Lol, see, I saved you from having to write it up. Your agenda has always been quite predictable.
Half the forum isn't marking him down on frivolous grounds like yourself.
Do you have any clue how the umpires were helping Imran?
Half your career is frivolous grounds? And what agenda, I don't know Imran and have nothing against him. I find it hilarious how everyone pretends that none of this exists.
And in the last poll, where did everyone rate him, the same place I do. So if they aren't marking him down for frivolous reasons, why then?
And you pretend I'm saying he wasn't great, I'm saying he's not as good as the others mentioned. That's it. You brought the discussion to this conclusion, I didn't.
My argument has been this. Take away the names and consider the criteria.
You're looking for 4 bowlers for a team, let's look at it like preparing for free agency of a draft. You get your pick and you'll chose the last bowler from short list because he goes extra batting on a team where the batting is as good as it possibly gets and all the way down to no. 8 regardless of who you choose. That doesn't make sense to me.
In your mind it adds value, in my mind, while it does that, it subtracts value from the area which is literally the primary responsibility. The last time a poll was done between Steyn and Imran as bowlers it was 33 to 6, I personally have Steyn as my 4th best bowler ever, compared to Imran at 8th. From that perspective why would I go for the lower option. That is not an insane take, it's not even a bad one. Neither is yours, I can says that,
@subshakerz though, think it's idiotic and pushes the point to where I must agree with him, as he always does.
Your next argument was that the player add worth to the team, of course he does, but is the offset worth it, to you yes, to me no.
I mentioned it could be what we grew up watching, for me it was never a thing. You can choose to believe this or not, but when I see tails wagging I see it more as a failure of the bowling team to adjust. Even now it's frustrating to see the bouncer tactics and other nonsense used. I've also used the argument that bowling all rounders have not only never been the foundation of dominant teams, almost all of them didn't even have them, and cited that Marshall and Warne served the purpose quite adequately.
I've also pointed out, that for me a strong cordon is even more important than a strong tail, and I myself still wasn't forcing Hammond or Kallis into the team to accommodate that. Now Gavaskar I would bring into the team over Hutton, but one's 8th and one is 9th for my rankings.
Now G. Smith I seriously consider, but that's more because the same way the team benefits from reverse swing on the back end, I find that an aggressive opener serves a similar benefit, the rest is just bonus and it possibly not justifiable. Don't get me wrong though, if S Smith was at, or gets himself to the level of a Ponting or a Waugh Jr in the slips and he regains his form with the bat, he would be in the team over Tendulkar. But again that's because there would be nothing in-between them.
@subshakerz also responded and asked why Hadlee over McGrath and that would make more sense, and to be honest I have no sound reasoning to be against that one, but will respond to that post separately.
Now if you think Imran is a hair behind the top 3, then sure, it makes sense, I don't however, and don't know why I'm not allowed to have that opinion.
www.espncricinfo.com
