Why is Bradman the greatest ever?

[weldone]

Bradman's last innings... second ball... Hollies bowls a perfect googly and either

a) Bradman is bowled... but the umpire calls for some assistance from the onfield sketch artist. After a 10 minutes wait while the sketch artist completes his drawing, the umpire sees that Hollies in fact had just bowled a no-ball by a millimetre or two. Bradman stays on the field, and goes on to complete a majestic 300 not out, thus raising his average to 105.

or

b) Bradman, had spent his day off analysing the team-bagman's chalkboard analysis of Hollies' action, picks the googly, turns it to midwicket for a single, and goes on to score a majestic 300 not out... yada yada yada

 

[Dan]

cant believe you ****s are wasting your time with this. go and have a pull

Bradman's favourite stroke, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Ruckus]

Hmm given the magnitude of his success I think it's reasonable to assume Bradman is the best ever, but at the same time, people are way too quick to dismiss the idea of batsman back in the e.g. early 1900's simply being worse than modern batsmen. If you look at basically any footage of batsmen (and bowlers) from those times, I think it's plain obvious they weren't anywhere close to the level cricketers are today. And why should they be? It's just the nature of how a sport progresses - methods of success become more well known, technique becomes more refined, training becomes more intense, efficient and regulated etc. The game just becomes more professional in general.

There will obviously be some differences in the conditions and how the game was played back then, but the basic principles have stayed the same, and I'd be very confident any modern batsman could be transported back to an early era and would dominate with minimal acclimatisation needed, but I really doubt that would happen vice versa.

It doesn't mean that the early greats of the game couldn't succeed as well if brought up in the modern era from the beginning, but it does mean it's very difficult to tell just how good the players were by using a comparison with their peers analysis. It's like trying to work out how good a test player someone will be by comparing their performances with their peers in grade cricket. There might be some decent indications of whose likely to be good test players, but how they will rank relative to each other in test cricket is very hard to predict (for various reasons which I won't go into).

The saving grace for Bradman is the sheer magnitude of his success over his peers, and the fact he was literally to only one to be so successful. That, to me, suggests his success must have been a product of more than merely e.g. technical proficiencies, but also freakish natural attributes (like exceedingly good hand-eye, concentration etc.), probably transferable to any era.

 

[Top_Cat]

This is, without any doubt, the most eye-bleedingly dumb thread I've seen on CW. ****. Me.

 

[Burgey]

This is, without any doubt, the most eye-bleedingly dumb thread I've seen on CW. ****. Me.

What about those from earlier years, other eras? You can't be absolutely sure of that, can you? I think you're doing a great disservice to First Chance Average, Tendulkar v Ponting/Lara, Kallis v Sobers and anything started by Smali.

It's hard to compare the malodorous across eras.

 

[a massive zebra]

I agree with Corey.

To the guys arguing with jboss - he will not be convinced and you will never get this time back. Why not go and do something more productive?

 

[smash84]

What about those from earlier years, other eras? You can't be absolutely sure of that, can you? I think you're doing a great disservice to First Chance Average, Tendulkar v Ponting/Lara, Kallis v Sobers and anything started by Smali.

It's hard to compare the malodorous across eras.

You can never stop bitching can you?

 

[Top_Cat]

Statistics is all you need and this thread is 5 sigma weapons-grade idiocy.

 

[Spark]

Right, we're done.

Taking random potshots at fellow members for no apparent reason isn't cool, guys.