Sanga retiring, where does he place?

[viriya]

How did you come up with the speculation of Sanga reaching to the avg. of 60 in 2 years? You haven't seen the declines of Ponting, Clarke in recent times?

Did you see the year he had in 2014 at age 37? Ponting and Clarke declined as a typical batsmen does, Sanga got better with age.

 

[kingkallis]

Did you see the year he had in 2014 at age 37? Ponting and Clarke declined as a typical batsmen does, Sanga got better with age.

Okay

 

[OverratedSanity]

Did you see the year he had in 2014 at age 37? Ponting and Clarke declined as a typical batsmen does, Sanga got better with age.

You just never know. Tendulkar was the best batsman in the world at the age of 38 and people didn't predict his form decline like that in his last 15 tests or so.

 

[Flem274*]

tendulkar can bugger off. he flopped and was outdone by king dravid, father of rahul in 2002 in nz and sanga against the same bowlers on a greener deck tonned up against bond and co. in 2006 and then double tonned southee and bout.

i think we need to move away from this performance in india bias and instead look to performance in nz, because as furball and burgey like to point out ad nauseum post-2012 nz are the greatest side of all time.

this also means sobers is a hack.

in 10 years marc and all the other conventional wisdom types be glorifying how good sangakkara was by saying sanga >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> kohli/williamson/puppy/whoever like they're saying atgs >>>>>>>>>>>>> sanga now. cricket peaked in 1594 when it was lawn bowls and has been getting worse ever since.

honestly if we had internet forums in the 80s it would have been a big cry fest about how there are no good batsmen these days and the west indies pace attack were no spofforths.

in answer to the question posed by the thread, who gives a ****? he's standing in sri lanka atm in the field getting bored of watching that hack big three team bat. he's just as good as all the other ****s who score millions of runs across millions of tests.

 

[Gob]

He was amazing in a robotic way but imo never had the aura of Tendulkar, Lara, Sobers, Viv etc

Also viriya is p00

 

[harsh.ag]

CW should have an option of a poll only thread. No posts allowed.

 

[Furball]

He was amazing in a robotic way but imo never had the aura of Tendulkar, Lara, Sobers, Viv etc

Also viriya is p00

Sangakkara doesn't have that aura because nobody in the world actually gives a **** about Sri Lanka. Australia have set the benchmark for cricketing excellence throughout most of history unfortunately, there's a romanticism about the West Indies and India have made themselves important by virtue of shouting very loudly and stamping their feet. People didn't fear him as a batsman because people didn't really care if Sri Lanka won a Test here or there.

As a person he most definitely does have an aura about him. The way he speaks about the game and the way he stood up to his corrupt board definitely lend him an air of authority and gravitas that I think few modern players have.

And if you're calling him robotic then I have to question whether you have a soul. Bloke was an artist, an absolute joy to watch and a rampaging run machine. A genuinely brilliant keeper and sharp as **** when it came to wit and sledging. I'll probably rank him 4th or 5th in my objective rating of the modern greats, and that's because a) he's keeping some genuinely legendary company with Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting and Dravid and b) he suffers from the "it's only the little Sri Lankans" syndrome in my mind. When I go subjective, go "**** achievements, who gave me the most joy and pleasure watching him"? He might just be the best of the lot.

 

[AldoRaine18]

And if you're calling him robotic then I have to question whether you have a soul.

 

[bagapath]

Did I make a point that he mastered Australia? I'm making the point that breaking down by country makes no sense because of the small sample size.

If you can't decide if a player was good in different conditions for whatever reason then it is difficult to include him in an atg discussion. You're probably saying sanga was awesome in some countries and didn't play enough in some countries. Great observation. Now I have to go to the loo.

 

[NZTailender]

Sangakkara doesn't have that aura because nobody in the world actually gives a **** about Sri Lanka. Australia have set the benchmark for cricketing excellence throughout most of history unfortunately, there's a romanticism about the West Indies and India have made themselves important by virtue of shouting very loudly and stamping their feet. People didn't fear him as a batsman because people didn't really care if Sri Lanka won a Test here or there.

As a person he most definitely does have an aura about him. The way he speaks about the game and the way he stood up to his corrupt board definitely lend him an air of authority and gravitas that I think few modern players have.

And if you're calling him robotic then I have to question whether you have a soul. Bloke was an artist, an absolute joy to watch and a rampaging run machine. A genuinely brilliant keeper and sharp as **** when it came to wit and sledging. I'll probably rank him 4th or 5th in my objective rating of the modern greats, and that's because a) he's keeping some genuinely legendary company with Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting and Dravid and b) he suffers from the "it's only the little Sri Lankans" syndrome in my mind. When I go subjective, go "**** achievements, who gave me the most joy and pleasure watching him"? He might just be the best of the lot.

Add to this the whole not many people will have seen him play on TV, given the country he plays for. Under-exposure adds to the underratedness.

I had the pleasure of watching him bat live, twice. Was glorious.

 

[Migara]

Tendulkar's record against WWs being mediocre is a complete myth. He played against them just twice. 89 was his first ever series as a 16 year old, and he did a respectable job, and even saved a test from a dicey position. 2nd was way later in 99 in which he scored probably his best hundred. Waqar was a shell of his old self, but Wasim was still pretty great. And they never even got him out anyway,not even once. it was Saqlain doing the damage. It's why avg vs player stats are useless without context.

Given the Pakistani attack of 90s it won't be Wasim or Waqar that will nail Tendulkar, but a bowler like Aaqib Javed, who bowls stump to stump and bowled a superb incutter as well. Agreed, player vs player comparison is bit of a useless thing, but, Tendulkar probably didn't play the greatest bowling attack of 90s (given pace and spin options) unlike other greats of his time.

 

[Migara]

Holy redundancy. Why make the same point twice in the same sentence?

There are 8 people who should join the flat earth society.

 

[Red]

Also viriya is p00

Be nice.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Blanket statements like "overrated here" make no sense. I've seen people here say he's better than Tendulkar, in that case, yes he's overrated. At the same time I see mr_mister say Dravid couldn't play innings Waugh could, which I don't agree with at all, so there he's being underrated. He's in the Kallis-Waugh class but just like them, he's not as good as Tendulkar and Lara.

Of course at an individual level you will have those contrasting opinions but in general, based on the discussions on this forum, by an large Dravid is considered just a tad below Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting by most on this forum. This I feel is being a bit too kind to Dravid, and from what I understand, it is mostly due to a few memorable knocks Dravid has including but not limited to the Kolkata test, but a few great series in England over the years, manages to cover up his relatively below average record against Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

My point is of course not to knock down Dravid, his numbers are still great by any standards, just an explanation as to why he is a tad overrated on CW.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Of course at an individual level you will have those contrasting opinions but in general, based on the discussions on this forum, by an large Dravid is considered just a tad below Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting by most on this forum. This I feel is being a bit too kind to Dravid, and from what I understand, it is mostly due to a few memorable knocks Dravid has including but not limited to the Kolkata test, but a few great series in England over the years, manages to cover up his relatively below average record against Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

My point is of course not to knock down Dravid, his numbers are still great by any standards, just an explanation as to why he is a tad overrated on CW.

How is saying Dravid is slightly below Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting overrating him in any way? It's not like the others who are considered below them (Kallis, Sanga, Younis) have stellar records against the top nations. The very reason Kallis, Dravid and Sanga are considered a notch below by many people is because they have a few holes in their records (Dravid vs SA,Aus, SL, Kallis in England and SL, Sanga vs SA, in India, in England) etc. They all have some blemishes in otherwise great records. How is Dravid's particularly inferior?

 

[The Battlers Prince]

coming in at number 3 is the hardest place to rate a batsman, where Dravid spent most of his time. You're a part-time opener if early wickets fall, or coming in after a decent stand. He was sound in defense so keeping a collapse from happening was often his role, time was more important than runs. I'd take him for a crisis over most others

 

[Black_Warrior]

Outside of home conditions test cricketers play in seven other non-minnow nations. Of these seven, sanga could not master three: India, West Indies and South Africa. This is the reality. Despite that eye popping average and record scores, he was definitely not a man for all conditions.

As an all time top 20 batsman, sanga will always be compared with his contemporaries like tendulkar, lara, ponting, dravid, kallis etc and will always come fourth on that list behind sachin, brian and ricky.

okay, then let us agree that he didn't master australia coz he played only three tests there.
you can't have it both ways.

the point is, he was pedestrian in india, west indies and south africa. that is always going to work against him in these arguments.

Few days back there was talk of the greatest Sri Lankan batsman on the even of Sanga's retirement, so I was just looking at the records of Sanath, Mahela, De Silva and Sanga. And I think the most important point that has to be made when looking at the data of Sri Lankan players is the astonishingly low number of test matches they get to play outside of Sri Lanka, forget about Asia.

Virat Kohli already has more test matches against Australia than Sanga did in his entire career. The reason a lot of these threads that look at a player's track record at the end of his career lead to so many disagreements and fights is because a lot of people just tend to look at the Cricinfo stats page against all other teams and draw their conclusion from that. There is nothing that takes into account the fact that playing against the same opposition every few years gives you an advantage over playing against an opposition every 6-7 years.

Michael Clarke is the true child of the Big 3 era. Although officially Big 3 came into being in 2014, in practice it was going on for a long time and could not be better demonstrated than with Michael Clarke's career. out of 115 test matches, 57 would have been played against England and India. That's half his career. Can you imagine the advantage he would over YK or Sanga when playing India or England?

Point is, given the limited opportunities Sanga got to play in these conditions, he has an amazing record overall. Averaging 35 with 1 century from 8 test matches in South Africa where generally almost everyone has a slightly below par record is hardly pedestrian. Clarke played the same number of test matches in South Africa in 5 years what Sanga played in 12 years. These things won't ultimately make it to averages and stats but I think they are an important context when analysing stats.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Kohli has indeed already played as many matches against Australia as Sanga did in his entire career, but he's also scored 6 hundreds vs them against Sanga's 1, FTR.

 

[Flem274*]

kohli playing 12 test series every 6 months against australia compared to sangakkara getting a one test series every 50 years might have something to do with that.

it's not just the number of tests overall - if you're playing a two test series away from home you have to come in ready and rolling and even if you do, you're going home in three weeks. if you're playing five tests you can get a roll on and if you're seeing it like a beach ball you can cause some pain.

of course the opposite is true too. if you're crap then in a two test series you can bail off home soon enough.

same goes for regularity - even though kohli flopped in england he'll get another extended crack in two minutes and he had a good look at english conditions through those 4 tests. if sanga sucked in a series he had a maximum of four knocks to look at where he went wrong. equally though if a player in an unfashionable country just can't get another country, they only have to go there once every five years and might play 6 tests in the bogey country in their entire career.

personally i suspect the most advantaged player is the one who at least has the chance to get lots of tests in a country regularly.

 

[G.I.Joe]

kohli playing 12 test series every 6 months against australia compared to sangakkara getting a one test series every 50 years might have something to do with that.

Yes, that must entirely explain 6 hundreds in 12 tests vs 1 hundred in 11 tests.