Imran Khan vs Richard Hadlee

[ZK$]

Davidson in a tier below Lindwall totally makes a lot of sense………

It’s a bit like how Pollock is a tier below Donald or Walsh is a tier below Holding I guess. You can rate him higher though if you’d like.

 

[ZK$]

of which they are.

They weren’t though. I’d say the batting equivalents are like Tendulkar and Dravid and I wouldn’t rate Dravid in the same tier as Tendulkar.

 

[Coronis]

It’s a bit like how Pollock is a tier below Donald or Walsh is a tier below Holding I guess. You can rate him higher though if you’d like.

Except those blokes don’t have better stats pretty much across the board.

 

[Flem274*]

They weren’t though. I’d say the batting equivalents are like Tendulkar and Dravid and I wouldn’t rate Dravid in the same tier as Tendulkar.

3107 people have bowled in test cricket.

Assuming you have both McGrath and Pollock in the top 30 bowlers, we're talking the top 1% of all test bowlers.

Now take Dravid and give him a bowling average of 35...now you basically have a slightly more defensive Sobers.

Still picking Sachin? Hell no, you're taking the allrounder who is one of the greatest #3 batsmen ever.

 

[subshakerz]

I'm well aware cricket is more than spreadsheets thanks. I've pointed that out to the 'Southee > Bond' brigade recently.

South Africa didn't lose because of Pollock, they lost because some sides were too good for the Pollock/Kallis axis to keep them competitive. You go tour 00s Australia with Boeta Dippenaar, Jacques Rudolph, Nicky Boje and Andre Nel.

There's a general trend in sports to blame star players for not doing more in losses when the problem is usually their team mates could be better.

Batting at #8 is a huge advantage. Daniel Vettori being the most recent example of the premium #8 keeping NZ out of associate status along with Ross Taylor. To minimise it is silly, and given Imran and Hadlee often get picked in ATG exercises as the #8 because they can bat I think everyone understands this when we don't mention randomly denigrated South African cricketers. You'd think Pollock averaged 28 with the ball the way people carry on about his bowling.

Without scorecard browsing Pollock's batting kept South Africa competitive in at least one odi series I recall against NZ where he almost won them games from nowhere.

Pollock probably sacrificed some bowling time to be a better batsman, and no matter which way you shake it he is an ATG pacer, one of the very very best ever bowlers to live. One would need to go full CricketWeb Brain to try and deny it. Adding a very healthy batting average on top of achieving something most test bowlers never do with more time investment just makes Pollock an unfair cricketer. He is a very special player and people always seem to hyper focus on Shaun Pollock 2008 rather than Shaun Pollock, ATG pace bowler.

If he was Australian, Indian or God forbid English (with 800 test wickets to match) we'd never hear the end of it.

We can disagree. I rate Pollock the bowler quite highly, not as much the batsman. Maybe its my faulty memory but I dont recall many knocks of substance from him which changed the course of a game.

I just think the value of an opening bowler cannot be overstated, hence the small difference between McGrath and Pollock would have large consequences for the team.

 

[trundler]

Except those blokes don’t have better stats pretty much across the board.

Lindwall averaged pretty much the same as Davidson with more wickets and with a better Ashes record before the comeback. Pretty average ≠ better.

 

[subshakerz]

3107 people have bowled in test cricket.

Assuming you have both McGrath and Pollock in the top 30 bowlers, we're talking the top 1% of all test bowlers.

Now take Dravid and give him a bowling average of 35...now you basically have a slightly more defensive Sobers.

Still picking Sachin? Hell no, you're taking the allrounder who is one of the greatest #3 batsmen ever.

Cricket is an elitist game, we don't care about the 99 percent.

 

[ZK$]

3107 people have bowled in test cricket.

Assuming you have both McGrath and Pollock in the top 30 bowlers, we're talking the top 1% of all test bowlers.

Now take Dravid and give him a bowling average of 35...now you basically have a slightly more defensive Sobers.

Still picking Sachin? Hell no, you're taking the allrounder who is one of the greatest #3 batsmen ever.

Yeah, we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. Pollock just wasn’t in the same tier as McGrath as a bowler. McGrath was a strike bowler across all conditions during his peak. Pollock wasn’t.

I agree with your logic on using second disciplines to split players equal in their first discipline though.

 

[Flem274*]

Lindwall and Davidson are insanely underrated. I think both make my Australian side along with McGrath.

The team was already unfair but the left arm angle of Davo plus both players batting just add to it. Warnie at 10 hah.

 

[subshakerz]

I'm well aware cricket is more than spreadsheets thanks. I've pointed that out to the 'Southee > Bond' brigade recently.

South Africa didn't lose because of Pollock, they lost because some sides were too good for the Pollock/Kallis axis to keep them competitive. You go tour 00s Australia with Boeta Dippenaar, Jacques Rudolph, Nicky Boje and Andre Nel.

I see SA winning in England in 98 and 2003 if they had Pollock with McGrath's bowling skill.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. Pollock just wasn’t in the same tier as McGrath as a bowler. McGrath was a strike bowler across all conditions during his peak. Pollock wasn’t.

I agree with your logic on using second disciplines to split players equal in their first discipline though.

Pollock was a strike bowler everywhere. I watched him play and never once did I think "nah take this **** off they need their strike bowler on now!"

Pollock dominated everywhere except australia, where he still has one successful tour (and one of the two bad ones was at the end of his career).

McGrath was better, but if you're going to imply there's a gulf between them then you'll need to provide some watertight evidence.

 

[Gob]

Lindwall and Davidson are insanely underrated. I think both make my Australian side along with McGrath.

The team was already unfair but the left arm angle of Davo plus both players batting just add to it. Warnie at 10 hah.

Dennis the menace, Paceman Pat were better

 

[Flem274*]

I see SA winning in England in 98 and 2003 if they had Pollock with McGrath's bowling skill.

Maybe, but McGrath also had Warne at the other end and a God tier batting line up.

I don't want to fall into the CricketWeb Brain trap of dragging down McGrath because I think Pollock gets a hard wrap. McGrath was the better bowler, but I looked up both England series and Pollock was not the reason South Africa didn't win lmao.

Oooooooh watch out pommies, here comes Boeta Dippenaar and Neil McKenzie! Perhaps a side dish of Klusener, Adams or Andrew Hall!

 

[OverratedSanity]

I'm going to be very condescending and also completely correct when I say that anyone who thinks Pollock was a better cricketer than McGrath needs to lay off the weed and stop being blinded by surface level spreadsheets. It's reasonably close in ODIs, not tests.

 

[Coronis]

Dennis the menace, Paceman Pat were better

Nah Lillee is an overrated hack and Cummins has only really been playing for 5 years.

 

[Flem274*]

I'm going to be very condescending and also completely correct when I say that anyone who thinks Pollock was a better cricketer than McGrath needs to lay off the weed and stop being blinded by surface level spreadsheets. It's reasonably close in ODIs, not tests.

if you think i judge players based on spreadsheets then it's good to know i've been on your ignore list for a while. thanks for adding me back to your reading experience.

 

[trundler]

No one's picking Pollock before McGrath in the first round of a draft.

 

[Flem274*]

Dennis the menace, Paceman Pat were better

these are fair enough picks. it's hard to pick an australian side badly. got bradman? sweet now take your pick of like 30 other h4x ****s.

 

[Coronis]

No one's picking Pollock before McGrath in the first round of a draft.

Cos he’s underrated, duh.

Plus in drafts iirc the general strategy is to pick the best specialists first, no?

 

[Flem274*]

No one's picking Pollock before McGrath in the first round of a draft.

they would in a contemporary cpl. it would be a very understandable pick, let's put it that way.

not to mention a pre-requisite of participating in draft threads is a love of spreadsheets and self hatred.