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Why no Border in allstar team?

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'm not knocking andmark, he's a legend. In a single thread he started a discussion that should have been carried on in the thread already dedicated to the same subject and managed to invoke an argument over whether people should disagree but not give a reason for doing so.:laugh:
TBF, that would've happened anyway.
 

Xuhaib

International Coach
Border certainly is not an all-time material for ODI cricket, at best I would put him in Ranatunga-Malik-Harris category and these guys were highly competent but certainly not world beaters.
 
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Slow Love™

International Captain
Yeah, I've got no gripe with Border being passed over at number six by Waugh, though I would have thought Greg Chappell was a bit unlucky. Maybe it was the captaincy that sealed the deal, given they obviously were more willing to hand this to Waugh than Ponting, and Greg's captaincy has rarely been appreciated particularly highly. Waugh did play an awful lot of one-dayers though, so it could equally be his broad experience as a player.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Bprder certainly is not an all-time material for ODI cricket, at best I would put him in Ranatunga-Malik-Harris category and these guys were highly competent but certainly not world beaters.

I agree, but he wasnt as poor as Richard seems to make out
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
That's complete crap and you're just betraying your prejudices there.

Shoaib Malik is a top-class ODI batsman (Salim was hardly dreadful either) and is well on-track to be better than Border could ever dream of being in that format.
 

Swervy

International Captain
That's complete crap and you're just betraying your prejudices there.

Shoaib Malik is a top-class ODI batsman (Salim was hardly dreadful either) and is well on-track to be better than Border could ever dream of being in that format.
eh...I dont know what you are are having a go at me for here...but i will try and cover all bases, I DID think he was talking about Salim Malik, and no Salim wasnt a dreadful batsman, where did you get the idea that i thought he was. However, I do think Border was a superior one day batsman than Salim....although for a time (but not for too long given the length of his career) Salim was very good.

But this where you contradict yourself, now earlier you said there has never been a good one day batsman with an average of 30...Shoaib malik averages 33, in a era of very high scoring compared to the times when Border averaged 31. Now I think an average of say 31 in the early 80's is probably worth 38 now...and you say Shoaib M is a top class ODI batsman...which one is it Richard????

My point is, and has been throughout this thread, you are basing your opinion on averages alone, when there is quite a bit more to it than that (and that goes doubly for one day games) and because of that you are under estimating the ability of a player which quite frankly you probably didnt get to watch much of, especially when at his best.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Try stopping the simplistic thinking. I've said it 1,000,000 times - overall averages aren't too meaningful. Shoaib Malik's average as a top-four batsman is right out of the top-drawer, and the fact that he's been poor batting at nine and ten 8 years ago doesn't really matter too much to me.

You don't really seem to be able to get your head around averages and what they mean in one-day games. Just because totals were lower, doesn't mean an acceptible average is any different. Good batsmen's averages are the same, strike-rates are just higher. There were quite a few batsmen back in the 1970s and 1980s who weren't too crash-hot at the one-day game (and who wouldn't last long today because there's more awareness of the fact that your best Test and ODI XIs being different isn't absolutely outrageous) though, and that fact doesn't mean that average players were any better, either.
 

Swervy

International Captain
Try stopping the simplistic thinking. I've said it 1,000,000 times - overall averages aren't too meaningful. Shoaib Malik's average as a top-four batsman is right out of the top-drawer, and the fact that he's been poor batting at nine and ten 8 years ago doesn't really matter too much to me.
fair enough..but considering i was talking about Salim Malik, dont really know what Shoaib malik has got to do with Border...hey ho!!!


You don't really seem to be able to get your head around averages and what they mean in one-day games. Just because totals were lower, doesn't mean an acceptible average is any different. Good batsmen's averages are the same, strike-rates are just higher. There were quite a few batsmen back in the 1970s and 1980s who weren't too crash-hot at the one-day game (and who wouldn't last long today because there's more awareness of the fact that your best Test and ODI XIs being different isn't absolutely outrageous) though, and that fact doesn't mean that average players were any better, either.
Look , say if the average (acceptable) score in the early 80's was after 50 overs 215-7, and now its 260-7, would it not stand to reason that an acceptable batting average has probably gone up by 15-20%.

I distictly remember even just averaging in the 30s back then meant you were pretty damned good, what the likes of Richards and Greenidge did was even more remarkable considering what the normally scoring was at the time. The fact that Sarwan averages less than 1 run less than greenidge did is a huge indicator of the point I am trying to make here.

another example...do you really consider Michael Clarke to be superior to say Des Haynes in ODIs, or Nafees better than Greg Chappell. The raw stats would suggest they might be, but in context of the times these players played its pretty obvious you have to take the averages comparisons over the different eras of the ODI game with a pinch of salt.

As I say I would class Borders 31 average to be around the same as say 38 now, not outstanding , but very useful, and not as dire as you seem to be making out
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
For starters, I don't really class Shahriar Nafees Ahmed as a ODI player - good as he is, his team ain't ODI-class and I don't recognise a Bangladesh game as a ODI.

And Sarwan is quite possibly a better ODI player than Greenidge, yes - outrageous to you I know that might be, given that Greenidge is a better Test batsman than Sarwan can ever dream of being.

As for Clarke - if he continues on his merry way, he will indeed be a better batsman than Haynes (though there is a bit of a difference, Haynes being an opener and Clarke a middle-order player). Not yet, mind.

And you might want to consider a few things in your simplistic "a standard score than was... a standard score now is..."
1, plenty of games were 60-over affairs in those days (early ones in Australia were 40 8-ball-over games)
2, that means nothing to top-order batsmen's averages. They're still expected to score lots of runs and get a few not-outs. It's the lower-order batsmen who're going to have lower averages
3, who's to say less wickets didn't get burnt? If it's so hard to score at 3.5-an-over without losing your wicket, I don't know what it is.
 

Swervy

International Captain
For starters, I don't really class Shahriar Nafees Ahmed as a ODI player - good as he is, his team ain't ODI-class and I don't recognise a Bangladesh game as a ODI.

And Sarwan is quite possibly a better ODI player than Greenidge, yes - outrageous to you I know that might be, given that Greenidge is a better Test batsman than Sarwan can ever dream of being.

As for Clarke - if he continues on his merry way, he will indeed be a better batsman than Haynes (though there is a bit of a difference, Haynes being an opener and Clarke a middle-order player). Not yet, mind.

And you might want to consider a few things in your simplistic "a standard score than was... a standard score now is..."
1, plenty of games were 60-over affairs in those days (early ones in Australia were 40 8-ball-over games)
2, that means nothing to top-order batsmen's averages. They're still expected to score lots of runs and get a few not-outs. It's the lower-order batsmen who're going to have lower averages
3, who's to say less wickets didn't get burnt? If it's so hard to score at 3.5-an-over without losing your wicket, I don't know what it is.
going round in circles here..
 

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