In the 1980's, the closest any team got to West Indies was Pakistan with 16 wins and 9 losses (W/L of 1.77), followed by England (1.00), New Zealand (0.91), a comparatively poor Australia (0.85) and India (0.71).

I use a metric to calculate the average W/L of these teams which works out to be 1.05, a difference of 4.66 when compared to the West Indies (5.71).

Taking the case of Australia (again, for all teams calculations are done after eliminating the minnows), they have a W/L ratio of 5.30. The South Africans also proved to be terrific during this period and have a great W/L of 2.32 followed by England with 1.75, Pakistan with 1.09, India with 1.05 and Sri Lanka (due to an exceptional home record but a very ordinary away record) have a W/L of 0.90. When these ratios are averaged out, the value is 1.42, a difference of 3.98 when compared to the Aussies.

This shows that the West Indies in their heyday were more dominant in world cricket i.e. the difference between them and the rest of the fray was larger than in the case of Australia In the latter case, South Africa, India and also England did have great runs and narrowed the gap a touch. The final score is WI-9 and Aus-8.

The final conclusion is the West Indies of the 1980's were probably the slightly better outfit when compared to the great Australian team under Waugh and Ponting due to their overall dominance and the fear they induced in opponents. Whatever chinks they had in their armour were swiftly eliminated the moment they took the field. Their approach was exciting and made test cricket such a pleasure to watch.

There may be numerous more factors that can be compared and argued about. After a long and hard effort grinding through all the stats and history, I believe that the West Indies were a top heavy team whilst the Aussies had a little more depth. The Wicket keeper in Adam Gilchrist was world class and of colossal importance in their victory streaks. They also played a very aggressive brand of cricket and made the test game very interesting to watch. West Indies had a set of fast bowlers who have never been matched nor will ever be in the game. Australia in Shane Warne had a bowler for the ages and this spin factor gave them more variety and along with Glenn Mcgrath, he provided a lethal combination which ruled the game.

The West Indies was the team that set the tone for what was to follow. It has been the team every person loves and has produced the most charismatic cricketers ever. Finally, if I were to choose a team I would love to watch, I would choose the West Indians any day over Australia because despite their chilling efficiency and professionalism, the Aussies can never hope to match the joy that watching the Calypso kings brings to the cricket lover.

We have been rather fortunate to witness such fantastic teams grace the beautiful game and this has been one of my best journeys through the most interesting and absorbing field of cricket statistics and I sure do hope to do it once again!