Dale Steyn vs Imran khan

[BazBall21]

Nah, Steyn will pick up more wickets despite going for more runs. He's doing the dirty work that an economical bowler will, at best, play second fiddle to. Imran went for runs in the West Indies but he took big hauls. No way is that worse than 15 wickets across a 5 match series at an average of 20.

1995-2000, Ambrose took 3.7WPM at an average the same as his career average. Before that though he was very destructive.

 

[BazBall21]

1995-2000, Ambrose took 3.7WPM at an average the same as his career average. Before that though he was very destructive.

Noticed his SR was barely different between those two time frames, so figured he must have bowled more in the first half of his career. 41 overs per Test 1987-1994. 34 overs per Test 1995-2000.

 

[subshakerz]

Nah, Steyn will pick up more wickets despite going for more runs. He's doing the dirty work that an economical bowler will, at best, play second fiddle to. Imran went for runs in the West Indies but he took big hauls. No way is that worse than 15 wickets across a 5 match series at an average of 20.

Yeah but Ambrose and Imran took four wickets plus on average and 4.5-5 at their peaks. And they were rarely if ever carted around.

So imagine a five test series in which one bowler took 23 wickets @ 21 with an ER of 2.5 and the other 25 wickets @ 23 with an ER of 3.3. It is not clear that the latter bowler is superior just by virtue of higher wicket tally. You would need to watch the series and judge them based on their spells.

 

[Xuhaib]

I am not sure I entirely agree. I do think its physically less dangerous to attune to low bounce from high bounce, but there is still a very high chance of losing your wicket with that adjustment.

Now, if you tell me that the SC pitches on average tend to be higher scoring than SENAW pitches, then totally agree. It just means the baseline for good performance from both batting and bowling PoV needs to be adjusted with that in mind.

Yeah i can understand if people disagree with me it's my unique take on the topic. Also sub cont conditions especially when facing pacers are quite uniform across the 4 test playing nations. However the SENAW varies with all Aus, Win, NZ, SA, Eng having their own uniqueness so it's quite rare to see a sub cont batsman having a great record in all senaw conditions. Actually that makes me appreciate the brilliance of Sachin even more.

 

[social]

Imran was an amazing bowler

Express pace and swung it a long way in either direction in all conditions

He’s right up there with the best ever

 

[subshakerz]

Yeah i can understand if people disagree with me it's my unique take on the topic. Also sub cont conditions especially when facing pacers are quite uniform across the 4 test playing nations. However the SENAW varies with all Aus, Win, NZ, SA, Eng having their own uniqueness so it's quite rare to see a sub cont batsman having a great record in all senaw conditions. Actually that makes me appreciate the brilliance of Sachin even more.

Ian Chappell says the same thing. It's sort of commonsense. Higher bounce requires more than just an adjustment of technique.

 

[social]

Btw

Everyone who hammers Pakistani umpires should watch highlights of Imran bowling in England against peak Gower & Botham

David Shepherd was either incompetent or a cheat

No other explanation

 

[BazBall21]

Btw

Everyone who hammers Pakistani umpires should watch highlights of Imran bowling in England against peak Gower & Botham

David Shepherd was either incompetent or a cheat

No other explanation

Do you mean the 1982 series? Have seen that isolated before as a rare example of patriotic English umpiring.

 

[subshakerz]

Btw

Everyone who hammers Pakistani umpires should watch highlights of Imran bowling in England against peak Gower & Botham

David Shepherd was either incompetent or a cheat

No other explanation

English umpires make mistakes. Only Pakistani umpires cheat

 

[subshakerz]

Imran was an amazing bowler

Express pace and swung it a long way in either direction in all conditions

He’s right up there with the best ever

To be fair, Imran wasnt really an outswing bowler, not that he needed it.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Yeah but Steyn bowls less overs on average per match than most ATGs perhaps because of his high ER which neutralizes his better SR somewhat.

Er…he bowls less overs on average because of his high SR and WPM which means he gets the opposition out quicker and more often

 

[Xuhaib]

To be fair, Imran wasnt really an outswing bowler, not that he needed it.

I have only seen Imran bowl in highlights and I found him not very exciting to watch. He may be more effective then Akram but I will definetly prefer to watch a great Wasim or Waqar spell then an Imran spell.

 

[Bolo.]

It's my personal opinion and others can disagree to it I have no issues

I genuinely think Senaw pacers are at a slight advantage over sub cont pacers since they bowl at sub cont batsman in their favorable conditions while sub cont pacers bowl at SENAW batsman in their favourite conditions.

I am not one that believes that bowling mainly in Asia is tougher for pacers they grow up in these conditions so they learn to adjust and it makes it there preferred conditions t but I genuinely think for a batter to adjust from a high bounce conditions is easier to low bounce then vice versa. So a SENAW batsman should find it easier to handle pacers in Asia in comparison to Asian batsman playing in SENAW

Ofcouse that advantage is not that significant that it elimantes the gap between Srinath & McGrath but in a case like Steyn vs Imran it does imo.

Not sure I follow this within the context of comparing 2 players. This would apply only to their records against each other's team, yes? They are both playing games against the same other teams (theoretically) and there should be no advantage against the others?

I don’t like the “he averages worse or the same away from home so he wouldn’t have benefited from better home conditions” argument.

Fair. Easy to see by comparing, say, an Aus and RSA bowler. The Aus bowler might be better at home (but not by much), whereas the RSA bowler (elites aside) is often better by a huge margin. Definitely hard to believe the Aus bowler would not have a better record in RSA.

I struggle to reconcile this with the top draw Asians though, who up until recently were mostly better at home by a big margin... way more than the top draw WANUS bowlers.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Btw

Everyone who hammers Pakistani umpires should watch highlights of Imran bowling in England against peak Gower & Botham

David Shepherd was either incompetent or a cheat

No other explanation

Incompetent. In 2001 Pakistan took 8 England wickets after tea on the last day to win the match. Three of the wickets were from no balls which Shepherd failed to call. He might have been cheating, but certainly not favouring the home team.

 

[subshakerz]

Er…he bowls less overs on average because of his high SR and WPM which means he gets the opposition out quicker and more often

He bowls 33 overs per match on average, its not like he is dismissing teams within that time.

 

[Xuhaib]

Incompetent. In 2001 Pakistan took 8 England wickets after tea on the last day to win the match. Three of the wickets were from no balls which Shepherd failed to call. He might have been cheating, but certainly not favouring the home team.

I remember that game was hilarious as ****, wtf was he up to?

 

[subshakerz]

Not sure I follow this within the context of comparing 2 players. This would apply only to their records against each other's team, yes? They are both playing games against the same other teams (theoretically) and there should be no advantage against the others?

Fair. Easy to see by comparing, say, an Aus and RSA bowler. The Aus bowler might be better at home (but not by much), whereas the RSA bowler (elites aside) is often better by a huge margin. Definitely hard to believe the Aus bowler would not have a better record in RSA.

I struggle to reconcile this with the top draw Asians though, who up until recently were mostly better at home by a big margin... way more than the top draw WANUS bowlers.

Wasim at home is fairly respectable. Waqar has really great numbers, but a lot of his cheaper wickets came against weak NZ, SL and Zimbabwe teams. Imran was just that good at home IMO due to his peak.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Another point in Imran's favor is destructiveness. He took two eight-fers and three seven-fers in his career, compared to Steyn's single seven-fer. So when on song, Imran was more likely to run through a side on his own.

To build on this point, Steyn took his wickets in clumps, moreso than most ATGs. And in between he would go missing in dry spells in which he copped a lot of stick.

Struggle to reconcile these two posts. Steyn is worse because he took his wickets in clumps, and also Imran is better because he took wickets in bigger clumps?


Don't know the answer to the OP. They're clearly very close.

 

[subshakerz]

Struggle to reconcile these two posts. Steyn is worse because he took his wickets in clumps, and also Imran is better because he took wickets in bigger clumps?


Don't know the answer to the OP. They're clearly very close.

Fair enough, my point was that Imran was more capable of completing running through a side on his day.

I dont have a problem with Steyn taking wickets in clumps though, more how his performance was between clumps. Perhaps clumps may even be the wrong term, more that his performances had greater variances between matches. Like in India when he went from God-mode in Nagpur to pedestrian the next test.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Would love to see stats for runs conceded by Steyn per test and how it measures up to:
- other top/world class bowlers of his time
- other ATG bowlers, but this would probably need adjusting to some extent for eras

My impression is that the ER is a bit of a false angle because he also bundled them out quicker owing to his high SR and high WPM (5+ for like 60 tests?)

Like x bowler might concede 100 runs in a test in 40 overs - 2.5 ER
While Steyn might concede 80 but in 25, so 3.25.

But he’s also conceded less runs…