The Myths & The Truth

[BhupinderSingh]

Although I've no doubt that Garry Sobers was an absolutely crap bowler for more than 1/3 of his career mediocre at best but there are some things which his fans keep whenever I post a statistical or other fact about him.I would like to know whether these are just myths or is there some truth behind them.I would like to see some evidence for these claims,not the same mythological pots from his fanboys.Quotes of someone who played with him & stats could be useful as part of the evidence.Following are the claims I want to know truth about.

1."He used to bowl spin on pace friendly wickets & pace on spin friendly wickets".
2."He would hate to bowl to tailenders".(What percentage of lower order/tailender wickets did he take?)
3."He was a dangerous new-ball bowler"."(At what average & strike did he take top order wickets?)

 

[JBH001]

I don't know the answers to those and don't argue them either (and frankly, couldn't care less).

But, if you are looking for Sobers' claim to fame as an all-rounder look at his performances between 1962 - 1968.

 

[BhupinderSingh]

I don't know the answers to those and don't argue them either (and frankly, couldn't care less).

But, if you are looking for Sobers' claim to fame as an all-rounder look at his performances between 1962 - 1968.

Yes,averaged 65 or more with the bat but 28+ as a bowler with pretty ordinary strike rate as well in that period,as far as I remember.

 

[Noble One]

A quick scan of your posting history shows 156 mentions of Sobers, the majority look very negative. Now the idea of your thread is ok as a discussion point, but I get the feeling the point of creating this thread is for you to simply berate those who actually rate Sobers highly.

 

[GotSpin]

Have a feeling this is going nowhere near anything positive

 

[BhupinderSingh]

A quick scan of your posting history shows 156 mentions of Sobers, the majority look very negative. Now the idea of your thread is ok as a discussion point, but I get the feeling the point of creating this thread is for you to simply berate those who actually rate Sobers highly.

No,its because I want to know why people rate him so highly despite a mixture of crap & mediocre record as a bowler.

 

[Ikki]

Well, actually his SR in that period 62-68 IIRC was pretty good for his era. I think his claim to fame is that period but like you, I think disregarding the rest of his 20 year career for that small period is nonsensical. I think too much is made of his bowling which on the whole was mediocre.

 

[King Pietersen]

72 wickets at 30.75, economy of 2.11, strike rate of 87 opening the bowling. Only 5 opening bowlers of the time took more wickets, with only John Snow and Garth McKenzie taking over 100 wickets between 1965 and '73. So, of his time you'd have to say he was one of the better opening bowlers. The difference between those 5 other opening bowlers and Garfield Sobers was that Sobers was not only one of the premier bowlers, but in that time period was the leading run scorer in the world. Between '65 and '73 he scored 3834 runs at 59.90 with 12 centuries. He was the leading run-scorer, had the best average and scored more hundreds than anyone else in the Top 10 of the time.

 

[Matt79]

Yeah, really depends on whether you consider a player's bowling crap when they can bowl at the level/style of Chaminda Vaas AND Daniel Vettori all while being an automatic inclusion as a batsman the level/style of Brian Lara.

The point IMO you keep being unable to get past Bhupinder is that as an allrounder, batting was very much Sobers stronger discipline, whereas Imran was very much a bowling allrounder in the sense that it was his bowling where his greatness lies. So comparing the two on their bowling is comparing apples with oranges. I'd say Sober's batting = Imran's bowling, and Sober's bowling very slightly better than Imran's batting, and hence why I'd rate him the better allrounder.

Also, your opening post, and thread title, comes across in a quite inflammatory tone. Given the number of times this has been discussed, and degenerated into a mess, we'll be keeping a very close eye on this thread. That goes for others responding as well.

 

[Teja.]

My way of looking at it is,

Sobers = One of the top 3-4 Greatest Batsmen of all time, One of the greatest fielders and catchers of all time and A bowler of the caliber of say, Zaheer Khan.

He'd walk into my All-Time XI but I won't let him bowl. Certainly don't need him to bowl in an All-Time XI.

 

[Ikki]

I think saying Sobers was as good as Chaminda or even Zaheer is overrating him. Maybe for a few years he touched those heights, but for the grand majority of his career he wasn't close to that. Not even as a spinner was he as good as the average spinner of his time.

 

[Matt79]

I think you'd be happy to have him as a fifth bowling option, given that he costs you absolutely nothing at all in terms of your batting.

 

[vcs]

My way of looking at it is,

Sobers = One of the top 3-4 Greatest Batsmen of all time, One of the greatest fielders and catchers of all time and A bowler of the caliber of say, Zaheer Khan.

He'd walk into my All-Time XI but I won't let him bowl. Certainly don't need him to bowl in an All-Time XI.

Agree with all that.

Bhupinder, have you actually watched Sobers or formed the opinion that his bowling was mediocre/crap based on statistics etc.? Just out of curiosity.

 

[Matt79]

@ Ikki - Actually, his career stats are very similar to Zaheer Khan's - he took his wickets at 34 a piece rather than 32 for Zaheer, over a pretty similar number of tests and a pretty similar number of wickets. Also, I do think that its pretty well established that his fast-medium stuff was better than his spin, so generally consider it that 34 is a bit unfair to his FM, but flatters his spin.

 

[weldone]

Sobers = Sachin's batting + Zaheer's pace bowling + Vettori's spin bowling + Dravid's catching

Imran = [Initially (Hadlee's bowling + Hadlee's batting). Afterwards (Ravi Shastri's batting + Shaun Pollock's bowling)] + Ganguly's fielding + better than Ganguly's captaincy

Botham = Initially (Gower's batting + Imran's bowling + Dravid's catching). Afterwards (Hadlee's batting + Srinath's bowling + Ganguly's fielding)

 

[Ikki]

I think you'd be happy to have him as a fifth bowling option, given that he costs you absolutely nothing at all in terms of your batting.

I think that's why I rate bowling all-rounder > batting all-rounder. Sure he is a fine 5th option but I don't really think that's much of a compliment to him personally.

@ Ikki - Actually, his career stats are very similar to Zaheer Khan's - he took his wickets at 34 a piece rather than 32 for Zaheer, over a pretty similar number of tests and a pretty similar number of wickets. Also, I do think that its pretty well established that his fast-medium stuff was better than his spin, so generally consider it that 34 is a bit unfair to his FM, but flatters his spin.

Their SRs are a world apart. You can consider Sobers' SR when we know he was primarily a pacer and it was still a shade off Zaheer's and Sobers was that good only for a handful of years really. If you take into account his SR only includes the fact that he was a spinner it still doesn't impress because even his diluted SR - which favours him in this respect - is below the SR of the average spinner during his career.

 

[Teja.]

I think saying Sobers was as good as Chaminda or even Zaheer is overrating him. Maybe for a few years he touched those heights, but for the grand majority of his career he wasn't close to that. Not even as a spinner was he as good as the average spinner of his time.

Yeah, Chaminda Vaas is definitely a better bowler, but Khan, if Minnows are removed from his statistics, averages 35 as a bowler overall. Fair comparison IMO.

 

[Julian87]

Sobers = Dravid's fielding and catching

I thought he was meant to be a great fielder...

 

[vcs]

Why has it become something of an accepted truth that bowling allrounder > batting allrounder? Not contesting it BTW, just curious. Sure if you're picking an all-time XI that's true, but otherwise I'm not convinced at all.

 

[weldone]

I thought he was meant to be a great fielder...

I meant Dravid's catching...edited...