Inzamam vs Gooch vs Chanderpaul

[subshakerz]

You said Gooch doesn't have the output when his struggles came mostly against one team. So you are in fact punishing him for a lopsided volume of tests against the only opponent he was below par against.

It balances out since Gooch never played much vs SA like Inzi did who struggled against them.

And we can't just say Inzi might have done better against Australia and SA if he played more. That's hypotheticals. The facts are he averages similar against them to Gooch against Australia despite not opening, didn't play them as much so his career average was less impacted, and tbh only playing 2 tests in Australia when he was an ageing force is more likely to be good fortune than bad fortune. We know fast pitches were his achilles heel and players with fading reflexes typically see their returns on fast pitches dwindle.

Bro, you say no to hypotheticals but then you engage in that towards the end when you assume he would have struggled with more tests vs Aus/SA. Which may be true, may be not.

Of course those runs that you specified count. Nobody said he isn't a very good player.

It seems the argument boils down to Gooch as opener with his WI record vs Inzi the flat pitch player, and I argue more weight should be given to SC success.

Let's agree to disagree. You know my tendency to move towards those I find with more well-rounded records. I will also say there are plenty of Inzi performances against quality attacks that never get mentioned here.

 

[BazBall21]

It balances out since Gooch never played much vs SA like Inzi did who struggled against them.


Bro, you say no to hypotheticals but then you engage in that towards the end when you assume he would have struggled with more tests vs Aus/SA. Which may be true, may be not.


It seems the argument boils down to Gooch as opener with his WI record vs Inzi the flat pitch player, and I argue more weight should be given to SC success.

Let's agree to disagree. You know my tendency to move towards those I find with more well-rounded records. I will also say there are plenty of Inzi performances against quality attacks that never get mentioned here.

SA's short-pitched hit the deck style suited Gooch. There is evidence of that. He struggled against Australia because they had the best swing bowling resources. Swing did cause him issues (Alderman!) but he does have two hundreds opening v Hadlee, a good ton in NZ and the ball swung a lot at Headingley for his acclaimed 1991 hundred there.

Regarding the hypothetical points, yes fair enough. I made the later point to counteract your suggestion that Inzi's lower sample of tests against his least successful two opponents may have been unfortunate.

Fair enough. I personally think Gooch's record is well-rounded enough for this comparison and I do rate him higher but I am a fan of Inzi and enjoy watching footage of him. I also agree he was fantastic v spin.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Not counted in his record of course but Gooch also scored 338 runs in the rebel tour in South Africa. That was most runs from either side at an average of about 67 (I think). And that was with van der Bijl in his prime taking wickets for fun.

Good reasons to exclude those Tests on moral grounds, but to say he didn’t play in RSA isn’t quite the case.

 

[ankitj]

Last I checked 5 is lower in the order than 4. Not saying this is the major difference but yes it is a factor for me where the majority of your runs comes from.

And Inzi at 6 was mostly early career and he hardly scored at that position. And Chanders played 1/4th of his innings at 3/4 and was pretty poor in those positions.

It's pretty clear looking at their records that Chanders benefitted from lower order batting much moreso than Inzi. It would have been a different case if Chanders showed he could score as well up the order but chose to bat deeper.

Last I checked #5 is considered middle order. He wasn't hiding down the order. Just admit you didn't know that Inzi and Chanderpaul played same % of innings at #6 or lower. Find another plausible argument against Chanders other than batting position.

 

[subshakerz]

Last I checked #5 is considered middle order. He wasn't hiding down the order. Just admit you didn't know that Inzi and Chanderpaul played same % of innings at #6 or lower. Find another plausible argument against Chanders other than batting position.

Um, I didn't know. That's why I checked and then I found Inzis no.6 was mostly early career and he didn't binge there like Chanders.

Did you know Chanders record at 3/4 and why isnt that relevant?

 

[ankitj]

Um, I didn't know. That's why I checked and then I found Inzis no.6 was mostly early career and he didn't binge there like Chanders.

Did you know Chanders record at 3/4 and why isnt that relevant?

Because #5 is a legit batting position.

 

[subshakerz]

Because #5 is a legit batting position.

Define legit. Every position you bat down the order is easier than the one before.

And why don't you consider Chanders 3/4 record legit but only his 5/6 record legit?

 

[ankitj]

Define legit. Every position you bat down the order is easier than the one before.

And why don't you consider Chanders 3/4 record legit but only his 5/6 record legit?

I consider his entire record legit.

 

[subshakerz]

I consider his entire record legit.

Great then you can compare how he did up the order versus down the order.

 

[ankitj]

Great then you can compare how he did up the order versus down the order.

Not a valid filter. Might as well start looking at day of week filter. Just because you have statsguru doesn't mean you start checklisting every row.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Gooch is a tough player to rate. Doesn’t have great output but prehaps the record against quality pace makes up for that.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Not a valid filter. Might as well start looking at day of week filter. Just because you have statsguru doesn't mean you start checklisting every row.

Why is it not a valid filter?

Chanderpaul has a very big skew in his stats at 3/4 (with a significantly large sample) compared to 5/6 that is also backed up by the eye test that his game was not good enough to translate to batting higher up the order.

 

[BazBall21]

Subs also has a consistent principle that he wants his 5/6s to be reasonably aggressive. Hence he doesn't criticise Clarke and Lloyd for batting down the order as much. Chanderpaul's tempo wasn't the ideal fit for his position and he was less proven batting higher up than Border who was also a grinder.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Yea don’t have a problem with someone batting lower down if they have all the gears like ABD or Laxman or Clarke or early career Root

 

[subshakerz]

Subs also has a consistent principle that he wants his 5/6s to be reasonably aggressive. Hence he doesn't criticise Clarke and Lloyd for batting down the order as much. Chanderpaul's tempo wasn't the ideal fit for his position and he was less proven batting higher up than Border who was also a grinder.

To be clear, they are separate issues.

The more aggressive one is a tiebreaker between bats of roughly the same record.

Batting up the order gets points compared to other bats.