DoG's Top 100 Test Batsmen Countdown Thread

[Bolo.]

Even Indian bowlers usually suck in SL. Imo more so due to the kookaburra than the pitch/overhead conditions though.

Recency bias at play there. AKA ignorance. I cant actually remember how indian bowlers did in the era when they werent as good, and Lanka wasnt as spin friendly and were actually capable of playing spin.

 

[sunilz]

But sunilz, you're the one talking about his performances vis a vis Lara's in certain countries against certain attacks. The man averaged less than 20 against a full strength attack here when he played against them. which looks awful compared with Lara's record in Australia against full strength attacks. What he did in a ROW game in England against a composite attack from across the globe is as meaningful in this comparison as Michael Bevan's knock in that charity ODI game vs Asia how ever many years ago if you're comparing him as a player with someone like Dhoni on say English or SA pitches. It might have been a great knock, but it's meaningless for the purposes of this argument - which, btw, is an argument you wanted to have, not anyone else.

And this sort of post makes me think you're a Cevno multi - get utterly schooled on the basis of your own questionable methodology or metric, then run across into comparisons between other players in completely different disciplines of the game.

"I think Gavaskar was better than Lara in Australia against the best bowlers."
"Well actually, sunilz, he averaged <20 against them here when he played a full strength attack, which is a lot less than Lara did."
"YEAH?! WELL KAPIL TOOK MORE FIVE FERS OUT OF ASIA THAN LILLEE DID IN ASIA, DIDN'T HE?! EH? EH?"

It just takes a special kind of thinking to do that sort of thing, yet you do it all the time. It's bizarre, and bereft of any semblance of reason.

Did I even mention Gavaskar average vs AUS in original post ? You brought it . GO and read again.
As for rest of your post accusing me of multi, I am reporting you to mods . If they don't take action, I will reply to it.

 

[Days of Grace]

I really appreciate the way you take the time to answer methodology questions in the middle of this massive undertaking, while having to defend yourself from the inevitable 'you are wrong because your ranking disagrees with my subjective opinion' comments.

But I dont think you have actually addressed my question. See my previous comment

I'm not sure I follow. I have given you the away average adjustments, which suggests that Kallis found batting overseas easier than Sangakkara did.

 

[Burgey]

Only 4 points separating Barrington (882), Tendulkar (883), Sangakkara (885), Lara (886). Im expecting a bigger gap from Lara to whoever is next.

Yeah, this is incredibly close, isn't it? Shows you how narrow the points of difference are between these properly great players.

Should also say, I've been incredibly lucky to see a lot of these top 15-20 blokes play. it makes you realize how fortunate we are in an era where we can so easily watch cricket from all over the place now, compared with even 30 years ago. I remember Australia touring the WI in like 1984 and you'd get a one minute snippet of rubbish highlights on the 6pm news from what was, even by that era's standards, a pretty bloody awful level of coverage. So we missed out on seeing Marshall, Garner, Holding in that series, as well as Viv, Greenidge and of course TOTAB's masterclasses. In fact, I don't even know if there's much footage around of that series.

By 91 we got decent coverage out here, but I mean there wasn't even Aussie media at the 87 WC really - we got coverage of only the first session of the final ffs, and they had to put together a scratch commentary outfit because no one expected Australia to do any good. Now, you can watch more of Pavel Florin bowl in the Euro championships than we saw of Aus winning the WC. Like I said, blessed for all the coverage of the game we get.

 

[Burgey]

Did I even mention Gavaskar average vs AUS in original post ? You brought it . GO and read again.
As for rest of your post accusing me of multi, I am reporting you to mods . If they don't take action, I will reply to it.

Somebody call a Waaambulance. I mean it takes a special kind of effort to report to the mods an interaction which demonstrated the very thing which you were last banned for, thereby inviting another for ignoring the mods.

Originally posted by spark in the Ban Announcements thread on 16 December 2019: sunilz has been banned for a week for a constant pattern of, to quote multiple infraction messages, "[a] habit of throwing in facially irrelevant gotcha jabs at players of the opposing poster's nationality in lieu of making your actual point and shifting the debate to something entirely irrelevant to the thread" leading to baiting infractions and eventually to a continual disobedience infraction.

WTF facially irrelevant is, I dunno, I presume spark meant factually, but what he was thinking of at the time is a matter for him.

You did bring up his and Lara's averages in various countries vs the best bowlers of their respective eras. You literally listed them. You did it to make a point about Gavaskar being a better player across countries vs the best bowlers than Lara. My reply to that post was directly on point because it dealt with Gavaskar's record when he played against full strength Australian attacks in Australia compared with Lara's. Lillee was regarded as the premier fast bowler of the 70s and early 80s. Sunny's record in matches involving him was terrible. It's certainly a more apposite point than dragging Kapil Dev's bowling into the mix for some bizarre reason, which I presume was only an attempt to distract from the particular point which you couldn't or wouldn't deal with.

 

[sunilz]

Somebody call a Waaambulance.

You did bring up his and Lara's averages in various countries vs the best bowlers of their respective eras. You literally listed them. You did it to make a point about Gavaskar being a better player across countries vs the best bowlers than Lara. My reply to that post was directly on point because it dealt with Gavaskar's record when he played against full strength Australian attacks in Australia compared with Lara's. It's certainly a more apposite point than dragging Kapil Dev's bowling into the mix for some bizarre reason, which I presume was only an attempt to distract from the particular point which you couldn't or wouldn't deal with.

I don't consider Lillee best of the bowlers with 5 wkt in Asia. I rate him at par with Kumble/Ashwin/Anderson.
No matter how much you try , Lillee is not in the league of Marshall/ Imran/ Hadlee /McGrath/Donald/Wasim. So unless someone brings Lara's record vs Kumble/Harbhajan, there is absolutely no need to bring Gavaskar's record vs Lillee.

 

[sunilz]

Burgey, bringing up my ban record won't help you here. You have been already banned thrice for this type of interaction with me for accusing me of multi .
If you really think you played a master stroke by bringing Gavaskar's average vs Lillee, you are deluded. If you bring Gavaskar record vs Lillee, I will bring Lara's record vs Kumble/ Harbhajan. We are discussing ATG bowlers here, not bowlers who routinely avoid touring Asia

 

[Burgey]

I don't consider Lillee best of the bowlers with 5 wkt in Asia. I rate him at par with Kumble/Ashwin/Anderson.
No matter how much you try , Lillee is not in the league of Marshall/ Imran/ Hadlee /McGrath/Donald/Wasim. So unless someone brings Lara's record vs Kumble/Harbhajan, there is absolutely no need to bring Gavaskar's record vs Lillee.

sunilz, this is a really simple point, and I'm only going to say it one more time, because you plainly don't want to deal with it, and we are getting to the pointy end of DoG's excellent thread.

You set about comparing the records of two players across countries vs the best bowlers in different eras. I pointed out that Lara's record when playing against full strength sides in Australia is much better than Gavaskar's. In other words, Lara facing McGrath & Warne here >>>> Gavaskar facing Lillee and Anyone here. You then decided to introduce Kapil Dev and Dennis Lillee's five fer records in and out of Asia respectively, as if that somehow had anything at all to do with the very topic you started talking about.

I'm not going to delve any further into this with you, because this is the catalyst of DoG's massive effort, and it deserves better than me having to continually point out the fundamental lack of logic in your arguments, and you continually repeating them, or devolving even further.

 

[sunilz]

I am making it simple for you, if you bring AUS for Lara then you have to bring WI for Gavaskar because AUS/WI
were no.1 side during Gavaskar's/ Lara's time .
I have already said, I consider Lillee at par with Kumble/Ashwin/Anderson. When we discuss ATG bowlers, these 3 bowlers shouldn't be mentioned

 

[Days of Grace]

Burgey, bringing up my ban record won't help you here. You have been already banned thrice for this type of interaction with me for accusing me of multi .
If you really think you played a master stroke by bringing Gavaskar's average vs Lillee, you are deluded. If you bring Gavaskar record vs Lillee, I will bring Lara's record vs Kumble/ Harbhajan. We are discussing ATG bowlers here, not bowlers who routinely avoid touring Asia

Actually we're discussing the ranking of the top 100 best test batsmen by statistical analysis. Please take this trash to the ATG discussion thread.

 

[Logan]

Sobers, Smith and Hobbs left.

My guess is

1. Bradman

2. Smith

3. Sobers

4. Hobbs

 

[Burgey]

I'm not going around in circles with you again. It serves no purpose and stinks up an otherwise excellent thread.

 

[Burgey]

Sobers, Smith and Hobbs left.

My guess is

1. Bradman

2. Smith

3. Sobers

4. Hobbs

It's very hard to know given the relative short time frame of TPC's career, even though he's up over 70 tests played.

I just have a feeling maybe Sobers might sneak the second spot. Then again, Hobbs played for so long and so much vs the other top two side of his era. Such a close run thing, especially across eras.

 

[ataraxia]

Sobers, Smith and Hobbs left.

My guess is

1. Bradman

2. Smith

3. Sobers

4. Hobbs

Those three are pretty close.

2. Smith
3. Hobbs
4. Sobers

Think that might be it.

 

[Bolo.]

I'm not sure I follow. I have given you the away average adjustments, which suggests that Kallis found batting overseas easier than Sangakkara did.

Kallis and Sanga averaged pretty much the same away from home. After your adjustments, Sanga comes out ahead away in terms of average. I have given some reasons why I would expect Kallis to come ahead. My question is why Sanga comes out on front? It is a little counterintuitive, at least if we accept general CW truisims.

 

[sunilz]

Kallis and Sanga averaged pretty much the same away from home. After your adjustments, Sanga comes out ahead away in terms of average. I have given some reasons why I would expect Kallis to come ahead. My question is why Sanga comes out on front? It is a little counterintuitive, at least if we accept general CW truisims.

I can tell you what may the reason . From 2008-14 , in most of SA's big score overseas , atleast 2 players made centuries. This would reduce percentage of total runs scored by Kallis as compared to Sangakkara who was the lone warrior in his team overseas. Similar to why WI bowlers were ranked low in DOG's bowling rating. So even difficult batting surface becomes easy in his ratings because 2 to 3 SA batsman of Smith, Amla, Kallis, Devilliers scored big on them imo.

 

[Logan]

Those three are pretty close.

2. Smith
3. Hobbs
4. Sobers

Think that might be it.

It is going to be close between Smith and Hobbs. Smith’s sheer dominance over the second best batsman may tilt in his favour. Hobbs was the undisputed best batsman till Sutcliffe came into the picture.

 

[Logan]

Only 4 points separating Barrington (882), Tendulkar (883), Sangakkara (885), Lara (886). Im expecting a bigger gap from Lara to whoever is next.

So lucky to have watched Sachin, Lara, Sanga, Kallis, Ponting, Smith and Kohli.

 

[ataraxia]

It is going to be close between Smith and Hobbs. Smith’s sheer dominance over the second best batsman may tilt in his favour. Hobbs was the undisputed best batsman till Sutcliffe came into the picture.

Uh do you know anything about cricket history? Before Bradman WG was far and away considered the best. Indeed, my book says that (much inferior to Grace) 'In the 1880s and 1890s Arthur Shrewsbury [Milenko: a batsman far inferior to Grace] held a position of honour in the cricket world similar to that held by Jack Hobbs thirty to forty years later.'

 

[h_hurricane]

If you take the Top 7 batsmen here(which includes a WK) and the Top 4 bowlers from the bowlers' thread, you get an XI like this.

Hobbs
Bradman
Lara
Tendulkar
Smith
Sobers
Sangakkara
Hadlee
Steyn
Barnes
Muralitharan

Great team !