Kallis vs Sobers, Donald vs Steyn, Trott vs Pollock

[kyear2]

But what is the difference. Barrington played more that enough tests, and it cant be held againts him that he was dropped after a poor start to his career.
What I hold againts him is how he batted in his return, but that is what he felt that he had to do to seep his place in the team at that time.

[Marcuss]

It's not about the number of Tests, it's about the length of his career. Not hard to understand.

[MrPrez]

Needs to be a mixture of the two imo.

[Burgey]

Since when is 10-14 years too short a career by which to judge people who had to hive off and make a living away from cricket? Or perhaps more accurately, not considered long enough?

[bagapath]

Originally Posted by Marcuss

It's not about the number of Tests, it's about the length of his career. Not hard to understand.

his career lasted 14 years. that is not hard to understand either.

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

As I said before; it's a question of longevity to me rather than sample size. I don't think you quite grasp the concept.

8 or 9 years is more than enough. barrington's career lasted 14 ****ing years. no one in his playing days played more than him except colin cowdrey. i dont think you get it that he couldnt have been tested more than he was against different opponents and different conditions over a long period.

[Hurricane]

Originally Posted by bagapath

his career lasted 14 years. that is not hard to understand either.



8 or 9 years is more than enough. barrington's career lasted 14 ****ing years. no one in his playing days played more than him except colin cowdrey. i dont think you get it that he couldnt have been tested more than he was against different opponents and different conditions over a long period.

Indeed - and PEWS is being stingy with counting of years. Even if do you take away the 1955,56,57,58 seasons he still played 10 continuous years and not 9. Unless you are going to start counting months he played in each year.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by Hurricane

Indeed - and PEWS is being stingy with counting of years. Even if do you take away the 1955,56,57,58 seasons he still played 10 continuous years and not 9. Unless you are going to start counting months he played in each year.

Tbf Cribbeh is approaching the point these days where he likely will do just that

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Hurricane

Indeed - and PEWS is being stingy with counting of years. Even if do you take away the 1955,56,57,58 seasons he still played 10 continuous years and not 9. Unless you are going to start counting months he played in each year.

He played 62% of England's matches in a career that spanned 14 calender years, so he effectively played 8.68 years. We've been through that point already.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by bagapath

his career lasted 14 years. that is not hard to understand either.



8 or 9 years is more than enough. barrington's career lasted 14 ****ing years. no one in his playing days played more than him except colin cowdrey. i dont think you get it that he couldnt have been tested more than he was against different opponents and different conditions over a long period.

I'm not saying that he wasn't though. Again you're completely missing the difference between a "Test career wasn't long enough to form an accurate judgement" argument and a "playing well for longer is more useful than playing well for shorter" argument. Barrington was an all-time great batsman and I'd have him in my top 25-30; that's a ****ing awesome rap for any player (well it would be if my opinion meant something, anyway ) but I rate him less than players who achieved similar things over longer periods, particularly due to the actual nature of his career.

I didn't make my post to have a tedious debate over it though; I made it to state my opinion on the matter. If people don't agree with the way I value longevity - or indeed have absolutely no concept of it other than whether the career was long enough to form a meaningful sample - then that's awesome for them but I've made my last post on the matter for now. Especially since I keep being straw-manned.

[Hurricane]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

He played 62% of England's matches in a career that spanned 14 calender years, so he effectively played 8.68 years. We've been through that point already.

Seems like a very mathematical way of doing it.

Just from a using my fingers and toes method.
He played in just two tests in 1955 - so I assumed you had discounted that year.
He didn't appear in the 56 57 58 teams

And then just from eyeballing it he appears to be a regular member of the team for ten years from '59 to '68 if he missed the odd test here or there over that ten year period it still looks like he played a decent number of tests in each year to claim ten years experience over that time.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Hurricane

Seems like a very mathematical way of doing it.

Using maths to deal with numbers? Heaven forbid.

[Hurricane]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

Using maths to deal with numbers? Heaven forbid.

What is that hackneyed quote about lies and statistics.
If your 38% of games he missed includes the years that he was out of action completely - then your calculation is misleading as it relies upon the english cricket team playing an equal number of matches in each year over the 14 years. Otherwise you will get a skewed answer which I think you have. or put another way you can't translate percentage of matches played to years if you play an inconsistent number of matches in each year.

[Prince EWS]

Originally Posted by Hurricane

What is that hackneyed quote about lies and statistics.
If your 38% of games he missed includes the years that he was out of action completely - then your calculation is misleading as it relies upon the english cricket team playing an equal number of matches in each year over the 14 years. Otherwise you will get a skewed answer which I think you have. or put another way you can't translate percentage of matches played to years if you play an inconsistent number of matches in each year.

Yeah, the fairest way is to go through and do it on a year by year basis.

Year	Eng	B'ton	Index

1955	9	2	0.22
1956	6	0	0.00
1957	9	0	0.00
1958	7	0	0.00
1959	10	5	0.50
1960	10	9	0.90
1961	10	10	1.00
1962	10	8	0.80
1963	11	11	1.00
1964	12	8	0.67
1965	11	10	0.91
1966	11	5	0.45
1967	6	6	1.00
1968	10	8	0.80
			
			Total	8.25

.. which gives him an even lower total.

In the end that's just the tedious arguing about the subject I'm trying to avoid. Whether it was 8, 9 or 10 years, it's certainly less than a player like Ponting or Dravid - players who may average lower, but players of whom you could find peaks comparable to Barrington's entire career within their own. The reason they average less is the simple fact that they were thought good enough to play Test cricket throughout their entire careers, while Barrington was not - or was at least perceived to not be. His county record seems to suggest that if he did have a career as properly long as Ponting's or Dravid's he'd average pretty similarly to them overall; his Test average flatters him. As I said, all-time great batsman who proved his worth over the time he played - I'm not saying he didn't play long enough to form a judgement, or that he wasn't an ATG bat, despite what the straw men will tell you - but the others who played longer were of more use.

[Hurricane]

Probably a better calculation (your second one) however the underlying premise is flawed. There is no correlation between percentage of games played for England and years of experience. As long as he played a decent number of tests in a given year, regardless of how many England played in that year, he can claim a year of experience IMO. And based on your table he played at least 5 tests each year for ten years.

Anyway you did acknowledge in your post whether it is 8 9 or 10 your point holds true for you so it sounds like you are not being particular. But 10 years just sounds like a long career at least to me 8 point something sounds like a different kettle of fish.

No need to respond as you have stated you are finding this tedious.

Best Wishes PEWS

[sachin200]

Originally Posted by Prince EWS

I'm not saying his career wasn't long enough to form a meaningful sample size; I'm saying it wasn't as long as those of many in contention and that his average is largely a product of playing exclusively through his peak. Barrington is without doubt a top thirty batsman of all time but his longevity is an issue when comparing him to other players as while they may average slightly lower overall, you can find peaks in their careers that were as long as Barrington's entire career when you add it all up. That his First Class record is fairly average (well by ATG standards anyway!) suggests that if he'd been playing Tests throughout his whole career instead of being dropped early and re-emerging a better player later, then retiring from Tests before he did domestic cricket near his prime, he'd have averaged a fair bit lower.

The stats you've listed merely illustrate the growing number of Tests that were being played in that era. Barrington had a career that spanned 14 calender years, and in those 14 calender years he played in 82 out of England's 132 matches (only about 62%) - so effectively he played 8.697 years of cricket. The likes of Dravid (16.59), Tendulkar (21.58), Sobers (18.25), Hammond (17.16) etc effectively played a lot more after you standardise it all properly.

Barrington's career basically consisted of ATG batsman's peak without the average bits either side - he did have them though, difference is he spent them in country cricket instead of having his Test average take a hit. Again, no doubt in my mind that he was a great batsman, but this for me is why he's not really in World XI contention; not his strike rate or batting style.

This is what PEWS wants to say !!!