Sir Donald Bradman & One Day Cricket

[benchmark00]

watching two bowlers operate is good enough. But like i said, to compare two bowlers, you need not have seen both of them. all you need is a common comparing factor or a few common comparing factors.

I dont beleive watching is good enough.... my whole point is that you CANT compare pace from 70 years ago to today, not correctly anyway... so its erroneous to say that back in the early 20th century bowlers bowled slower than the bowlers of the 21st century

 

[marc71178]

watching two bowlers operate is good enough. But like i said, to compare two bowlers, you need not have seen both of them. all you need is a common comparing factor or a few common comparing factors.

Rubbish.

The only way to compare 2 players is directly.

 

[C_C]

Rubbish.

The only way to compare 2 players is directly.

elementary logic is lost on some i guess.
If A > B and B>C, solve : A ? C

Not that hard.

 

[marc71178]

Why introduce a third element?

The way you suggest is inaccurate as the "common" player isn't going to be at the same level when comparing the 2 players, so you have to compare them directly.

 

[C_C]

Why introduce a third element?

The way you suggest is inaccurate as the "common" player isn't going to be at the same level when comparing the 2 players, so you have to compare them directly.

????????

Lets say you have never seen Shoaib Akhtar bowl but you've seen Kapil Dev and Allan Donald.
If one says " Allan Donald is a lot faster than Kapil and Akhtar is considerably faster than Donald", whats your inference on Akhtar's speed relative to Kapil ?

 

[marc71178]

And without me even having to think of an example, you've provided it for me!

You're comparing 2 different Donalds with Kapil - the Donald who bowled back then is nowhere near as old as the Donald who you're comparing to Akhtar, and he also lost a lot pace.

Thanks for saving me the effort.

 

[C_C]

And without me even having to think of an example, you've provided it for me!

You're comparing 2 different Donalds with Kapil - the Donald who bowled back then is nowhere near as old as the Donald who you're comparing to Akhtar, and he also lost a lot pace.

Thanks for saving me the effort.

Donald of 1997/98 had all the pace in the world.
Thats when akhtar came around and was still faster than Donald.

I am not comparing specific parts of a player's career but overall.

 

[Richard]

well to establish a correct comparison wouldnt one have to face the 2 bowlers? not stand 200 metres away?

In fact facing them is even more misleading than standing watching.

 

[Richard]

Donald of 1997/98 had all the pace in the world.
Thats when akhtar came around and was still faster than Donald.

I am not comparing specific parts of a player's career but overall.

Which is a classic case of trying to turn two things into one.
Donald of most of the 1990s was far, far, far quicker than Donald in the 2000s.
It is not at all inconceivable that he was a mere insignificant fraction slower than Shoaib in his heyday.
In 1998 he was regularly timed at 92mph or so - at the age of 31-going-on-32.
Hence it is quite conceivable that, at 26, he was bowling in the mid-to-high 90s.
As it was with every bowler ever to play the game.
No bowler, batsman or spectator can tell how relatively quick a certain bowler was relative to another - especially if they were bowling at different points in history.

 

[C_C]

No bowler, batsman or spectator can tell how relatively quick a certain bowler was relative to another - especially if they were bowling at different points in history.

like i said, maybe you cannot say that relative to Akhtar, McGrath has always been of pea-shooter pace, but most cricket fans who watch cricket can.

can you tell if a car that zoomed by at 100mph in front of ya was moving faster or slower than one that went by at 50-60mph ?

 

[Richard]

Certainly can - cars are much bigger than cricket-balls.

 

[Richard]

like i said, maybe you cannot say that relative to Akhtar, McGrath has always been of pea-shooter pace, but most cricket fans who watch cricket can.

No - they think they can.
I, on the other hand, know that neither myself nor anyone else can.

 

[Scallywag]

No - they think they can.
I, on the other hand, know that neither myself nor anyone else can.

Someone with more knowledge on the subject may be able to clarify this but the human eye only judges speed by the object getting bigger or smaller and the rate of expansion or contraction gives the impression of speed. As stated before that makes the human eye a extremely poor judge of speed. Cars are are easier to judge than cricket balls due to the size of the car. So the ease of judging a car to a cricket ball would be allmost 1000%.

 

[Slats4ever]

i agree with rich in that he woulda avged 120-150. the bats that are used nowadays are so much more powerful yet lighter at the same time than they were in the olden days. and quite frankly the Don was amazing. to mention his name in the same sentence as Tendulkar, Lara or Viv Richards is almost criminal

 

[Scallywag]

And just to add to that humans would find it very difficult to judge the difference of 20kmh in cars.

 

[C_C]

No - they think they can.
I, on the other hand, know that neither myself nor anyone else can.

your knowledge is erroneous in this matter.
Human beings can judge RELATIVE velocities very well with our naked eye.
We cannot put an exact number to the velocities of objects- we cannot tell if the car is travelling at 120mph or 100mph by seeing it.
however, if we saw a car go by at 100mph and another go by at 120mph, MOST human beings can tell that the latter car was moving faster.
Same case here with bowling.
We may not know from seeing Donald or Gillespie bowl if they are bowling at 85mph or 90mph.
But if we see Donald/Gillespie bowl and then Akhtar, we can easily guage that Akhtar bowls faster than eitehr those two.

There is a subtle but KEY difference there.
I wouldnt speculate on how minutely we can guage relative velocities but 5-6mph is easily within discernable limits of MOST human beings.

 

[SJS]

Someone with more knowledge on the subject may be able to clarify this but the human eye only judges speed by the object getting bigger or smaller and the rate of expansion or contraction gives the impression of speed. As stated before that makes the human eye a extremely poor judge of speed. Cars are are easier to judge than cricket balls due to the size of the car. So the ease of judging a car to a cricket ball would be allmost 1000%.

The human eye judges speed with relation to the stationary obejcts around the moving objects and the changing relative distance/position from both. Thats why its much more difficult to tell the speed of an approaching car in the dark if you can see nothing of the surroundings as compared to daytime.


We measure the distance from us for each body by the angle formed by the two eyes as they rest on the object coming towards us. The angle becomes more and more obtuse as the object gets closer to us. Thats why it is difficult to bat with one eye. You will never be able to tell the ball is upon you and hit it at the right time although its size would increase (apparently) as it aproached you.

You need to know both these to be able to handle the ball.

 

[marc71178]

And just to add to that humans would find it very difficult to judge the difference of 20kmh in cars.

Indeed, which is why the police pay no attention to any "witness" saying that the car was doing 40mph

 

[Richard]

your knowledge is erroneous in this matter.
Human beings can judge RELATIVE velocities very well with our naked eye.
We cannot put an exact number to the velocities of objects- we cannot tell if the car is travelling at 120mph or 100mph by seeing it.
however, if we saw a car go by at 100mph and another go by at 120mph, MOST human beings can tell that the latter car was moving faster.
Same case here with bowling.
We may not know from seeing Donald or Gillespie bowl if they are bowling at 85mph or 90mph.
But if we see Donald/Gillespie bowl and then Akhtar, we can easily guage that Akhtar bowls faster than eitehr those two.

There is a subtle but KEY difference there.
I wouldnt speculate on how minutely we can guage relative velocities but 5-6mph is easily within discernable limits of MOST human beings.

Rubbish.
Many things can distort speeds - the number of times people say "that was a quick ball" and see it timed at 82mph are numerous.
Like I say, if you seriously think Akhtar in prime was much faster than Donald in his prime, that goes against you again, because most evidence suggests otherwise.
Sorry, all scientific fact shows quite clearly that anyone saying "x was faster than y" is not worth bothering about because they are quite clearly making judgements they have no tools to make correctly.
It's not like the "this wicket turned\seamed"; "no it didn't!" thing, it's far more objective.

 

[C_C]

Many things can distort speeds - the number of times people say "that was a quick ball" and see it timed at 82mph are numerous.

this further proves my point.
Human beings are not capable of accurately perceiving empirical speed of an object- ie, a car that appears 'fast' or a ball that appears 'fast' can easily have a 10-20mph difference between various people, if asked to quantify the speed of the car/ball.
However, human eye is VERY WELL EQUIPPED to guage relativistic speeds- it can compare very well between two objects and tell which one is faster- and the objects need not run simultaneously for this comparison to occur ( ie,a person can tell which of the cars were faster accurately if two cars did a solo run and the cars had a 4-5mph speed differential or so).

Like I say, if you seriously think Akhtar in prime was much faster than Donald in his prime, that goes against you again, because most evidence suggests otherwise.

i would classify a 5mph difference in speeds consistently as MUCH faster.
Donald has never bowled a delivery recorded at 95mph or above.( i believe according to Eddie whatzizname's compilation, Donalds' two top speeds were in 1993 and 1997 and both were 93-94mph range).
Akhtar bas bowled entire spells at 98+mph.

Sorry, all scientific fact shows quite clearly that anyone saying "x was faster than y" is not worth bothering about because they are quite clearly making judgements they have no tools to make correctly.
It's not like the "this wicket turned\seamed"; "no it didn't!" thing, it's far more objective.
Yesterday 08:35 AM

you need to learn more about the capablities of the human eye before you make that claim. You'll find your views to be modified substantially.
If you wait till the new year's vacation period is over, i will ask my doctor friend to provide me with the names of a few good and indepth books on the topic of optics.