Ian Botham vs Keith Miller

[smash84]

may be. but look at that table smali. cant you see that he was the best bowler of them all by a fair distance?

Since you take the best 4-5 year period in botham's career I would like to present a period of awesomeness for Paddles

Now this is what you call bowling awesomeness. I don't think Botham was anywhere near as good as this

All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

bowling wise Imran in that somewhat overlapping period

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...;spanval1=span;template=results;type=allround

 

[smash84]

and Miller's record

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

bowled well everywhere (just missed out on a sub 30 average in WI)

 

[Ikki]

Re batting: Miller also scores at a comparable 50/100 rate to Botham. There's no doubt Botham was an awesome bowler; it was just pretty short lived.

 

[bagapath]

Not really bagapath. I can't see that very clearly from that table. I don't see his SR there and DKL and Hadlee are close to him in the average. Paddles also has a higher wpm and had he played as much during this time I am sure he would have taken more wickets. Also I don't see the quality of batsmen dismissed in that table. Besides I think you can find bowler peaks for Hadlee and Imran from 79-82 probably being better than Botham

here is the bowling table.......

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

17 five-fers, 48SR, under 22 average, almost 5 WPM, 200 wickets. no one else in sight. he was better than imran and holding by miles. and better than hadlee and lillee in 2 out of the 3 deciding factors. paddles' SR is quite poor in this time span. no doubt botham was the leading bowler in the world. and i am not saying this from stats alone.

 

[smash84]

yeah I guess he was good in those years and I don't think I would deny that but you are picking his peak period and even then all of Lillee, Marshall, Imran, Holding, and Hadlee had better bowling peaks than him

 

[bagapath]

yeah I guess he was good in those years and I don't think I would deny that but you are picking his peak period and even then all of Lillee, Marshall, Imran, Holding, and Hadlee had better bowling peaks than him

of course i am looking at his peak years. and other bowlers could have had different/ better peaks. my point is that botham was the best bowler in the world over a four year period. in 41 test matches. with 200+ wickets. that is a good enough period for an all time great bowler. that is all.

 

[Oasisbob]

Isn't the reason he took so many more wickets than the likes of Imran, Holding, Lillee etc. that they were off playing WSC?

There's no doubting that he was a superb bowler in his pomp. Better than Miller? I doubt it.

 

[bagapath]

Isn't the reason he took so many more wickets than the likes of Imran, Holding, Lillee etc. that they were off playing WSC?

There's no doubting that he was a superb bowler in his pomp. Better than Miller? I doubt it.

i voted for miller in the poll. but at their pomps i would have gone for botham. he ran through many more batting lineups than miller.

imran, holding and lillee came back from WSC and still they didnt have the SR or the average of botham over a 3 year period. 78 to 81, beefy was the man. that is more tests than gimmett and oreilly. more wickets than laker and akhthar.

 

[smash84]

imran, holding and lillee came back from WSC and still they didnt have the SR or the average of botham over a 3 year period. 78 to 81, beefy was the man. that is more tests than gimmett and oreilly. more wickets than laker and akhthar.

When did these guys return from WSC?

 

[smash84]

of course i am looking at his peak years. and other bowlers could have had different/ better peaks. my point is that botham was the best bowler in the world over a four year period. in 41 test matches. with 200+ wickets. that is a good enough period for an all time great bowler. that is all.

And I don't think anybody is denying that Botham was an ATG bowler over that four year period. But over a long career was he that good? He played for 10+ years after 1981.

 

[bagapath]

And I don't think anybody is denying that Botham was an ATG bowler over that four year period. But over a long career was he that good? He played for 10+ years after 1981.

no he wasnt. that is why i voted for miller.

imran et al came back from WSC in 78-79. botham was better than all of them until the summer of 82

 

[harsh.ag]

Keith Miller was a better batsman than Botham, he was a better bowler than Botham, and he was a much better man than Botham. Need more be said?

EDIT: Just realized the thread is only about who was the better bowler. Miller was the better bowler without too much doubt. He opened the bowling with Lindwall, and was considered as big a threat, and more by some batsmen. Botham has a problem because his peak coincided with the best batsmen in the world not playing against him because of WSC, although of course there was Ashes 81. After that, he just became mediocre.

 

[fredfertang]

WSC lasted two seasons - lets not get too carried away with its significance in these sort of debates

 

[harsh.ag]

WSC lasted two seasons - lets not get too carried away with its significance in these sort of debates

True. Did not mean to belittle his achievements, just pointing out a fact. He was brilliant in his peak, no doubt. If only he could have kept it up.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It's not like he played an unusually long career, so I don't know why everyone is always so keen to give him a pass for what happened later on. If all these other players we're comparing him to had seven year careers and retired in their late 20s to keep their stats in tact then it'd be a credit to Botham that he continued to play on in service of his country for as long as the selectors deemed even if he wasn't quite at his best, but Imran played until he was 40, Miller played into his late 30s even despite wartime injuries, Sobers played Test cricket for twenty years, etc etc. His competitors managed to play on just as long or in many cases longer without becoming complete parodies of themselves; they continued to be excellent cricketers well beyond the length of their peaks, making them far more valuable as overall entities.

I don't mark Botham down for playing on past his best and declining rapidly; I just stop giving him marks for playing on after that as he was of very little value at that time. The other greats he's often compared to increased their legacy by sustaining their excellence, even if it meant becoming different cricketers as time went on and adapting to the changing limitations of their bodies and minds. You'll help your team win a lot more cricket games with long-term excellence than you will by achieving a mystical level of skill fractionally better than everyone else for a short period and then resting on your laurels while they all outperform you for years to come. If he just decided to pack it in in 1985 I'd rate him exactly the same as I do now - a clear all-time great but one who offered comparatively little over the course of his career as compared with others in the highest class.

I'd question that Botham was of very little value, even in his cricketing dotage.

I don't think anyone would argue he was anything but a pale, mortal imitation of the deity he'd been, but when one compares his (say) post-85 record to the various "new Bothams" selected in his stead (Pringle, Capel, Lewis, De Freitas, White & even Dermot "****ing" Reeve) I bet it stands up pretty well.

I think Beefy's problem is that he was essentially a cricketing genius with an idiot attached. When the powers of the former waned the latter was singularly unable to compensate.

 

[Red]

I think Beefy's problem is that he was essentially a cricketing genius with an idiot attached. When the powers of the former waned the latter was singularly unable to compensate.

That's the best sentence I've read since last weekend.

 

[Prince EWS]

In terms of bowling alone I actually think this is a really tough comparison. I think the quality of Miller's bowling was better on balance, but Botham definitely seemed more capable of playing a frontline bowler's role and leading an attack. If you were looking for someone to bat in the top seven and contribute to part of a five man attack - which is basically what you're looking at when you compare these guys - then I'd go for Miller's bowling, even if we assumed equal batting ability. However I'd have more faith in Botham to actually play as a main bowler than Miller, because Miller never really did it on a regular basis, even when he opened.

It's almost like the gold standard of something like comparing to Watson to Copeland as bowlers. I'd rather have Watson bowl twelve overs a day for my side than Copeland but if I needed someone to bowl 25 I'd take Copeland in a heartbeat.