Batsmen or Bowlers?

[vcs]

I'd back a team with great bowling and average batting to perform better than a team with great batsman and average bowling more often than not. Not much in it, obviously.

Now I know people will use examples of the current Indian and Pakistani sides to rebut that, but I don't think it's a fair example. Here's why :

The current Pakistani bowling attack is not great (talking tests here). It's very good/above average, yes, but not great. It'd be a different story if Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif were around, though. Simply put, the gulf between the batting line-ups of the two sides is much more than the gulf between the difference in their bowling attacks (heck, some would argue there's little to choose between Zaheer, Sreesanth, Sharma, Harbhajan and Gul, Wahab, Ajmal, Rehman).

For the comparison to be a fair one, the gulf in batting quality should be more or less equal to the gulf in bowling quality. Consider these two teams :

1) Salman85
2) Smalishah
3) Fusion
4) Faisal
5) Agent Nationaux
6) Xuhaib
7) Imran Khan
8) Wasim Akram
9) Waqar Younis
10)Shoaib Akhtar
11)Saqlain Mustaq

1) Virender Sehwag
2) Sunil Gavaskar
3) Rahul Dravid
4) Sachin Tendulkar
5) Gundappa Vishwanath
6) VVS Laxman
7) MS Dhoni
8) vcs
9) Jono
10)Silentstriker
11)Sanz

Which team would you expect to do better and why?

Pretty sure I would tip it in favour of the good guys. No way the Pakistan posters on here can play my dibbly-dobblers + off-spin (when I get tired after bowling two overs). And we would have far more trouble bowling out the tail than the top order.

 

[vcs]

Seriously speaking, I would think a country has a much better chance of building a good team based on its bowling strength compared to its batting strength. Partly it's because if you find two quality strike bowlers who will do the business more often than not, you only need the others to do a decent, reliable job (see Australia with McWarne). On the other hand, if you want a strong team based on its batting, you cannot afford any passengers out of the 6 batsmen + keeper. That's because even the strongest lineups will collapse occasionally and you need one or two guys who put their hands up and bail you out.

Also, you need a wide variety of skills in your batting lineup to account for all types of conditions. Strong openers who can see off the shine (if you have an aggressive game-breaker like Sehwag, that's a bonus), a quality middle-order that can capitalize or consolidate as the situation demands, and a guy like Steve Waugh/Laxman in the lower-middle order who can firefight and bat with the tail. Harder to find so much quality and expect them to all peak at around the same time.

 

[smash84]

I'd back a team with great bowling and average batting to perform better than a team with great batsman and average bowling more often than not. Not much in it, obviously.

Now I know people will use examples of the current Indian and Pakistani sides to rebut that, but I don't think it's a fair example. Here's why :

The current Pakistani bowling attack is not great (talking tests here). It's very good/above average, yes, but not great. It'd be a different story if Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif were around, though. Simply put, the gulf between the batting line-ups of the two sides is much more than the gulf between the difference in their bowling attacks (heck, some would argue there's little to choose between Zaheer, Sreesanth, Sharma, Harbhajan and Gul, Wahab, Ajmal, Rehman).

For the comparison to be a fair one, the gulf in batting quality should be more or less equal to the gulf in bowling quality. Consider these two teams :

1) Salman85
2) Smalishah
3) Fusion
4) Faisal
5) Agent Nationaux
6) Xuhaib
7) Imran Khan
8) Wasim Akram
9) Waqar Younis
10)Shoaib Akhtar
11)Saqlain Mustaq

1) Virender Sehwag
2) Sunil Gavaskar
3) Rahul Dravid
4) Sachin Tendulkar
5) Gundappa Vishwanath
6) VVS Laxman
7) MS Dhoni
8) vcs
9) Jono
10)Silentstriker
11)Sanz

Which team would you expect to do better and why?

lol......gun post

Pakistan will lose because of Salman's complacency. Now if you put Turbi in the Indian line-up we will have a close match

lol...any sensible batsman facing the bowlers of this team will try to leave every delivery that's not hitting the stumps because they can expect 'bye 4' for most of those

Seriously speaking, I would think a country has a much better chance of building a good team based on its bowling strength compared to its batting strength. Partly it's because if you find two quality strike bowlers who will do the business more often than not, you only need the others to do a decent, reliable job (see Australia with McWarne). On the other hand, if you want a strong team based on its batting, you cannot afford any passengers out of the 6 batsmen + keeper. That's because even the strongest lineups will collapse occasionally and you need one or two guys who put their hands up and bail you out.

.

In essence aren't you saying that you need one or two bowlers to perform for the ATG bowling team to win and you need one or two batsmen to perform in the ATG batting team. Doesn't that cancel out? I don't get your point.

 

[smash84]

Pretty sure I would tip it in favour of the good guys. No way the Pakistan posters on here can play my dibbly-dobblers + off-spin (when I get tired after bowling two overs).

you'll go for 6 sixes an over from the Pakistan top order and that too in a test match

And we would have far more trouble bowling out the tail than the top order.

 

[smash84]

I'd back a team with great bowling and average batting to perform better than a team with great batsman and average bowling more often than not. Not much in it, obviously.

Now I know people will use examples of the current Indian and Pakistani sides to rebut that, but I don't think it's a fair example. Here's why :

The current Pakistani bowling attack is not great (talking tests here). It's very good/above average, yes, but not great. It'd be a different story if Mohammad Aamer and Mohammad Asif were around, though. Simply put, the gulf between the batting line-ups of the two sides is much more than the gulf between the difference in their bowling attacks (heck, some would argue there's little to choose between Zaheer, Sreesanth, Sharma, Harbhajan and Gul, Wahab, Ajmal, Rehman).

For the comparison to be a fair one, the gulf in batting quality should be more or less equal to the gulf in bowling quality. Consider these two teams :

1) Salman85
2) Smalishah
3) Fusion
4) Faisal
5) Agent Nationaux
6) Xuhaib
7) Imran Khan
8) Wasim Akram
9) Waqar Younis
10)Shoaib Akhtar
11)Saqlain Mustaq

1) Virender Sehwag
2) Sunil Gavaskar
3) Rahul Dravid
4) Sachin Tendulkar
5) Gundappa Vishwanath
6) VVS Laxman
7) MS Dhoni
8) vcs
9) Jono
10)Silentstriker
11)Sanz

Which team would you expect to do better and why?

Agree with Howe_zat that Pakistan will win because everybody has to bat and not everybody has to bowl

 

[Ikki]

Seriously speaking, I would think a country has a much better chance of building a good team based on its bowling strength compared to its batting strength. Partly it's because if you find two quality strike bowlers who will do the business more often than not, you only need the others to do a decent, reliable job (see Australia with McWarne). On the other hand, if you want a strong team based on its batting, you cannot afford any passengers out of the 6 batsmen + keeper. That's because even the strongest lineups will collapse occasionally and you need one or two guys who put their hands up and bail you out.

Also, you need a wide variety of skills in your batting lineup to account for all types of conditions. Strong openers who can see off the shine (if you have an aggressive game-breaker like Sehwag, that's a bonus), a quality middle-order that can capitalize or consolidate as the situation demands, and a guy like Steve Waugh/Laxman in the lower-middle order who can firefight and bat with the tail. Harder to find so much quality and expect them to all peak at around the same time.

Excellent points.

 

[Borges]

if you find two quality strike bowlers who will do the business more often than not, you only need the others to do a decent, reliable job (see Australia with McWarne). On the other hand, if you want a strong team based on its batting, you cannot afford any passengers out of the 6 batsmen + keeper.

+1

Also, you need a wide variety of skills in your batting lineup to account for all types of conditions.

That would be true for the bowling too, I think.


Bowlers. Because the distinction between a very good bowler and a competent one (eg. Steyn vs. Broad) is far greater than the distinction between a very good batsman and a competent one (eg. Tendulkar vs Strauss). If I had the first pick (in alternating picks) from among Steyn, Tendulkar, Broad, Strauss, and eighteen other competent FC players to form a team which will play the other eleven in a test match, I would choose Steyn without hesitation.

To express it succinctly, in the well established (and apparently much admired and imitated) traditions of CricketWeb baby-talk jabber:

bowler >> batsman. For India in England, Zaheer wafg >> Tendulkar wag. And so forth.

 

[vcs]

lol......gun post

Pakistan will lose because of Salman's complacency. Now if you put Turbi in the Indian line-up we will have a close match







In essence aren't you saying that you need one or two bowlers to perform for the ATG bowling team to win and you need one or two batsmen to perform in the ATG batting team. Doesn't that cancel out? I don't get your point.

I think building a reliable batting order with the experience and quality to perform consistently everywhere is difficult. Look at India, they have had a strong batting order on paper since Ganguly and Dravid entered the picture, but until recent times they had a tendency to collapse. Hell, even Australia's ATG lineup collapsed a few times when they were really tested (India 2001, Ashes 2005).

Essentially my argument comes down to the fact that it only takes one ball for a batsman to get dismissed. So in the long form of the game, bowlers always hold an advantage of sorts.

 

[vcs]

Excellent points.

+1



That would be true for the bowling too, I think.


Bowlers. Because the distinction between a very good bowler and a competent one (eg. Steyn vs. Broad) is far greater than the distinction between a very good batsman and a competent one (eg. Tendulkar vs Strauss). If I had the first pick (in alternating picks) from among Steyn, Tendulkar, Broad, Strauss, and eighteen other competent FC players to form a team which will play the other eleven in a test match, I would choose Steyn without hesitation.

To express it succinctly, in the well established (and apparently much admired and imitated) traditions of CricketWeb baby-talk jabber:

bowler >> batsman. For India in England, Zaheer wafg >> Tendulkar wag. And so forth.

 

[silentstriker]

My team would clearly win since I'd be chucking beamers and getting no balled until a batsman died.

 

[salman85]

I'm not sure Ali and i would make a good opening pair.

I would try to hit every delivery at his crotch for all the doomsday predictions he makes in the dressing room.Which would result in us being 1 wicket and 2 balls down after the first delivery

 

[Blaze 18]

I'm not sure Ali and i would make a good opening pair.

I would try to hit every delivery at his crotch for all the doomsday predictions he makes in the dressing room.Which would result in us being 1 wicket and 2 balls down after the first delivery

Slick

 

[smash84]

I'm not sure Ali and i would make a good opening pair.

I would try to hit every delivery at his crotch for all the doomsday predictions he makes in the dressing room.Which would result in us being 1 wicket and 2 balls down after the first delivery

played

I see that you haven't left the habit of focusing on people's crotches

 

[GIMH]

There is no definitive answer to this question.

Like in football how on some days a team's midfield will win the game for their team, other days the forwards or defence will win it.

Can't have a great team without both. Sometimes bowling wins the day, sometimes batsmen.

This

I find the bowlers win matches cliche one of the most simplistic and over-romanticised things on CW.

 

[smash84]

I find the bowlers win matches cliche one of the most simplistic and over-romanticised things on CW.

How dare you

 

[weeman27bob]

Distinct lack of pretty much irellivant statistics so far in this thread, so I'll change that.

The average average of the the four highest averaging batsmen (min 20 innings) is 70.8175.
The average average of the lowest four averaging bowlers (min 2000 balls) is 13.8525.

The average average of the four lowest averaging batsmen (min 20 innings) is 2.36
The average average of the four highest averaging bowlers (min 2000 balls) is 92.79500

(70.8175/2.36) = 30.0074153
(92.79500/13.8525) = 6.69879085

(30.0074153/6.69879085) = 4.47952712

So in conclusion, batsmen are almost four and a half times more important.

 

[silentstriker]

This

I find the bowlers win matches cliche one of the most simplistic and over-romanticised things on CW.

Obviously it's not that batsmen can't win matches but there are fewer bowlers than batsman so individually they have a bigger effect on the outcome of a game. A single bowler being really bad can hurt you a lot more than one batsman being really bad game. Conversely - and due to the number imbalance, a single bowler can run through sides much more often than a single batsmen scores almost all of a team's runs (as a % of wickets or runs respectively). So since their effects are really amplified, they are more important to have in a team IMHO.

 

[Howe_zat]

Distinct lack of pretty much irellivant statistics so far in this thread, so I'll change that.

The average average of the the four highest averaging batsmen (min 20 innings) is 70.8175.
The average average of the lowest four averaging bowlers (min 2000 balls) is 13.8525.

The average average of the four lowest averaging batsmen (min 20 innings) is 2.36
The average average of the four highest averaging bowlers (min 2000 balls) is 92.79500

(70.8175/2.36) = 30.0074153
(92.79500/13.8525) = 6.69879085

(30.0074153/6.69879085) = 4.47952712

So in conclusion, batsmen are almost four and a half times more important.

Can't argue with that.

 

[Austerlitz]

Seriously speaking, I would think a country has a much better chance of building a good team based on its bowling strength compared to its batting strength. Partly it's because if you find two quality strike bowlers who will do the business more often than not, you only need the others to do a decent, reliable job (see Australia with McWarne). On the other hand, if you want a strong team based on its batting, you cannot afford any passengers out of the 6 batsmen + keeper. That's because even the strongest lineups will collapse occasionally and you need one or two guys who put their hands up and bail you out.

Also, you need a wide variety of skills in your batting lineup to account for all types of conditions. Strong openers who can see off the shine (if you have an aggressive game-breaker like Sehwag, that's a bonus), a quality middle-order that can capitalize or consolidate as the situation demands, and a guy like Steve Waugh/Laxman in the lower-middle order who can firefight and bat with the tail. Harder to find so much quality and expect them to all peak at around the same time.

Superb post.Sums up the debate very well.

A great bowler gives u more bang for buck than a great batsman,but once u start accumulating a number of great batsmen the balance starts to tilt slightly towards batting.
Because its easier to find 2 great bowlers than 5 great batsmen,but again easier to field 5 great batsmen than 4 great bowlers[which is near impossible,done by the west indies].

 

[GIMH]

Obviously it's not that batsmen can't win matches but there are fewer bowlers than batsman so individually they have a bigger effect on the outcome of a game. A single bowler being really bad can hurt you a lot more than one batsman being really bad game. Conversely - and due to the number imbalance, a single bowler can run through sides much more often than a single batsmen scores almost all of a team's runs (as a % of wickets or runs respectively). So since their effects are really amplified, they are more important to have in a team IMHO.

Well yeah, but I didn't say that wasn't true.

None of what you said means that bowlers win matches and batsmen don't. All you've said there is that bowlers are worth more as individuals.