As a Lanky who began his life watching Big Clive bat, I'm not so sure about that - it took Clive a wee while to "warm up" into his innings, and once going he was lethal. Nowadays they don't have the time to get their eye in - at least in 20/20, but we will never know whether Clive could have adapted to the modern game. Viv Richards, wow, watch him in 20/20 from the off!!
He's lost the Ashes twice, lost plenty of other Tests and series and cannot buy a run. If he wasn't captain he'd have been dropped by now and as a captain he's pretty middle of the road.
I won't respond with Colin Croft taking five in the last half-hour in one spell at Boycott and the top order!
Not sure you're right about that - Gayle may end up with a fantastic strike rate, but he likes to see the ball for an over or two even in 20/20. His uninterest in taking singles sometimes counts against him too. I still kick myself that I turned down the chance to watch the Somerset v Kent 20/20 match in which he scored 151 not out, but Kent batting second won! I analysed his innings from the scorecard, and realised that Gayle's fantastic strike rate was because he only faced 60 balls of an 120 ball innings - you can't hit a four or a six from the balls you don't face. When your batting partner is trying to get a single to get you on strike, but you won't run....
Well I didn't know that! Of course Sobers was Nott's overseas player so that makes sense, I think the coverage was a Welsh opt-out for Grandstand? In the late 70's and 80's BBC Wales covered Glamorgan's sunday league games rather than those shown on the general service and remember the cameras for BBC Wales being at Colwyn Bay for a Lancashire game, luckily being in south Lancs I was close enough for a decent signal!
I was a Londoner with a Welsh grandmother and father who liked to think of himself as Welsh, though he never lived there, and our holidays in the early/mid 1950s were to modest hotels in South Wales, but they did at least have TV rooms. I quickly discovered that BBC Wales, unlike the BBC in England, covered Glamorgan's home county championship matches, so I got to see such local legends as Don Shepherd and Jeff Jones, father of Simon.
Sometimes players get chosen for England, or continue to play for their country, because they're seen as potential leadership material, though. Keaton Jennings and James Vince could be said to have had extra chances on this basis: it's almost always batsmen!
Funny enough that is the discussion down here. A lot of people are conflicted. They're happy for him but not at the same time.