The value of ATG specialist bowlers vs bowling AR's/bowlers who can bat (picking the strongest all time XI)

[kyear2]

Certainly he was a stronger bowler at home helped by patriotic umpires & apparent ball tampering.
I think you're selling him short with his away performances. In his bowling peak from 1980 -1988 he was still averaging 21.17 @ 5.13 WPM in away matches. This isn't as good an average as Hadlee (18!) Garner (19.72 underrated) or Marshall (20.27) in the same period but those numbers still put him very high amongst all time bowlers. In comparison Wasim Akram's peak from 1990-97 averaged 21.72 @ 5.18 WPM in away matches of which you selected in your side. Khan also didn't average 30 or more with his bowling in any country, but Glenn McGrath did in Pakistan.

Of course I agree that McGrath & Hadlee are better bowlers than Khan & would rank the best bowlers similarly to you but the gap between the 3 tiers of bowlers here isn't of an easily better difference. Plenty of people would pick Akram over someone like Steyn or argue that Hadlee was better than McGrath. When I think of easily better differences I think of someone like Josh Hazlewood vs Glenn McGrath (a good bowler vs a great one) not an ATG vs an ATG. Or I would think of Glen McGrath's batting in comparison to Imran Khan's.

The whole discussion has been about the value of their batting in addition to their bowling, of course I wouldn't pick him over McGrath if he couldn't bat.

Fair enough with the batting rankings, I was thinking of Imran at his batting peak when he was able to bat at number 6. Even still they are better batsman than specialist bowlers. I'm not going to bother going through every collective innings to find match winning efforts when that was your original point raised with Warne & Marshall, you are welcome to if you wish.
Rather I'll save time for both of us & put it this way: your team needs 50 runs to win & you've got Warne & Marshall batting or you have Imran & Hadlee batting. 100% you would rather have Hadlee & Imran trying to win the match because they're simply better quality batsman.

No one says Imran isn't an ATG, as I said I have him top 10 all time, but you're literally looking at a total of 23 matches in his career, and even when you go back to 74 or 76, all the averages jumps to 25 and above and the strike rates in the 60's. But everyone one knows those numbers, it's not even about that.

As I said in a previous post, he's definitely in contention for that 3rd spot for me, but that's behind Wasim, Hadlee and Steyn. If he didn't bat, he's not in contention and behind
Marshall | McGrath | Hadlee | Steyn | Ambrose and for some Akram.

Let's take the names out of it, because it's not about the names, and that's what gets everyone riled up. Taking batting out of consideration, let's say he's option 6, as a fast bowler alone, why are you dropping to option 6 to be your first change. That's my only argument. Regardless of how different people perceive the gap of the differences to be, why are you choosing option 6.

Ok McGrath averaged over 30 in Pakistan, over his career Imran didn't average under 24 in any country besides home and minnow SL. He had a s/r of over 58 I think in 4 countries, pull that back to '74 to '88 and only England improves. Are you arguing the merits of McGrath vs Imran as bowlers alone?

As with your final point, how do we know that if we went with the better bowlers, who had better and more consistent performances everywhere around the world, performed better vs top order batsmen and generally took a higher value of wicket, that it comes down to that.

But yes that does happen from time to time, so I looked through Imran's 26 victories over his entire career to see how many such scenarios he faced, and there was one single victory in 1978 at home in Karachi whare he supported Javed to bring home the victory when he came in at 4. There was no pressure of saving the match and he apparently came out firing. Well done.

He had one such scenario where he succeeded in his entire career. How many when he didn't? And that's the point, they're lower order batsmen because they're not consistent and considerably less reliable in such scenarios. Both combos are just as likely to go out and lay an egg or score 25 apiece and being it home.

I also want to make it clear that this isn't about Imran, but he's the perfect candidate to play out these scenarios, and what's what's fun about the ATG scenarios, you get the optimum example of what ever scenario you're trying to play out.

But since you're so keen on picking bowlers based on their auxiliary skills, where are you on selecting batsmen who are better suited to perform in the slips.

And how would you rank the auxialry skills of lower order batting, having a great cordon and have a viable to good 5th bowler? Ranking them in importance and viability and consideration when building a team. Which is more important to a great or winning team.

 

[kyear2]

Funnily enough, most selectors don’t have this dilemma because they don’t have multiple bowlers around the same level. Which is not the case here.

It is true, but how many times have you ever heard of it ever being a consideration for your opening bowlers.

But beyond that. Your AT XI has as it openers, Hobbs and Sutcliffe. Hutton and Gavaskar are both rated well ahead of the brit, who was never that highly rated when he played.

But aprt from being one of your favorites, he makes your team because he and Hobbs opened together and even that little advantage could make a positive difference. If that much of an advantage is being sought, why wouldn't I also want who I also see as the best possible bowlers?

 

[Coronis]

It is true, but how many times have you ever heard of it ever being a consideration for your opening bowlers.

But beyond that. Your AT XI has as it openers, Hobbs and Sutcliffe. Hutton and Gavaskar are both rated well ahead of the brit, who was never that highly rated when he played.

But aprt from being one of your favorites, he makes your team because he and Hobbs opened together and even that little advantage could make a positive difference. If that much of an advantage is being sought, why wouldn't I also want who I also see as the best possible bowlers?

I only ever mentioned that because I personally see Sutcliffe and Hutton as pretty much equal tbh. Similar to the Murali/Warne conundrum. Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t have the best bowlers. You yourself have clearly defined gaps between certain bowlers. For others the gaps may not be so large or clearly defined. That’s why the batting as the secondary skill comes into play. This is why it doesn’t make sense from your pov but it does to others.

 

[Prince EWS]

You know who gets underrated as a fieldsman?

Young Murali? @TheJediBrah

 

[Coronis]

Young Murali? @TheJediBrah

Close. Another spinner who chucked - Tony Lock

 

[Cipher]

No one says Imran isn't an ATG, as I said I have him top 10 all time, but you're literally looking at a total of 23 matches in his career, and even when you go back to 74 or 76, all the averages jumps to 25 and above and the strike rates in the 60's. But everyone one knows those numbers, it's not even about that.

As I said in a previous post, he's definitely in contention for that 3rd spot for me, but that's behind Wasim, Hadlee and Steyn. If he didn't bat, he's not in contention and behind
Marshall | McGrath | Hadlee | Steyn | Ambrose and for some Akram.

Let's take the names out of it, because it's not about the names, and that's what gets everyone riled up. Taking batting out of consideration, let's say he's option 6, as a fast bowler alone, why are you dropping to option 6 to be your first change. That's my only argument. Regardless of how different people perceive the gap of the differences to be, why are you choosing option 6.

Ok McGrath averaged over 30 in Pakistan, over his career Imran didn't average under 24 in any country besides home and minnow SL. He had a s/r of over 58 I think in 4 countries, pull that back to '74 to '88 and only England improves. Are you arguing the merits of McGrath vs Imran as bowlers alone?

As with your final point, how do we know that if we went with the better bowlers, who had better and more consistent performances everywhere around the world, performed better vs top order batsmen and generally took a higher value of wicket, that it comes down to that.

But yes that does happen from time to time, so I looked through Imran's 26 victories over his entire career to see how many such scenarios he faced, and there was one single victory in 1978 at home in Karachi whare he supported Javed to bring home the victory when he came in at 4. There was no pressure of saving the match and he apparently came out firing. Well done.

He had one such scenario where he succeeded in his entire career. How many when he didn't? And that's the point, they're lower order batsmen because they're not consistent and considerably less reliable in such scenarios. Both combos are just as likely to go out and lay an egg or score 25 apiece and being it home.

I also want to make it clear that this isn't about Imran, but he's the perfect candidate to play out these scenarios, and what's what's fun about the ATG scenarios, you get the optimum example of what ever scenario you're trying to play out.

But since you're so keen on picking bowlers based on their auxiliary skills, where are you on selecting batsmen who are better suited to perform in the slips.

And how would you rank the auxialry skills of lower order batting, having a great cordon and have a viable to good 5th bowler? Ranking them in importance and viability and consideration when building a team. Which is more important to a great or winning team.

Long post here so I appreciate it if you get through it.

The thing is people will rate other ATG bowlers who have a similar amount of away appearances. If we move Imran's record back to the beginning of the series against India (21 Nov 1979) It's now 26 matches at 21.13. How does that compare to similar match records?
Miller 27 total matches at 25.48
Davidson 27 total matches at 20.10
Lillee 26 total matches at 24.28
Trueman 20 total matches at 26.08
Grimmet 18 total matches at 23.86
Laker 17 total matches at 28.60
Barnes 17 total matches at 17.96
O'Reilly 15 total matches at 21.18

Other names who played less than 26 away matches include: Harold Larwood, Frank Tyson, Ian Bishop & Colin Croft.

These are highly regarded bowlers of which several ex players have said are amongst the best they've ever faced.
Why is Imran being held to a different standard? He can't control the match scheduling of his country or when injuries occur.
This was a solid 8 years of ATG bowling from 27 years old to 35, it's not a short peak.

Sure you can look at a players overall record if you wish but from my opinion, had Imran not changed his action to bowl faster in 1976 while playing county cricket, learned reverse swing bowling around 1977 & improved his bowling ability from 1979 onwards he wouldn't be in the conversation as an ATG. You rate the player when they are the finished product, not when they are called up early. In a similar vein we don't judge Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar or Ricky Ponting's overall ability for their last few years when they were over the hill. James Anderson was an average bowler in his first few years before it clicked for him, we don't remember him for that. Khan is the same as a late bloomer.

I know that's your point & I've been agreeing with you the whole time that if it's on bowling alone you pick McGrath.
The reason why I pick option 6 as my 4th bowler is because of the combination of his primary bowling & secondary batting skill (which you also agreed would be handy for a number 8) which has been the point of my discussion the whole time (the overall value of the player to the team not just their bowling). I can also argue his fast old ball bowling (reverse swing) makes him a dangerous option later in the match, which blends well with my opening bowlers who offer different skills (Hadlee accuracy/movement & Marshall pace/movement).

The point about Khan not averaging over 30 anywhere was merely to say that he could perform in all conditions & wasn't just a home ground hero. Singling out McGrath's record in Pakistan was just a cheeky dig, of course I rate McGrath's bowling higher.

How much does it matter what my 4th best bowler (Marshall, Hadlee, Warne > Khan) does with the ball over someone else slightly better in comparison to the additional batting he brings? If my other 3 bowlers are doing the heavy lifting getting out the best batsmen, it might even be more advantageous for me to have Khan who can bowl faster reverse swing at the tail in comparison to McGrath with the old ball. He still has his uses against the batsman as well, he was quite economical (so could be used as a holding bowler while Warne spins his magic at the other end) & he could still get the best out like Gavaskar & G.Chappell (albeit not as well as some other giant killers would).

With regards to match winning performances with batting, how many times do you think someone who batted at 7 or 8 for the vast majority of their wins (23/26 matches) is the one scoring the match winning runs with the bat? Pakistan had a good batting lineup in those days, from the 15 matches Pakistan won in the 4th innings he only batted in 2 of them! He scored the winning runs in one (which you mentioned) & was out for a duck in the other (coincidentally this was his last match). Compare this to all the games they lost in the 4th innings: 7 times. Only in 1 game did they lose by less than 100 runs. Against Australia by 92 runs when they were set a target of 429... (he still scored 45 from 111 balls in that knock btw). So really it was never a personal failure of his that they lost considering the margins of their loss (he still averaged 30 in those 4th innings losses as well). Had he needed to walk out to the middle with 50 or even 100 runs to win & failed that is fair enough but such a situation never arose.

26 matches out of 88 is already a low amount of wins to pick from. Coupled with the fact that test matches between teams of varying ability is most likely going to be won by 50 runs or more (Over 85% according to this article) The 80's only had a result only 54% of the time (Source) so a draw is the most likely result. So what about his efforts salvaging a draw in the 4th innings? From his 5 innings, he only got out once!

So how about consistency of getting a start? (20 runs) And how does that compare to a batsman that batted for a similar amount of innings?
Khan was dismissed 47 times out of 126 Innings for 19 runs or less.
Doug Walters (125 innings Average 48.26) dismissed 50 times/125 for 19 or less.
So he's actually slightly more consistent for starts than a very good bat.
What about someone known for being hard to dismiss?
Bill Lawry (123 innings Average 47.15) Lawry got out 47/123 for 19 runs or less.

So it would appear that Khan was no less consistent than some high quality specialist batsmen. I believe I have read somewhere that the difference a batsman makes in his average is the ability to make bigger scores once he has a start.

So between 2 ATG sides with little to split, where the margin of victory is likely to be smaller. Those runs in the tail could make the difference. Imran has shown that he averages 30 even in 4th innings losing tests. So in a 5 match series where variance matters less I am sure that the extra runs he provides could be a difference maker.

 

[Coronis]

Sure you can look at a players overall record if you wish but from my opinion, had Imran not changed his action to bowl faster in 1976 while playing county cricket, learned reverse swing bowling around 1977 & improved his bowling ability from 1979 onwards he wouldn't be in the conversation as an ATG. You rate the player when they are the finished product, not when they are called up early. In a similar vein we don't judge Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar or Ricky Ponting's overall ability for their last few years when they were over the hill. James Anderson was an average bowler in his first few years before it clicked for him, we don't remember him for that. Khan is the same as a late bloomer.

This is really unequivocally not true.

 

[Cipher]

This is really unequivocally not true.

Which part?

 

[Coronis]

Which part?

The part I quoted

 

[Cipher]

The part I quoted

Oh come on play the game, back it up.
Imran's 52 with the Bat 20 with the ball as captain stat gets brought up ad nauseum.
Clearly we do remember players at their best.
The years I gave track with Khan's changes in bowling. He did change his action in 1976, he used reverse swing at the MCG test in '77 (which he said himself) & his bowling average markedly improved from the 1979 India series onwards.
If he didn't improve and remained the player he was in 1974 he never would have made it.

Anderson's bowling average greatly improved from 2010 onwards.
People still put Tendulkar & Richards in their ATG sides despite their twilight career slumps.
And people still put Ponting into ATG Australia sides for the same reason.

Tell me where I'm wrong?

 

[Coronis]

Oh come on play the game, back it up.
Imran's 52 with the Bat 20 with the ball as captain stat gets brought up ad nauseum.
Clearly we do remember players at their best.
The years I gave track with Khan's changes in bowling. He did change his action in 1976, he used reverse swing at the MCG test in '77 (which he said himself) & his bowling average markedly improved from the 1979 India series onwards.
If he didn't improve and remained the player he was in 1974 he never would have made it.

Anderson's bowling average greatly improved from 2010 onwards.
People still put Tendulkar & Richards in their ATG sides despite their twilight career slumps.
And people still put Ponting into ATG Australia sides for the same reason.

Tell me where I'm wrong?

You’re trying to say we whitewash parts of careers that we don’t like.

Its completely untrue. Ponting is commonly criticised for his decline, as is Anderson for his early years.

You can rate players by peak only if you want but that’s not what the majority of people have or will do.

 

[Cipher]

You’re trying to say we whitewash parts of careers that we don’t like.

Its completely untrue. Ponting is commonly criticised for his decline, as is Anderson for his early years.

You can rate players by peak only if you want but that’s not what the majority of people have or will do.

Fair enough, I'll clarify what I should have said.
We do remember the early or late slumps but they should not take away the greatness of the best players.
When I think of a player I try to think what they were like at at their best and whether they sustained that for a long enough time.
If they have holes in their records that is welcome to be pointed out & discussed.
I've seen people criticise Greg Chappell because he retired while Australia still needed his batting but he was getting old & that protected his average. Meanwhile Ponting gets criticised for sticking around due to a leadership/batting void when he was considering retiring in 2008. You can't win! The thing with some players is that external forces had an effect on their overall career/reputation, which doesn't seem entirely fair.
What if Imran Khan had to wait & develop his game before given an opportunity to play for Pakistan due to a better team existing?
What about WW1/WW2 taking away some years from great players?
How well would South African players like Barry Richards be regarded if Apartheid didn't exist?
That's why I personally think viewing sustained peaks in addition to their overall career gives a better representation of a player. Because that takes away things like being rushed into the side or being made to play on.

But I concede that others look at it differently/purely at an overall perspective.

 

[Cipher]

But since you're so keen on picking bowlers based on their auxiliary skills, where are you on selecting batsmen who are better suited to perform in the slips.

And how would you rank the auxialry skills of lower order batting, having a great cordon and have a viable to good 5th bowler? Ranking them in importance and viability and consideration when building a team. Which is more important to a great or winning team.

I largely select the batsman on their batting ability and take their fielding ability as a bonus. Admittedly I am not putting much consideration in for their slipping ability but perhaps I should be.

Having a good cordon probably is the most important skill, a good 5th option would be 2nd & lower order batting 3rd.

By luck the current side I would pick has a pretty good cordon. Currently my team is:
1. Jack Hobbs
2. Viv Richards (Hutton if Viv not allowed)
3. Don Bradman
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Steve Smith (Viv if I have to pick Hutton)
6. Garry Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Imran Khan
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Malcolm Marshall
11. Shane Warne

So my slips would probably be a choice of Sobers, Smith, Richards & Warne.

 

[Coronis]

I largely select the batsman on their batting ability and take their fielding ability as a bonus. Admittedly I am not putting much consideration in for their slipping ability but perhaps I should be.

Having a good cordon probably is the most important skill, a good 5th option would be 2nd & lower order batting 3rd.

By luck the current side I would pick has a pretty good cordon. Currently my team is:
1. Jack Hobbs
2. Viv Richards (Hutton if Viv not allowed)
3. Don Bradman
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Steve Smith (Viv if I have to pick Hutton)
6. Garry Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Imran Khan
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Malcolm Marshall
11. Shane Warne

So my slips would probably be a choice of Sobers, Smith, Richards & Warne.

Its your side, its all up to you. People won’t necessarily agree or may make a joke but that’s their issue. Set your own rules.

 

[smash84]

I largely select the batsman on their batting ability and take their fielding ability as a bonus. Admittedly I am not putting much consideration in for their slipping ability but perhaps I should be.

Having a good cordon probably is the most important skill, a good 5th option would be 2nd & lower order batting 3rd.

By luck the current side I would pick has a pretty good cordon. Currently my team is:
1. Jack Hobbs
2. Viv Richards (Hutton if Viv not allowed)
3. Don Bradman
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Steve Smith (Viv if I have to pick Hutton)
6. Garry Sobers
7. Adam Gilchrist
8. Imran Khan
9. Richard Hadlee
10. Malcolm Marshall
11. Shane Warne

So my slips would probably be a choice of Sobers, Smith, Richards & Warne.

This is a great side. Exactly my bowling attack as well.

The issue is that you don't need to pick players on fielding. People van be TRAINED for the slips. Countries which have great fielding standards produce great fielders in general including slip fileders. Mark Waugh was amazing at 2nd slip but that's because he was a great catcher in any position. I don't recall from 1992 but Shane Warne likely trained for being the first slip. In general Australian fielding standards would mean that people can be put in most positions and they would still be competent. With extra training for a bit more specialized role like slip fielding or silly mid off/on they can be trained to field well there. Same goes for South Africa that fielding standards in general are high and likely start from school cricket.

So I don't see why anybody would be picking for slip fielding. Especially a person who disregards secondary skills shilling for tertiary skills like fielding as a selection criteria is ridiculous.

 

[Coronis]

This is a great side. Exactly my bowling attack as well.

The issue is that you don't need to pick players on fielding. People van be TRAINED for the slips. Countries which have great fielding standards produce great fielders in general including slip fileders. Mark Waugh was amazing at 2nd skip but that's he was a great catcher in any position. I don't recall from 1992 but Shane Warne likely trained for being the first slip. In general Australian fielding standards would mean that people can be put in most positions and they would still be competent. With extra training for a bit more specialized role like slip fielding or silly mid off/on they can be trained to field well there. Same goes for South Africa that fielding standards in general are high and likely start from school cricket.

So I don't see why anybody would be picking for slip fielding. Especially a person who disregards secondary skills shilling for tertiary skills like fielding as a selection criteria is ridiculous.

Definitely does feel like fielding (slip or otherwise) is the easiest of those skills to improve.

 

[smash84]

Definitely does feel like fielding (slip or otherwise) is the easiest of those skills to improve.

Oh, for sure. It can definitely be improved significantly if consistently worked on but most reasonable cricket systems (that automatically excludes PCB) already have good fielding standards. You require competent fielding to win most games. You don't have a team of 11 Jonty Rhodes. Heck, worst case scenario you can "hide" your worst fielders at mid on or deep cover so that they don't get any catches thrown at them.

 

[kyear2]

As I said earlier, everyone bats but not everyone bowls.
My personal belief is that with a star studded bowling lineup an ATG batting lineup will still get bowled out.
So in those cases the total runs you make by your entire XI matter a lot.
Does your 8-11th bowler who probably doesn't even get an over in an ATG side matter at all?

Miller & Botham were great bowlers in their prime but you do you.

Of course, having great bowlers in the lineup is important.
I feel like we're going around in circles with this, the bowling all rounders I've chosen have a great primary skill in bowling.
The fact that they can bat as well creates an even stronger side batting wise for an arguable drop in bowling quality (how much that is depends on your point of view).

I'll put it another way: Can you explain to me how much of a difference choosing McGrath & Akram (your bowlers) would have over Khan & Hadlee (my bowlers) in regards to results if we have the same top 7 batsman? Do you think the bowling quality of those players would make up for the difference in batting quality?

No offence at all, but that's the laziest refrain used here to justify the bat deep approach.

Yes every run matters, but that also works on the flip side of things as with the runs your bowlers allow as well.

Miller was a great bowler, Botham really good. Neither was of the standard that you want from your primary 4 bowlers in this scenario. Miller wpm was barely over 3, and Botham's numbers weren't nearly AT, which highlighted his lack of consistency in-between those match winning performances. And serous question, don't you think there's a reason why people don't include them in such efforts,.outside of in an All rounder capacity. It's like everyone thinks they've somehow invested the wheel.

It's like it's a devaluating of primary disciples, and all at the alter of who can bat better, same with wicketkeeping, where some misguided souls believe that Pant would be a better option than Knott, I wouldn't select him even over Godfrey Evans.

Yes they're great bowlers, but again, have you asked yourself why we've never seen such a lineup selected, not by former cricketers, not by writers, pundits not even here on CW. This discussion isn't new by any stretch and there was a thread dedicated to such a such a discussion about a year ago where this topic was extensively litigated and the end result quite conclusive.

I can definitively say that McGrath was a better bowler across a wider range of conditions and opponents over the scope of his career than Imran. One can raise questions with regards to the latter as to how successful he would have been without the aides that he engaged in that wouldn't have been as easily accessible in later eras. Imran being primarily a inswing bowler was more limited in the scope of dismissals at his disposal and could be more restrictive in some conditions with greater bounce.

Hadlee is a totally different proposition and is purely a preference choice and the final cut for me and purely because I think Wasim was the absolute best with the old ball and his peer rating was through the roof. Him vs Hadlee is literally the only difficult choice for my team.

And again, I will wrap up this part of my response with this, if you're factoring batting into your selection for your no. 11 batsman, who's also your opening bowler, not only have you lost the plot, but you're devaluating the importance of what they're primarily there to do.

And while you say everyone must bat, they have to field as well and of those you do need at least 2 great slips, preferably 3 if not a gully and some others as well. The wild part about the bat deep guys is that so much importance and angst is assigned there, but other auxiliary skills are completely ignored. Fun fact, for guys like Lillee, McGrath, Hadlee and to a slightly lesser extent Marshall, the large majority of their dismissals were caught behind the wicket, and when we look at any and all of the great modern teams, going back as far as the 60's, a hallmark of their success lay in assertive batting, fast bowling and slip catching. Australia, the W.I, S.A through the 60's and early 70's, before recycling through those names again from the late 70's through the 2000's.
What is indisputable and borne out through history is that it's pretty difficult if not impossible to be a truly great team without catching support, while the same isn't remotely true with regards to late order batting. And for each and every one of those squads, the cordon was more important and impactful than the lower order batting. Not only that, but outside of the Pakistani duo, all the of the great modern pacers, and even spinners had premium catching support, with at least one elite guy at 2nd.
And the great thing is that at this purported higher level where for the other auxiliary skills there will be depreciation, there's none for catching, and the value remains the same.

So I imagine that with the importance of same, that you place similar importance and oriority to catching when selecting your teams? That since you want the best ever tail of the ATGs to get every run, that you also want the best ever cordon of the ATGs to take every chance, and want Hammond, Sobers and Richards standing back there?

But of course not, you still want Sachin in the line up as arguable the best mid order bat after Bradman and you balance the auxiliary need, with the primary one, with a higher weighting going to primary. So what's the difference with the bowlers. That's the disconnect.

And yes, that's a direct question.

 

[kyear2]

This. So much This. You sure you aren't a multi of mine??

It literally doesn't mean anything though.

Just because you have to bat at 11, doesn't mean it has to factor into it.

Would you swap out Bumrah for Pollock right now?

For India right now are you taking Pollock over Bumrah?

That's the comp for the argument you're making, thats literally it. They're likely in the same tier right now, unlike Imran and McGrath.

How about Davidson?

 

[capt_Luffy]

It literally doesn't mean anything though.

Just because you have to bat at 11, doesn't mean it has to factor into it.

Would you swap out Bumrah for Pollock right now?

For India right now are you taking Pollock over Bumrah?

That's the comp for the argument you're making, thats literally it. They're likely in the same tier right now, unlike Imran and McGrath.

How about Davidson?

Pollock no, Davidson is interesting but probs no. They are same tier for lack of Bumrah's longevity and injury issues, not on terms of skills and abilities imho, to which I definitely think Bumrah is in the top echelon.

If I have 2 bowlers I think are close, I will most often take the better batsman. McGrath and Hadlee is just that. Imran offers something different and is a proper allrounder. Nothing more to it.