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Food for Thought : Old versus New !

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
During most arguments which involve players/artists/performers from different eras, a major issue is the tendency of people to favour their own generations. Cricket is no exception. In fact, of the major sports,it suffers more from this generational-divide than , perhaps most team games.

AA Thomson, one of the games leading writers, who covered the game from the beginning of the 20th century(almost) till the sixties. This is what he said on the subject in the late sixties. It is relevant today as well. This forum too has seen such challenging of different periods and the performances of the same on equally fallacious arguments.

Food for thought ??

It can be argued, and incessantly is, that since the beginning of time every generation has complained that their juniors are going to the dogs. This, though partly true, is no more than half the truth . After all if we go back o the beginning of time, Abel did not go to the dogs, but Cain undoubtedly did. The chances are fifty-fifty.

The wails of the old foggies that any given reform will mean the end of all things can easily be proved ridiculous. The equally fallacious claims by reformers that their pet nostrum will bring about the new heaven and the new earth by next Tuesday at latest do not receive their fair share of derision. The argument evens out in time, but in any two generations the older one is not necessarily absurd all the time.

The irrefutable truth is that nothing is either good or bad merely because it is old or new. It is easy to exchange such verbal grimaces as ‘Fuddy-duddy” or “Whipper snapper" like shuttlecocks over a net, but it is more sensible to agree that excellence may occur in any age.

And excellence is an individual thing.
:huh:

Comments ??
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
I would just like to say that it is an awful to expect a player, whatever his sport or discipline, to be the best ever . I think the most one can reasonably ask of them is that they are the best of their era; across eras one isn't necessarily comparing like for like.

In our own sport comparing players across the generations leads to the same old professionalism/fitness/uncovered pitches arguments that we're all very familiar with. Would one of today's supremely fit pros cut a swathe thru the 20s/30s? Probably, yes; but I also think a Hammond or a Hobbs would raise their fitness levels to those required in the contemporary game.

The one exception to this is, I would argue, Sir Donald; his figures are such that one can say, without hesitation, he was the best. It isn't simply that he is ahead, but that he's ahead by so very much. Perhaps one day the game will produce a "bowling Bradman" & settle that argument too.
 

steds

Hall of Fame Member
I'm sure if I could be bothered to read all of that, I would post something more worthwhile, but I can't.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
steds said:
I'm sure if I could be bothered to read all of that, I would post something more worthwhile, but I can't.
Denunciation is a heady beverage and I would just as soon be an alcoholic as a professional denouncer: the temptation and consequent excesses are all too similar
:dry:
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
BoyBrumby said:
I would just like to say that it is an awful to expect a player, whatever his sport or discipline, to be the best ever . I think the most one can reasonably ask of them is that they are the best of their era; across eras one isn't necessarily comparing like for like.

In our own sport comparing players across the generations leads to the same old professionalism/fitness/uncovered pitches arguments that we're all very familiar with. Would one of today's supremely fit pros cut a swathe thru the 20s/30s? Probably, yes; but I also think a Hammond or a Hobbs would raise their fitness levels to those required in the contemporary game.

The one exception to this is, I would argue, Sir Donald; his figures are such that one can say, without hesitation, he was the best. It isn't simply that he is ahead, but that he's ahead by so very much. Perhaps one day the game will produce a "bowling Bradman" & settle that argument too.
Some would argue that, in SF Barnes, they did.
It's just to average 9 or 10 with the ball is nigh on impossible.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
SJS said:
During most arguments which involve players/artists/performers from different eras, a major issue is the tendency of people to favour their own generations. Cricket is no exception. In fact, of the major sports,it suffers more from this generational-divide than , perhaps most team games.

Comments ??
Most-recent-is-best-remembered-syndrome is one of the biggest evils of cricket fandom.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Richard said:
Some would argue that, in SF Barnes, they did.
It's just to average 9 or 10 with the ball is nigh on impossible.
I think that agument would carry lots of weight. Barnes stats are almost as amazing as the Don's. Add to that the fact that he was picked so late since he did not play county cricket, even after being picked he wasnt played all the time because he was a 'difficult' (read 'very conscious of his own interests' in times that were very tough on professionals like him) fellow and not very popular with 'gentlemen' captains, and you ealise he could have had 350 wickets in something like 50 tests and we would have had our jaws hanging to our knees !

Think about a bowler who bowled a fast off-break, which went on its seam like an out swing bowler's main delivery, swung out from leg to off, pitched on a length and then, just as the mesmerised batsman was planning to play the line of the moving ball, broke back inwards viciously to take the legstump.

A bowler who could do the exact opposite too with a ball that was bowled like a leg break, started from outside the offstump, swung in to pitch in line with the leg and then broke back to take the off bail.

No bowler in the history of the game has been known to bowl like this.

Statistics are not required to explain how great a bowler he was, though his stats are absolutely amazing, read the detailed descriptions of his bowling which are available in plenty and you will realise this was a very special man indeed. You dont find these deliveries in coaching books and you definitely dont find any medium pacers doing this.

The nearest you have is the floaters bowled by the top spinners like Warne and Prasanna but thats where the similarity ends. The movement in the air is small for these spinners and of course it is done at a slow pace.

Think about it, if you are a bowler. Even more fascinating if you are a batsman and nightmarish if you are a wicket keeper !
 

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