As an ODI opener : Ganguly or Anwar ... AND WHY?

[Pigeon]

It is a valid point that Ganguly indeed benefited from having an explosive partner like Tendulkar on the other end. It gave him time to settle down and take it to the spinners when they came on.

 

[Athlai]

Ganguly? Anwar?

Astle obviously.

 

[shantanudey]

pratters.......Ganguly is the quickest to get to 5000,6000,7000,8000 and 9000 ODI runs.
Anwar lags behind in this aspect inspite of playing more innings than Ganguly as an opener.

I have been putting forward facts like these and u call them bull crap?

 

[Pratters]

pratters.......Ganguly is the quickest to get to 5000,6000,7000,8000 and 9000 ODI runs.
Anwar lags behind in this aspect inspite of playing more innings than Ganguly as an opener.

I have been putting forward facts like these and u call them bull crap?

How do the stats conclusively prove Anwar>Ganguly. Ajit Agarkar holds the record of the player fastest to reach 1000 runs and 200 wickets. Does this mean that he is the greatest all rounder or even one of the great all rounders to play the game?

No one is denying that Ganguly is one of the greatest ODI batsmen of all time. However, stats can't prove conclusively X>Y.

Statements like 'I have proven Ganguly>Anwar" by putting forward stats are exactly what I said they were - bull crap.

 

[Fusion]

pratters.......Ganguly is the quickest to get to 5000,6000,7000,8000 and 9000 ODI runs.
Anwar lags behind in this aspect inspite of playing more innings than Ganguly as an opener.

I have been putting forward facts like these and u call them bull crap?

Saqi was the fastest to get to 100, 150, 200, and 250 wickets in ODI's. Does that mean he’s better than Murali or Warne based on that fact alone?

Edit: Pratters made the point I was trying to make above (and as usual he made it better than I did!).

 

[mohammad16]

I think Saeed Anwar is massively underrated outside the subcontinent.

You have to remember that "at one point in his career, Anwar was battling with Sachin Tendulkar for the number one ranking in world cricket. He even had the same number of ODI centuries as Tendulkar: 17. But after that he went out of form, scoring only 3 more centuries."

He got to 17 centuries extremely quick, had a better average than tendulkar at the time too. He suffered personally and as a result played little cricket for Pakistan and hardly ever got to regain his form.

Easily one of the devastating batsmen of the 1999 world cup.

Ganguly has been a terrific oneday player, but the only reason you can compare him to Saeed is due to Anwars rapid decline of form and lack of cricket after his prime years.

Anyways Saeed Anwar is considered around the sub continent as perhaps the most stylish player since Zaheer Abbas. Laxman and Ganguly have been very stylish in thier own right, but anyone who has closely watched Laxman, Ganguly and Anwar play throughout their careers would put Anwar above the rest interms of breathtaking stylishness.

 

[subshakerz]

I think Saeed Anwar is massively underrated outside the subcontinent.

You have to remember that "at one point in his career, Anwar was battling with Sachin Tendulkar for the number one ranking in world cricket. He even had the same number of ODI centuries as Tendulkar: 17. But after that he went out of form, scoring only 3 more centuries."

He got to 17 centuries extremely quick, had a better average than tendulkar at the time too. He suffered personally and as a result played little cricket for Pakistan and hardly ever got to regain his form.
.

That's true, by the end of the 90s Anwar was rated right behind Lara, Waugh, and Tendulkar. His personal loss certainly impacted his cricket negatively, and from 2000-03 he was a shadow of his former self.

 

[Sanz]

pratters.......Ganguly is the quickest to get to 5000,6000,7000,8000 and 9000 ODI runs.
Anwar lags behind in this aspect inspite of playing more innings than Ganguly as an opener.

I have been putting forward facts like these and u call them bull crap?

It is Bull Crap. Your stats are Bull Crap.

For a moment I was really shocked to see those figures and It looked to good to be true for Ganguly and that he was really better than greats like Richards. I couldn't stop myself and looked at Statsguru, Here is what I found :-

Fastest to reach 5000 Runs - IVA Richards
Fastest to reach 6000 Runs - IVA Richards

Make no mistake, I am a great fan and supporter of Ganguly, but I am not blind.

 

[Sanz]

I think Saeed Anwar is massively underrated outside the subcontinent.

You have to remember that "at one point in his career, Anwar was battling with Sachin Tendulkar for the number one ranking in world cricket. He even had the same number of ODI centuries as Tendulkar: 17. But after that he went out of form, scoring only 3 more centuries."

He got to 17 centuries extremely quick, had a better average than tendulkar at the time too. He suffered personally and as a result played little cricket for Pakistan and hardly ever got to regain his form.

Excuse me but that is Bull Crap as well and I like Saeed.

 

[shantanudey]

Sanz......Dada is the quickest to reach 6000 ODI runs.

Pls check Print Page - Sourav's illustrious 13-year international career in pics

 

[bagapath]

Sanz......Dada is the quickest to reach 6000 ODI runs.

Pls check Print Page - Sourav's illustrious 13-year international career in pics

you should check this out first, buddy

Records | One-Day Internationals | Batting records | Fastest to 6000 runs | Cricinfo.com

 

[Furball]

Sanz......Dada is the quickest to reach 6000 ODI runs.

Pls check Print Page - Sourav's illustrious 13-year international career in pics

ODIs existed before 1996.

 

[Furball]

Well that is why I have said that. His coming down the track and tonking them over long on and mid wicket looks good. But I have seen him look very foolish also.

YouTube - Shane Warne Makes Sourav Ganguly Look Foolish

(Yeah, I shouldn't have put this in. But it does look ridiculous)

His playing against Hogg seemed to be more of guess and pray. Well I might be biased against him. But, I will still maintain that he is not as good as the rest against spinners.

Ganguly read that googly, hardly his fault that the ball just shoots along the ground.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Ganguly read that googly, hardly his fault that the ball just shoots along the ground.

Yeah, he picked it, but not out of the hand. Don't think he's ever been the best reader out of the hand, generally he doesn't care and will just hit it for runs anyway!

What got him there was that it was a pre-empted shot in the first place, and he had to change the shot because he saw that it was the wrong-un. Otherwise he wouldn't have given himself so much room. And yeah, then the variable bounce just made it look worse.

 

[SJS]

Yeah, he picked it, but not out of the hand. Don't think he's ever been the best reader out of the hand, generally he doesn't care and will just hit it for runs anyway!

What got him there was that it was a pre-empted shot in the first place, and he had to change the shot because he saw that it was the wrong-un. Otherwise he wouldn't have given himself so much room. And yeah, then the variable bounce just made it look worse.

Thats difficult to say with certainty but you are spot on that he doesn't care anyway. His big lofted drives off spinners (sometimes medium pacers too) appear to be premeditated and he starts moving very early not because he picks the ball (googly or leg-break in this case) early but because he trusts his ability to go through the shot with a fairly good chance of success.

I don't think he waits to pick up the length (for get the type of delivery) when he decides he is going to have a go.

I have always felt, when I have seen Ganguly do this, that it would have been great to see him against someone like Prasanna whose flight was probably the most deceptive of all off spinners.

 

[bagapath]

I have always felt, when I have seen Ganguly do this, that it would have been great to see him against someone like Prasanna whose flight was probably the most deceptive of all off spinners.

at their peaks, from all accounts, prasanna might have emerged the winner more often than not. ganguly was a superb player of spin, no doubt. his did murder mediocre spinners and good spinners alike. but against the great ones he could not be that dominant always. you could back a lara or flower - to name two left handers - to do that more often than ganguly against great tweakers.

it might have something to do with ganguly's weak leg side play. more all round batsmen perform better, obviously, while confronting the great bowlers of any variety whereas a good batsman's technical flaws are quickly exploited by the great bowlers. i guess that is where the line is drawn - i can think of several examples like mcgrath/atherton and warne/ cullinan.

 

[SJS]

at their peaks, from all accounts, prasanna might have emerged the winner more often than not. ganguly was a superb player of spin, no doubt. his did murder mediocre spinners and good spinners alike. but against the great ones he could not be that dominant always. you could back a lara or flower - to name two left handers - to do that more often than ganguly against great tweakers.

it might have something to do with ganguly's weak leg side play. more all round batsmen perform better, obviously, while confronting the great bowlers of any variety whereas a good batsman's technical flaws are quickly exploited by the great bowlers. i guess that is where the line is drawn - i can think of several examples like mcgrath/atherton and warne/ cullinan.

Yes.

I suspect Ganguly used his stepping out to drive not just because he had such wonderful timing and a golfers drive which combined carried the ball a long distance but also because of an inherent weakness in his game. He lacked backfoot strokes off slightly short pitched deliveries. He had virtually no backfoot drives (with a straight perpendicular bat) like Tandulkar or Dravid and needed the bowlers to pitch really short and, preferably, wide to bring his square cuts into play.

By jumping out to the good length (and slightly short of good length) bowling spinners and medium pacers he could get them to alter their length and pitch shorter and wider.

A really great bowler like Prasanna would not succumb to such a tactic.

 

[AaronK]

I often times don't like to rate players that i haven't seen played..specially those players that have very similar stats and records with other players.. this is a great example of those players.. they had so much in common..both of them awsome ODI players... it would have been realy hard for me to rate them if i hadn't seen them bat.. i was lucky enough to watch them play and bat.. and have been their fan for a long time now..

I will go with Saeed anwar simply because i loved watching him.. his bating style..his timing and his cut shots.. they were just priceless...

 

[bagapath]

I often times don't like to rate players that i haven't seen played..specially those players that have very similar stats and records with other players.. this is a great example of those players.. they had so much in common..both of them awsome ODI players... it would have been realy hard for me to rate them if i hadn't seen them bat.. i was lucky enough to watch them play and bat.. and have been their for a long time now..

I will go with Saeed anwar simply because i loved watching him.. his bating style..his timing and his cut shots.. they were just priceless...

well said mate. as for old players, i am just extrapolating your opinion and assuming that i would enjoy watching compton/hammond/sobers/hobbs as much as i appreciated sachin/lara/richards/gavaskar because great players will always be great and on a given day any one of them could have lorded over the rest.

since we know anwar and ganguly's games so well we realize they both were fantastic. most of the greats from the pasts must also have been more or less equals to modern greats, except bradman who was head and shoulders above the rest.

 

[subshakerz]

Yeah, he picked it, but not out of the hand. Don't think he's ever been the best reader out of the hand, generally he doesn't care and will just hit it for runs anyway!

What got him there was that it was a pre-empted shot in the first place, and he had to change the shot because he saw that it was the wrong-un. Otherwise he wouldn't have given himself so much room. And yeah, then the variable bounce just made it look worse.

Here's what Ian Chappell said about that dismissal of Ganguly:

'In late 1999 he was bowling round the wicket to Sourav Ganguly and he watched a few deliveries pass by harmlessly. "Hey mate," called out Warne, "this crowd didn't pay their money to watch you let balls go. They're here to see this fella [Sachin Tendulkar at the non-striker's end] play shots." A couple of overs later Ganguly was stumped off Warne's bowling trying to hit Warne out of the ground.'

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