And in that a peak starting at the start of a career is exceedingly unusual they deserve credit for achieving it.
I see no reason as to why. Often players succeed early on in their careers on the back of a seemingly awesome game only for the opposition to expose a few flaws- and then they are subsequently found out.
Ie, like Jimmy Adams, Ian Botham, etc. etc.
WOW, A WHOLE 7 MONTHS!!!!! Atherton had to go through it and worse for 10 years!!!!!
And ????
Do you think it takes 10 years to appreciate back trouble or a particular injury?
and FYI, in all likeliness, my injury was a much more severe version of Atherton that lasted a much shorter duration.
I actually broke my spine. So if you think my understanding of the pain associated with a wonky back is lacking, think again.
I am not. And i can pull out several factual inaccuracises from your part that i've corrected in the past.
oesn't it? Do you not think people who consider my ideas ridiculous would feel it was pointless talking to me on MSN about it?
Not necessarily. The art of debating isnt about hearing what you want to hear- it has a lot to do with hearing a differing viewpoint, even if it is sometimes extremely illogical and incorrect like some of the ideas you bandy around.
To claim they don't reveal some attitudes and values is. To think that they reveal any significant amount (and knowing Neil personally as I do I can see the differences), certainly enough to make the sort of diagnoses you were professing to be able to make, is a quite ludicrous claim. Once again, you overestimate human capability, just as you do with the ability to judge speeds with the eye.
This is arguing semantics. Depending on poster to poster, a wide amount of personality traits are revealed through their posting habits. Some reveal more, some reveal less.
I havn't tried to encompass your entire personality spectroscope- but merely pointed out two traits that i see - narcissistic delusion.
As per your quote about judging speed with the eye- next time, try quoting me properly.
I NEVER said one could accurately determine the speed of a delivery by simply seeing it. But i have very good reasons to claim that if a person with good eyesight watches two deliveries, they will be able to tell which one was the
faster one with quite good accuracy.
So... why did they continue to be picked?
because there wern't enough professionals in the game and sometimes the professionals ( like barnes for eg.) were more interesting in chasing money from exhibition matches for the nobility and the socio-elites instead of going half way across the world to play some amatuer cricket. besides, the professionals in that era were nowhere close to being as hardnosed, cut-throat professional as they are in the modern era. The very essence of professionalism-in any sport- is 'anything goes' as long as it is within the literal rules of the game. The whole bodyline fiasco for eg, brutally exposed even the professionals of those eras as nothing more than overglorified amatuers in their attitude.
And add to that... the only place, with a tiny number of exceptions, where cricket was played professionally was England in the first half of the 20th-century. Why weren't England completely pre-eminent in the World game? Why were Australia almost invariably a match for them, and South Africa more often than not?
First, to claim that South Africa were a match for England more often than not displays utter ignorance about the history of the game.
From the pre-WWII era, South Africa and England had played each other in 16 series( one of them a triangular with OZ) and England won 11 of them, South Africa won 4 of them and 1 of them were drawn.
In terms of matches, England won 29 matches, South Africa won 12 matches and 23 matches were drawn.
Hardly the definition of 'more often than not, RSA were a match for ENG'.
Apart from England, OZ had quiete a number of professional players as well and owing to the lack of true professionalism in that era, the gap between most professionals and amatuers were insignificant.
Not to mention, there was yet another aspect that is largely forgotten- matchfixing.
It is well known amongst educated circles that Lord Harris was the first to propose matchfixing in cricket, most notably between 'england vs rest'' contests inorder to maintain a hightened sense of public interest.
W.G.Grace for example, was known to often engage in 'pre-match pacts' with the umpires, where he wouldn't be dismissed until he had made a certain number of runs- C.B.Fry engaged in the same act and admitted so himself.
It was indeed.
Doesn't change the fact that it was still an incredibly popular game and one where there was a great desire to be successful.
it was moderately popular at best, having a large amatuerish following until the late 60s/early 70s.
Wadekar's approach in Mumbai Gymkhana and India's victory over West Indies in 1971 changed all that.
And you think that there's not some sort of North American fondness; you think Canadians wouldn't take Americans over most other nationalities, the way Indians would with Pakistanis? Pakistanophobia is prevolant in far less of India than more, and it's pretty similar with Canada-USA. If there's any dislike of certain nationalities or regions, neighbours are usually amongst the last on the list, and you can get an exact same feel in Britain with Europe. Eurosceptia is a terrible disease here, yet still most feel more of an allegiance with Europeans than with those from anywhere else in The World.
Again, this quote of yours exposes your ignorance and generalisation from a very euro-centric view of the world.
Just because in Europe most of the neighbouring nations are friendly doesnt mean it applies everywhere else.
A recent poll conducted by CBC showed that approximately 65% of Canadians prefer Europeans to Americans.
And as far as India-Pakistan goes, you couldn't be more further off the mark.
Infact, the BULK of Indians and Pakistanis dislike each other with a passion. The primary reason being, that is the bread and butter of the politicians and the media. They feed off the initial divisions in the public psyche and have continously broadened it ( with the last 2-3 years being an exception) primarily because 'those damn Paks/Indians' line of thinking is the prime deflection sheild for their corruption.
The bulk of the people in both nations are highly influenced by their own medias and politicians, primarily because of a lack of broader media scope and ignorance.
There are very very few people in either nations who feel more of an allegience with their neighbour and most hail from the merchant/trading sector or the extremely well travelled ones. Religion often plays a huge part in it as well.
An almost identical scenario( devoid of religious zeal) is Brazil-Argentina sitution.
I know quiete a few brazilians and argentines here and most of them would take the entire planet over their neighbour.
I have just one thing to say to you - get rid of your idiotic notions about the world and engage in travelling the globe. I can tell you from personal experience that the world is nothing like you think it is from your confined geographical regions and nomatter how many expats you've interacted with or how much you read online, travelling gives you a far bigger insight and it more often than not, shows how laughably inaccurate one's 'educated and pre-concieved' one's notions were.
How Europe intearcts within itself is utterly and totally irrelevant as to how the rest of the world interacts with itself. How North America interacts within itself is utterly and totally irrelevant to how the rest of the world interacts with itself.
But these are some things you don't learn from books.
No, I'm not, I'm saying that if you believe pro-Angloism influences mine, when it doesn't, then I'd be equally qualified to suggest that something influences yours that doesn't.
Correct me if i am wrong but i am assuming that you've grown up mostly in UK. If you've grown up mostly in one environment, the media and prevailing viewpoint of that region always influences the person. I can give you a host of examples where people from a certain region holds steriotypical ideas of some other region and 'coincidentally' that is the media perspective as well.
Unless you've grown up in various different regions with different viewpoints, you really do not see the effect of the prevailing viewpoint on the psyche.
If you seriously believe that you should apply everything evenly you're never going to get anywhere. Fact is, for different players different relevances apply. For instance, for Imran his later career said more about him as a batsman; for Botham it was his earlier career.
Whats good for the goose is whats good for the gander.
Thats an old english saying.
Inorder to CONSISTENTLY guage a player's worth without individualistic biases, one has to isolate the criterions one deems as important and then see how various individuals of the same era stacks up in that respect. The only change being in comparing players of different eras, when you cannot accurately guage how much the error correction should be for a certain criterion. However, the criterion MUST remain the same inorder to assure consistency.
You cannot argue that Vettori deserves a higher billing because of his excellent record against Australia(the best team of his day) and then totally forget that SAME criteria when discussing Imran-Botham.
The ambiguity between comparing a Botham to a Pollock maybe in how much each criteria must be adjusted to get an accurate picture. Not from a total diametric shift in paradigm and ideology as to your evaluation criterias.
