This obsession with how batsmen would do against all-time great dream lineups...

[vcs]

Is it unique to cricket fans? I mean, I don't often see football fans discussing how Maradona would do against a defence consisting of Maldini, Baresi, Thuram and Cafu for example. But I'm not a particularly die-hard football fan either, so maybe they do.

The point is, how important is it in practice, to be able to survive and score at an average of 50+ (or whatever determines greatness) against an attack of Marshall-Lillee-Hadlee-Warne(insert your own dream lineup here)? Now I'm not suggesting that minnow-bashing should be enough to bestow greatness on an individual, but really, how often do you come up against an all-time great bowling lineup in adverse conditions?

 

[Prince EWS]

This post is relevant again here IMO.

 

[vcs]

Should really be made a sticky thread, that one.

 

[TumTum]

Well you don't need to face bowlers with great records for it to be challenging. Sometimes even average bowlers have great spells where the conditions suit them and they genuinely bowl well.

 

[Shri]

People are just going to use your name to troll Cribbert. 'As PEWS said...this makes that this and you failz, lol'. Just putting it out here.

 

[Prince EWS]

Should really be made a sticky thread, that one.

The post I made which Uppercut quoted in his sig sums up my feelings on this one as neatly as possible though, I think:

A batsman's job - or responsibility if you like - is to find a technique that optimises his scoring in his own era; not develop a technique that'd work in any era at the expense of maximum output in current conditions just to satisfy people who wish to compare him with former players.

 

[Prince EWS]

People are just going to use your name to troll Cribbert. 'As PEWS said...this makes that this and you failz, lol'. Just putting it out here.

You did that the other day IIRC

 

[vcs]

Well you don't need to face bowlers with great records for it to be challenging. Sometimes even average bowlers have great spells where the conditions suit them and they genuinely bowl well.

Exactly! And a great looking attack on paper can often have a mediocre day. I don't know, it's a bit naive to be looking at scorecards, filtering out matches involving certain players and drawing conclusions based on those averages if you ask me.

 

[Shri]

You did that the other day IIRC

Yeah, the saying isn't 'Successful troll is successful' anymore. It is 'Successful is subtle'.

 

[Burgey]

Not enough appreciation on here of great players for just being great players.

Crickets a game that lends itself to analysis though, so it makes sense this sort of thing would happen

 

[TumTum]

Exactly! And a great looking attack on paper can often have a mediocre day. I don't know, it's a bit naive to be looking at scorecards, filtering out matches involving certain players and drawing conclusions based on those averages if you ask me.

Yeah only watching matches live can show how great of an innings batsmen actually played.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Is it unique to cricket fans? I mean, I don't often see football fans discussing how Maradona would do against a defence consisting of Maldini, Baresi, Thuram and Cafu for example. But I'm not a particularly die-hard football fan either, so maybe they do.

The point is, how important is it in practice, to be able to survive and score at an average of 50+ (or whatever determines greatness) against an attack of Marshall-Lillee-Hadlee-Warne(insert your own dream lineup here)? Now I'm not suggesting that minnow-bashing should be enough to bestow greatness on an individual, but really, how often do you come up against an all-time great bowling lineup in adverse conditions?

Good thread vcs.I think to a certain extent it is fun to speculate as to how,say,Sehwag would have done against Marshall and co.It gets annoying though when people use small samples involving certain players(often by using graphs and other fancy crap to make it appear more impressive) and then jump to conclusions based on it.Even more annoying is the argument that so and so's current technique wouldn't work in another era.So what?!!A player's job is to maximise output not to make sure that his technique or whatever gets the green signal from armchair "experts".

 

[Jono]

This line of thought happens in all sports.

AFL: "How good would Ablett have been in the era of flooding"
Tennis: "How good would Federer and Sampras have been with wooden racquets"

People love to compare the greats, and also people love to say that the current greats aren't that good. People say we elevate our contemporaries too high, but an equal amount of tearing our contemporaries down because of some nostalgia happens as well.

Sehwag, Kallis and Ponting cop this a lot I reckon.

 

[Noble One]

It would make an interesting exercise to create a list of players currently in the game who are more suited to a past era.

 

[TumTum]

Sehwag, Kallis and Ponting cop this a lot I reckon.

Well he is not a good example in this case, the main reason with him is his low SR and no doubles.

 

[Jono]

I was more speaking in general that people assume previous greats are better than current greats at times. Not really referring to the point about pitches directly.

 

[Migara]

Good thread.

 

[GIMH]

This thread would have received no replies back when I first joined CW

 

[GotSpin]

Don't agree with some bits

For example:

Say you play table tennis in a competition
You do well against the players there
But then you play in another competition which is of a higher standard and therefore you don't do as well

Have you simply tailored your game to play against the lesser players and succeed at that level or does your game actually have flaws in it? Thus, it's not unreasonable to assume that (some) batsmen who play against poorer bowlers might not have done so welll against better bowlers/bowler friendly conditions, assuming that such batsmen has examples of failing in conditions during his career that would have suited bowlers of the past.

 

[Matt79]

Agreed, it's all your fault GIMP.