Atapattu vs Atherton

[Fuller Pilch]

I'd say Atherton by a quite a margin. Atherton vs John Wright would be a closer comparison (Wright was better, but not by much)

 

[Hicheal Michael]

Atherton would average 45+ in today's game.

Had a difficult test career, all things considered.

- Young captain
- No central contracts
- Played majority of tests vs Australia & Windies
- Bad Back
- Virtually no minnows to face

 

[vcs]

Thanks for the career summary screenshots, makes it easy to see that Atapattu bashed the **** out of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to boost his numbers. So Atherton takes this comfortably.

 

[marc71178]

I'd say Atherton by a quite a margin. Atherton vs John Wright would be a closer comparison (Wright was better, but not by much)

ok

 

[Fuller Pilch]

ok

Wright challenged Gooch as the best opener of the early 1990s, whereas Atherton was never one of the two best openers in the world.

 

[Tom Flint]

I don't really get the minnow bashing argument. If atherton was much better than attapatu then why didn't he also score so high against Zimbabwe? He only averaged 39 against them. And were Zimbabwe even that bad a team and bowling unit back then?

 

[mr_mister]

I don't really get the minnow bashing argument. If atherton was much better than attapatu then why didn't he also score so high against Zimbabwe? He only averaged 39 against them. And were Zimbabwe even that bad a team and bowling unit back then?

They had Streak and not much else. It was their batting I feel that was closer to test class back during their 90s peak. Also if we dig a bit further we see that Attapattu got 170 and 249 against them in '04 , when Streak was gone and Douglas Hondo was their pace spearhead. They were about as good as a Sydney Grade team at that stage


And Atherton only had 4 tests against them, a smaller sample size compared to the nearly 30 each he played against Australia and West Indies

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Eddo Brandes was a very good bowler, had a few too many injuries to have a substantial Test career, but at his best he was a very difficult proposition to face. Surprisingly sharp

 

[mr_mister]

Eddo Brandes was a very good bowler, had a few too many injuries to have a substantial Test career, but at his best he was a very difficult proposition to face. Surprisingly sharp

Fair call. Unfortunately for Attapattu the one test he played against Brandes he scored 0 and 6.

He got 3 of his 6 test doubles against Zimbabwe, and other than Streak the bowlers he dealt with were Andy Whittall, Mbangwa, Hondo plus some names I don't recognise

 

[morgieb]

I don't really get the minnow bashing argument. If atherton was much better than attapatu then why didn't he also score so high against Zimbabwe? He only averaged 39 against them. And were Zimbabwe even that bad a team and bowling unit back then?

Wasn't he really badly injured for a series against them?

 

[a massive zebra]

Atherton would average 45+ in today's game.

I doubt that. Many people try to find excuses to explain why Atherton didn't average more. Yes, he did have a dodgy back, but that was part of what made him the player he was. He finished up with a moderate record partly due to his bad back but also due to some technical flaws that consistently made him easy prey for certain top quality fast bowlers such as Curtley Ambrose and Glenn McGrath. Atherton's considerable technical weaknesses included:

1. He was a compulsive hooker who struggled to get on top of the ball in order to keep it down and under control. Guys like Neil Wagner and Shannon Gabriel could exploit this.
2. He was often squared up in back foot defence which left him in a poor position to adjust to last minute deviations in the trajectory of the ball. Bowlers like Mitchell Starc and Mohammad Abbas would pose a real challenge for him.
3. He often played front foot defensive shots with an open face, leading to countless edges to the slips when facing line and length bowlers who aimed to hit off stump. He would struggle against bowlers like Vernon Philander.

 

[mr_mister]

I mean it's all conjecture re how he'd do today, but it's fact that his career lined up with the peak of like 8-9 ATG bowlers from 4-5 separate countries. During the windies 80s dominance you at least only had to really worry about the one country as a batsman. Nearly every series Atherton had as a test bat he knew he was gonna be in for a fight and more often than not put up a fight. Australia play England more than anyone else, if other top bats had to face McWarne as often as him we might have seen their averages dip.

I think it's quite interesting that against NZ and India(who certainly had some decent bowlers they just weren't McWarne/Ambrose/Donald/Wasim level) he flourished.

 

[Borges]

I don't really get the minnow bashing argument.

It is really very simple; just take the ratio of average vs non-minnows and average vs minnows.

Hypothetical Player A: average vs non-minnows: 35.6 average vs minnows: 13.8 ratio: 2.58
Hypothetical Player B: average vs non-minnows: 23.2 average vs minnows: 45.6 ratio: 0.51
Ergo, player A >>>> player B.

In short, on CricketWeb, with two players with similar statistics, the player who consistently flops against minnows is the greater player;
the bigger the flop, the greater the player.

 

[mr_mister]

Atherton didn't exactly flop against Zimbabwe. 4 tests, 1 ton, average of 37. Didn't bash them like Attapattu but 4 tests is a really small sample size and his return was probably only a touch under par

Attapattu getting 4 of his 6 double tons against minnows however is an issue, because his double tons are what people usually use to argue he was underrated or whatever. Against the good sides of his time he was pretty meh

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Atherton by a street, boy we could do with a 25 year old Athers right now.

 

[weldone]

Atherton and it's not close

 

[Gob]

Still remember Marvan making a flawless 130 odd against Warne and McGrath at Hobart i think. Athers is better but not by much

 

[Maximas]

Still remember Marvan making a flawless 130 odd against Warne and McGrath at Hobart i think. Athers is better but not by much

Full Scorecard of Australia vs Sri Lanka 2nd Test 2004 - Score Report | ESPNcricinfo.com

Good pitch, but important knock against a good attack

 

[Fuller Pilch]

He actually scored big runs against Hadlee in the latter's final test series (when he was still the best in the world at 38/39) in 1990.

 

[Andy1993]

Attapattu for me im afraid