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CW Ranks Top 25 Batsmen of All Time (Version 2010)

Ikki

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
Herbert, we need an opener.

The story of my avatar? Just a tribute to the funniest/comical guy in Test cricket today. Even if he doesn't know it.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
fredfertang said:
The "Bradman is best" school of thought essentially takes his superiority over his peers as its yardstick and no one can argue with the fact that his overall career average is so much higher than all comers

It isn't that clearcut though - when WG scored his 50th century he had scored 31.44% of all the first class centuries scored by that time - the next highest was the long since consigned to obscurity Harry Jupp with 10 - I would suggest that is an even greater degree of dominance than Bradman demonstrated.

Would Grace have scored as heavily as Bradman on 1930's shirtfronts? Who knows - perhaps not

Would Bradman have eclipsed Grace in Victorian times on those "sporting" wickets? Who knows - perhaps not

One of them is the greatest batsman who ever lived - but which one? - personally I think its Grace but doubtless few will agree with me
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I tend to agree with what you say but I exclude Grace in almost all such polls as well as most all time XI's. I did not do it once :-)

I think people find it difficult to appreciate Grace for various reasons amongst them the fact that he played so long ago (the oldest of the legends who also played Tests), that ther is such an aura of 'legend and myth' that has been built around him, that his Test stats do not seem in line with the modern thinking of - below fifty average fails to qualify, below forty beyond consideration , the more important criteria of his having played his cricket in the 'twilight years' (for want of a better term) between the developing art of batsmanship and the Golden age when the basics of the game were settled as we now know them, of having played under completely different conditions when he started his cricket with underarm and round arm bowling, no leg spin etc and so on.

If one were to look even at his stats dispassionately and his game, including the photographs that thankfully come to us from Beldham and Fry's collaboration a century ago of an aging Grace batting with strokes that are so familiar to us even today, most of our doubts would be dispelled but the lingering doubts remain with the masses and I decided long ago that such a great man, even when though he has been gone a century ago, did not deserve to be put to the indignity of being compared to and maybe even regarded as not fit to be in the same team as, say, Mohammed Yousuf.

Lets just agree that he was an absolute giant in his time (a greater giant than our Bradman's and Tendulkars in theirs trust me) and such giants will be giants in all ages. We have to assume that the great sportsman of one age, if born in another time and age will have all the advantages (or disadvantages) of that age, Thus Grace born in the time of Tendulkar would have learnt to play all the /cute shots' including the , 'Gawdhelpus', Dilscoop, just as Tendulkar born in Grace's times would have known how to cope with terrible underfoot conditions. And then lets leave it at that.

Coming to Bradman, while no one denies his pre-eminent status as a batsman in cricketing history, (no one will let us forget those magic numbers), what everyone tends to forget is that there have been only two times in the cricketing history when batting has had such favourable conditions and when bowling stocks the world over have been so depleted as in the 1930's. ; the other period being the current decade.

Fast bowlers the world over were few and far between and by removing Larwood from the scene, MCC denied the world the one great opponent Bradman deserved.

Australian fast bowling stocks were even worse but they were lucky to have in Grimmett and O'rielly the two greatest spinners in their cricketing history before Warne.

I am not trying to say that with better opposition and attacks Bradman would have been a lesser batsman but just putting the conditions he faced in perspective.

Grace deserves at least the same consideration.
 
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GotSpin

GotSpin

Hall of Fame Member
SJS said:
Coming to Bradman, while no one denies his pre-eminent status as a batsman in cricketing history, (no one will let us forget those magic numbers), what everyone tends to forget is that there have been only two times in the cricketing history when batting has had such favourable conditions and when bowling stocks the world over have been so depleted as in the 1930's. ; the other period being the current decade.

Fast bowlers the world over were few and far between and by removing Larwood from the scene, MCC denied the world the one great opponent Bradman deserved.

Australian fast bowling stocks were even worse but they were lucky to have in Grimmett and O'rielly the two greatest spinners in their cricketing history before Warne.

I am not trying to say that with better opposition and attacks Bradman would have been a lesser batsman but just putting the conditions he faced in perspective.

Grace deserves at least the same consideration.
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Don't really agree that Larwood was the only great bowling opponent for Bradman during his career and nor does that explain why his average was so much higher than all others Posted up a list before on this topic so I'll need to go find it.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Got_Spin said:
Don't really agree that Larwood was the only great bowling opponent for Bradman during his career and nor does that explain why his average was so much higher than all others Posted up a list before on this topic so I'll need to go find it.
Click to expand...
England's Leading Bowlers in the 30's (1st April 1930 till out break of second world war in 1939(

By wickets taken (At least 40 wickets in the decade)

1. Hedley Verity : 144 (spinner)
2. Bill Voce : 82
3. Gubby Allen : 76
4. Bill Bowes : 67
5. Ken Farnes : 60
7. RWV Robins : 59 (spinner)
8. Wally Hammond : 59
9. Ian Peebles : 40 (Spinner)​

Larwood : 37​

By Overs Bowled

1. Verity 1692 (spinner)
2. Hammond 910 (Arguably England's greatest ever batsman)
3. Voce : 784
4. Farnes : 575
5. Bowes : 557
6. Robins : 491 (spinner)
7. Peebles : 396 (spinner)
8. Nichols : 331
9. Larwood : 321 (Arguably England's greatest ever fast bowler)
10. Clark EW : 285

To be continued . . .
 
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