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Put these five players in order

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
Harmison didn't travel as well as Freddie though. 50.86 in Australia; 73.22 in South Africa; India 47.16; one test in New Zealand where he was obviously hit around the ground, leaving him with an average of 121.00. In contrast, 32.66 in Australia; 27.28 in South Africa - in actual fact the country Flintoff least performed was England (36.11).
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
Today's five are batsmen

Mark Waugh (8029 runs at 41.81)
Mark Taylor (7525 at 43.49)
David Boon (7422 at 43.65)
Michael Slater (5312 at 42.83)
Damien Martyn (4406 at 46.37)
 

morgieb

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Tough. Find all 5 to be very close.

Taylor
Boon
Martyn
Slater
M Waugh

Could easily change on any given day though.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
M Waugh better than Slater.

Martin
Taylor
Boon
Waugh
Slater

On another day I'd put Waugh over Boon. Very little in it really. All fine players.
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
At the risk of making a classic "TH just goes off raw stats" error- I think it's a bit perverse to rate Flintoff above Harmison when they were contemporaries and Harmison (a) took more wickets (b) at a better average (c) in far fewer tests and at a far greater wickets-per-test and (d) playing as a specialist and frontline bowler with Freddie as a 3rd or 4th seamer, which is reflected by the above stats.

Perhaps some vigorous number crunching would make a case for Flintoff, but prima facie it looks like an "ability and perception over output" type of call. Albeit in a more nuanced way because Harmison is perceived as having had a lot of ability himself but is perhaps downgraded because he "could have done more" whereas Flintoff is given a pass of sorts because his relative lack of output with the ball is put down to being due to injury/misfortune/not quite bowling the right length/being picked before he was ready and various other factors, but not a lack of will/desire/ticker.
I think Harmison ends up being downgraded by some because his poor was very poor - at least with Flintoff you had a good idea what you got, and even on the days he didn't take wickets he seemed a threat and would hold his end up.
 

morgieb

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At the risk of sounding like Richard, from what I can tell with Harmison he had two really good series back in 2004 and basically had a smattering of good spells and a lot of ****. Never had much consistency. A poor man's Brett Lee.
 

ImpatientLime

International Regular
I think Harmison ends up being downgraded by some because his poor was very poor - at least with Flintoff you had a good idea what you got, and even on the days he didn't take wickets he seemed a threat and would hold his end up.
exactly. flintoff on his poorer days would at least keep things tight.

harmison on his bad days (of which there were many) could single handedly ruin his teams chances.

there is clearly a lot of frustration when looking back at harmisons career as on his day he made it look so effortless and was nigh on unplayable. those days just didn't happen with anywhere near enough frequency for him to have been persisted with for as long as he was.
 

cnerd123

likes this
Today's five are batsmen

Mark Waugh (8029 runs at 41.81)
Mark Taylor (7525 at 43.49)
David Boon (7422 at 43.65)
Michael Slater (5312 at 42.83)
Damien Martyn (4406 at 46.37)
Someone please list these five in order on beer consumption average
 

Bijed

International Regular
At the risk of making a classic "TH just goes off raw stats" error- I think it's a bit perverse to rate Flintoff above Harmison when they were contemporaries and Harmison (a) took more wickets (b) at a better average (c) in far fewer tests and at a far greater wickets-per-test and (d) playing as a specialist and frontline bowler with Freddie as a 3rd or 4th seamer, which is reflected by the above stats.

Perhaps some vigorous number crunching would make a case for Flintoff, but prima facie it looks like an "ability and perception over output" type of call. Albeit in a more nuanced way because Harmison is perceived as having had a lot of ability himself but is perhaps downgraded because he "could have done more" whereas Flintoff is given a pass of sorts because his relative lack of output with the ball is put down to being due to injury/misfortune/not quite bowling the right length/being picked before he was ready and various other factors, but not a lack of will/desire/ticker.
That's not unreasonable and it was in my mind when I was putting them in order, but for me it came down the fact that once Flintoff found his feet as a test bowler (which took a while tbf) he was pretty good from there on in where as Harmison found success, but then became a bit average. Fair enough if you rate Harmison more, though - it certainly wouldn't be the most ridiculous claim made on this forum.

Edit: Where's TH's post gone? I swear I didn't make up a quote to argue with
 
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BoyBrumby

Englishman
It's tempting to have Martyn first, because he was a joy to watch, but he did play in a very batsman friendly era, was surrounded by world class talent and didn't really establish himself until the Windies and Pakistani big beasts were on the way out.

& There was very serious talk about Tubby being dropped before the 1997 Ashes (from memory Chappelli was typically vociferous) as he'd gone 20-ish tests without a ton. If he wasn't the skipper I think the selectors might've pulled the plug.

I'm probably biased because he is l'homme Australis in excelsis, but Boonie did an awful lot of heavy lifting in his teams, so he gets the nod.

Boon
Martyn
Waugh jr.
Slater
Taylor
 

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