Allan Border vs Rahul Dravid

[anil1405]

Boss he sucked in SA and was merely ok in Aus(bad apart from one tour, and he batted mostly in the era of flat Aussie pitches).

Yeah look, he had a glaring weakness in those countries. I don't want to use him opening in few of those tough tours as an excuse. But numbers dont do justice to what Dravid contributed to Indian cricket performances abroad.

India couldn't even sniff a victory abroad in the 90s before his arrival but in his very first tour he took on Donald and Pollock and got us so close to winning a test.

Stats don't show two things:
1. India's before and after overseas performances since Dravid's arrival.

2. How he massively helped Tendulkar come in a relatively comfortable stage of an innings and dominate.

If Border (rightly) gets bonus points for taking a team in disarray and infusing character into that side that went on to dominate cricket later on, Dravid equally deserves those extra points for changing the face of Indian cricket abroad.

Both gutsy cricketers with real character.

P.S. There was an article on the cricket website run by @kingkallis where the article on Border was titled 'Runs, guts and glory'. Was such an apt read at that time.

 

[Godard]

Yeah look, he had a glaring weakness in those countries. I don't want to use him opening in few of those tough tours as an excuse. But numbers dont do justice to what Dravid contributed to Indian cricket performances abroad.

India couldn't even sniff a victory abroad in the 90s before his arrival but in his very first tour he took on Donald and Pollock and got us so close to winning a test.

Stats don't show two things:
1. India's before and after overseas performances since Dravid's arrival.

2. How he massively helped Tendulkar come in a relatively comfortable stage of an innings and dominate.

If Border (rightly) gets bonus points for taking a team in disarray and infusing character into that side that went on to dominate cricket later on, Dravid equally deserves those extra points for changing the face of Indian cricket abroad.

Both gutsy cricketers with real character.

P.S. There was an article once on the cricket website that was run by @kingkallis where an article on Border was titled 'Runs, guts and glory'. Was such an apt read at that time.

I agree with the strengths of Dravid you mentioned, and he was a great great player. But he wasn’t a master in all SENA countries.

 

[anil1405]

I agree with the strengths of Dravid you mentioned, and he was a great great player. But he wasn’t a master in all SENA countries.

He wasn't a master in South Africa and Australia sure but he changed fortunes of how India performed in pretty much all those countries.

 

[Coronis]

the greatest comeback win in test history

 

[OverratedSanity]

I mean it's just true

 

[Burgey]

Match winner, didn't do wanker runs.

Neither of these guys did, which is why they’re so ****ing awesome

 

[Flem274*]

Dravid, mainly because they're hard to split so I'm going with the guy I've seen.

On some days, he was the best batsman in the world.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Boss he sucked in SA and was merely ok in Aus(bad apart from one tour, and he batted mostly in the era of flat Aussie pitches).

home record against them is poor as well

 

[BazBall21]

In Tests with below average RPW (30.1
Dravid 34.96
Border 34.63

Tests with sub-35 RPW
Border 43.25
Dravid 38.08

 

[Victor Ian]

In Tests with below average RPW (30.1
Dravid 34.96
Border 34.63

Tests with sub-35 RPW
Border 43.25
Dravid 38.08

For the first bracket, I'm not sure if it matters, but borders era average would be lower than David's era average.

For both, it would be useful to know how many instances each had, to determine if it's a useful sample.

 

[subshakerz]

Border is a genuine ATG. Dravid is short of that.

 

[BazBall21]

For the first bracket, I'm not sure if it matters, but borders era average would be lower than David's era average.

For both, it would be useful to know how many instances each had, to determine if it's a useful sample.

It's their respective averages in those Tests.
First column:
Dravid 80 innings
Border 87 innings

Dravid 125 innings
Border 132 innings

 

[OverratedSanity]

In Tests with below average RPW (30.1
Dravid 34.96
Border 34.63

Tests with sub-35 RPW
Border 43.25
Dravid 38.08

Interesting. Where'd you get this data from?

 

[BazBall21]

Interesting. Where'd you get this data from?

It’s fairly straightforward on statsguru. click aggregate/overall, go to advanced filter, enter the player you want to evaluate, then click match totals followed by average RPW on Result Qualifications and Sort Results By. It's not a perfect exercise but very unique and fairly revealing.

Once I have a great sample I will write a big post exploring the results. I have three different columns now and will also look at away stats etc. RaZ0r6ack is working on it too.

 

[subshakerz]

In hindsight, perhaps Dravid is also underrated.

If he had retired immediately after his peak in mid-2006, there was a case for him being better than Tendulkar.

Until this point he was averaging 58 in 104 tests, and well over 60 away from home.

He had 10 years of uber consistency, not averaging less than 45 in a single year.

Until this point, he was averaging 39 in SL, 47 in SA, and well over 60 in Pak, Eng, NZ, WI and Australia.

In between, he had quality series against Donald-Pollock in SA, Ambrose-Walsh in WI, McWarne in India, Shoaib in Pakistan and even Murali in SL.

Dravid's relatively middling years from 2007 to 2013 took down his standing significantly.

 

[BazBall21]

Dravid is iffy against quality bowling

 

[subshakerz]

Dravid is iffy against quality bowling

Only if you take his whole career into question.

Until his peak ended mid-2006, this was clearly not an issue. As shown, he had quality series returns against all the main bowlers of his time until then.

 

[BazBall21]

Only if you take his whole career into question.

Until his peak ended mid-2006, this was clearly not an issue. As shown, he had quality series returns against all the main bowlers of his time until then.

He was definitely a great player but his peak coincided with a flat and shallow attacks era which suits a slow scorer. Fair point that a player shouldn’t be penalised for a long career but retiring at the end of one’s peak on the right side of 35 wouldn’t be conventional.

 

[subshakerz]

He was definitely a great player but his peak coincided with a flat and shallow attacks era which suits a slow scorer. Fair point that a player shouldn’t be penalised for a long career but retiring at the end of one’s peak on the right side of 35 wouldn’t be conventional.

I agree but between 96 to 2001 he averaged 50 and that was before his peak, and included quality series returns against Donald-Pollock, Ambrose-Walsh, McWarne and Murali.

So he had already proven himself against better attacks and before flat pitches, with his only notable failure being the 99 series in Australia.