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Aravinda De Silva vs Martin Crowe

Who was better?

  • Aravinda De Silva

    Votes: 13 29.5%
  • Martin Crowe

    Votes: 31 70.5%

  • Total voters
    44

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Think it's probably because Aravinda got SL a lot of respect in the early days with centuries in Australia and NZ resulting in draws, and of course won them the 96 WC.
 

OverratedSanity

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It's weird that they don't think it was each other though. I think Jayawardene's opinion in particular is weird (I kind of get Sanga's).
Why do you think it's weird? It's clearly a case of them not willing to rate anyone over their idols.

In any case if I'm not wrong I think Sanga rates Jayasuriya as the best/his favourite, not Aravinda.
 

Grumpy

U19 Vice-Captain
In any case if I'm not wrong I think Sanga rates Jayasuriya as the best/his favourite, not Aravinda.

Briefly mentions it here. I've definitely seen him talk about it in more depth somewhere else as well. Might have been one of those Q&A videos after a Cowdrey lecture on Lord's YouTube page.
 

Grumpy

U19 Vice-Captain
It's weird that they don't think it was each other though. I think Jayawardene's opinion in particular is weird (I kind of get Sanga's).
Yeah that struck me odd as well when I first heard him say it. Going to look for where I heard him say it, but I think Sanga said he believed DeSilva would have had a better record than him if SL played more Tests during his career.
 

Prince Of Ceylon

Cricket Spectator
Crowe pretty easily. He was genuinely considered up there with the best in the world at points in the 80s. Aravinda as good as he was never reached that status and was nowhere near as consistently good.
Not true btw.

De Silva played with Lara and Tendulkar - 2 batsman far better than Crowe. Even then De Silva was actually considered the best by quite a few between 96-99. Crowe was a great batsman but when he was ontop the competition was not as stiff I dont believe. He was competing with Azhar,Gooch, Vengarsarkar, Richardson - all great players but not on a level with Lara or Sachin
 

Prince Of Ceylon

Cricket Spectator
Tough this one, both represented not so good sides and were nucleus of their batting, be it in tests or odis...as far as test records are concerned, De Silva's performance outside sri lanka does not make a good reading (much like a batting star of later generation, jayawardhane), in fact, NZ is the only place where de silva averages 40+ outside SL. Crowe's almost the same, only difference of course is his commanding performance in Australia...
LOL. Stats are misleading. You do know Aravinda was more feared by Australians than Crowe.
 

Prince Of Ceylon

Cricket Spectator
I did not see that much of Crowe play but I am aware of his achievements and ability. With that being said it has to be De Silva for me. I do not believe that Crowe was burdened nearly as much as De Silva was for Sri lanka when he first came. If there's a knock against De Silva it was his mad max phase which made his average suffer and made him very frustrating to watch. But if you took them both at their peaks De Silva was more deadly. His strokeplay and match winning abillity especially under pressure were far better than Crowe. I have no doubt that De Silva would of averaged more and won NZ a WC if he played for them. NZ had some pretty solid players too like Hadlee. True SL had some great players but they emerged later on. There were certain innings I saw De SILVA PLay that I do not feel any other player other than Lara could play.
 

Jfry

U19 Debutant
I did not see that much of Crowe play but I am aware of his achievements and ability. With that being said it has to be De Silva for me. I do not believe that Crowe was burdened nearly as much as De Silva was for Sri lanka when he first came. If there's a knock against De Silva it was his mad max phase which made his average suffer and made him very frustrating to watch. But if you took them both at their peaks De Silva was more deadly. His strokeplay and match winning abillity especially under pressure were far better than Crowe. I have no doubt that De Silva would of averaged more and won NZ a WC if he played for them. NZ had some pretty solid players too like Hadlee. True SL had some great players but they emerged later on. There were certain innings I saw De SILVA PLay that I do not feel any other player other than Lara could play.
Just wondering if there is anything De Silva is not the best at, apart from scoring runs of course?
 

Days of Grace

International Captain
I’m going to be controversial and say that Martin Crowe, like Victor Trumper, is slightly overrated. Like Trumper was for Australia, Crowe was arguably our most stylish batsman. Of that there is no argument.

But if we just look at the numbers, Crowe made a fair amount of his runs against sub-par teams: 299 vs Sri Lanka, 180-odd against Australia in the mid-80s. Those knocks were incredibly important, but I don’t think we should pretend that the era in question (1985-1995) was full of outstanding bowling attacks outside of the West Indies.
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
I’m going to be controversial and say that Martin Crowe, like Victor Trumper, is slightly overrated. Like Trumper was for Australia, Crowe was arguably our most stylish batsman. Of that there is no argument.

But if we just look at the numbers, Crowe made a fair amount of his runs against sub-par teams: 299 vs Sri Lanka, 180-odd against Australia in the mid-80s. Those knocks were incredibly important, but I don’t think we should pretend that the era in question (1985-1995) was full of outstanding bowling attacks outside of the West Indies.
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