Was that no. of batters thing from his timeline or is it for all time? Amazing graph that.Apologies for posting this yet again, but it's one good way of setting Bradman's feats into context. This graph shows all the batting averages of every player who's played Test cricket (it's a couple of years out of date but that makes no real difference).
Look at this, take in what it means, and then tell me that Bradman's achievements do not transcend history.
Same answer.You cannot compare Players fof 30's to 90's ERA'S unless you have a time machine.Apologies for posting this yet again, but it's one good way of setting Bradman's feats into context. This graph shows all the batting averages of every player who's played Test cricket (it's a couple of years out of date but that makes no real difference).
Look at this, take in what it means, and then tell me that Bradman's achievements do not transcend history.
For all time
Find it interesting that most averages seem centered around 23-35ish, which is exactly where you would expect it not to be; batsmen would be 35-50ish, and bowlers 10-20ish, but it's just no man's land in between really. Assuming that's done with a cut off limit of 20 Tests or so, that is.Apologies for posting this yet again, but it's one good way of setting Bradman's feats into context. This graph shows all the batting averages of every player who's played Test cricket (it's a couple of years out of date but that makes no real difference).
Look at this, take in what it means, and then tell me that Bradman's achievements do not transcend history.
That doesn't mean they are equal lvl of competition. Why? b/c different things at stake.
Yeah there must be some cut off limit of that sort (not sure really) otherwise freaks like Ganteaume (sp?) would be in there.
Think the point being made is that for 99.99% of the cases, yeah, it's tough to compare players across eras. There's no real way of saying whether Arthur Morris or Bill Ponsford was better than Justin Langer or Matthew Hayden. But when you're talking about a bloke who's average is that much higher than everyone else's in the history of the game, regardless of what era, it's pretty open and shut.
But what's the difference
Exactly.
What Andyc said PLUS you can compare how they achieved in relation to their contemporaries, to get an idea of how exceptional they are. Sachin is at the very top of the tree in terms of his contemporaries, but there are guys like Lara, Ponting, Kallis, Waugh, and stretching the definition of contemporaries slightly, Viv, who were pretty close and for whom a case could be made reasonably, albeit IMO ultimately incorrectly.
Yeah I agree. If you suddenly transported Bradman from 1932 to 2010 and told him you're playing the poms in November he'd probably suffer an (perhaps temporary) average drop.
No, you'd be more or less right. It varies by about 5 runs AT MOST from era to era, ie in the 80/90s, the very best were averaging 50 rather than 55, and in the 30s and 00s, the very best were touching 60, albeit only just.
Conversely, if you took someone who's used to playing on 5 day pitches with helmets and told them to face a Bedser on a wet or drying pitch, or a Larwood with a bodyline field, they'd struggle just as much.
Seems sort of reasonable, but much depends on the era. More importantly that sort of limit is just so arbitrary. Imagine Sachin averages 56 ("great") after 180 Tests, and then plays on for a couple of years too many to finance his illegitimate children (a joke. Seriously, a joke), he fails, the selectors are slow to drop him, and he finishes with 200 Tests and an average of 54.5 ("not great"). If he had achieved greatness at 180 Tests he can't possibly have lost it by playing on to 200.
Think that's an important point. Even when batting was supposedly 'easy', averages only increased by a few runs and not anywhere near what Bradman averaged so his records cannot be circumvented by saying batting was incredibly easy
Valid point. Thats where the 'you should have seen him play' point creeps into I guess.
I didn't say he is anything but awesome. I find it crazy and baffling what a statistical freak The Don is. Even if he may truly have been twice as good as Sachin.
