Best match winners - batsmen and bowlers

[Richard]

You need BOTH good batsmen and good bowlers to win matches. To keep arguing stupid stuff like if you give good bowlers and mediocre batsmen I will win more often than I would if you give me mediocre bowlers and good batsmen is really fruitless. Because it all depends on whom you are playing against. It is possible that if the opponent team is mediocre, you can still bowl them out with your mediocre bowlers and make sure you almost bat them out everytime with your good batsmen.


AS I said, you need both batsmen and bowlers and to keep arguing that one matters more than the other is plainly clutching at straws.

Good bowlers and mediocre batsmen = chance of victory and chance of defeat. Good batsmen and mediocre bowlers = virtually no chance of victory and still chance of defeat, but biggest chance of draw.

Obviously a good side needs good batsmen and bowlers but batsmen are not match-winners, because batting alone cannot cause a result; only bowling can cause a result.

 

[honestbharani]

Good bowlers and mediocre batsmen = chance of victory and chance of defeat. Good batsmen and mediocre bowlers = virtually no chance of victory and still chance of defeat, but biggest chance of draw.

Obviously a good side needs good batsmen and bowlers but batsmen are not match-winners, because batting alone cannot cause a result; only bowling can cause a result.

no it cannot.. If both sets of batsmen score 0, it is not a win for either side.


And if you are telling me a tie is a result, so is a draw...

 

[Richard]

Nah, see, a tie definately comes under "result" for me; draw however is very much "not a result".

Obviously there are two different definitions of a result though; one is that there has been an outcome (win\loss or tie), and the other is merely what happens at the end of a game.

 

[The Sean]

Nah, see, a tie definately comes under "result" for me; draw however is very much "not a result".

Absolutely this. A tie is a result. A draw is what you call it when there hasn't been one.

 

[Furball]

While bowlers are obviously more important to win matches - take the recently concluded 1st Test between India and Sri Lanka as a perfect example - the idea that batsmen can't win matches is nonsense.

Had India's bowlers been able to bowl out Sri Lanka twice, there's no way that Rahul Dravid's 1st innings batting would be any less match winning than any hypothetical Indian bowling heroics.

 

[Majic]

As far as matchwinners go, you can't look past the likes of Warne, Murali, Tendulkar etc.

Rahul Dravid could be seen as a matchwinner, most of his greatest innings have come when India is under great pressure/ when India have found themselves in a bad position as he showed in the recent test against Sri Lanka.

Anil Kumble was a proven matchwinner during his time, I don't think there has been any other bowler that has won as many test matches as he did (for India).

 

[Ikki]

That's because by-and-large a declaration leaves no realistic chance whatsoever of a successful run-chase. Which is why I say if you're depending on declarations for Test wins you're not going to get many - so thus 20 wickets is essentially a neccessity.

Whether it is or isn't actually isn't relevant for this discussion. There are still plenty of occasions where the batsman may win the match or lose it off his blade. Which just makes the whole "only bowlers win matches" argument even more tiresome.

Yes, we get what you mean but stop repeating it like some mantra. It demeans the role of batsmen and the game in general.

 

[Ilovecric]

Well if bowlers are the only ones who win games, then they are the only ones to lose games.

 

[Uppercut]

Well if bowlers are the only ones who win games, then they are the only ones to lose games.

Lol. Is that supposed to be logical?

 

[Ilovecric]

Lol. Is that supposed to be logical?

Failing to win has to be the bowler's fault, if bowlers are the only ones who truly have an impact on results. Thats the logical way of thinking about it.

 

[Uppercut]

It's a little like saying, "if I'm the only person who puts tomato ketchup in my soup, I must also be the only person who doesn't put tomato ketchup in my soup."

In any case, you're half-right. If a match has no result, it is generally the fault of the bowlers for not taking 20 wickets to win it quickly enough. If the match is lost, it could be either the bowlers' fault or the batsmen's fault, or a combination of both.

 

[GIMH]

And if the match is won, it could be because of the bowlers or because of the batsmen...

Something that gets overlooked in these discussions IMO is that you can take twenty wickets and lose

 

[chicane]

Because teams very rarely field bowling line-ups vastly superior to their batting, it appears finding bowlers who can take 20 wickets is more crucial to win test matches than finding run-machine batsmen.

 

[Jarquis]

It's a little like saying, "if I'm the only person who puts tomato ketchup in my soup, I must also be the only person who doesn't put tomato ketchup in my soup."

In any case, you're half-right. If a match has no result, it is generally the fault of the bowlers for not taking 20 wickets to win it quickly enough. If the match is lost, it could be either the bowlers' fault or the batsmen's fault, or a combination of both.

Do you put ketchup in your soup?

 

[Uppercut]

No. Eww.

 

[Jarquis]

No. Eww.

Was my reaction to the idea of it

 

[Richard]

Whether it is or isn't actually isn't relevant for this discussion. There are still plenty of occasions where the batsman may win the match or lose it off his blade. Which just makes the whole "only bowlers win matches" argument even more tiresome.

Yes, we get what you mean but stop repeating it like some mantra. It demeans the role of batsmen and the game in general.

Not really. Saying "batsmen are useless" or similar would do so. By putting batsmen in their proper place you're in fact doing full justice to the game in general. In my book someone claiming batsmen are equals of bowlers is wrong, because yes, bowlers are that bit more important.

 

[Richard]

Something that gets overlooked in these discussions IMO is that you can take twenty wickets and lose

Not sure about that; I can't recall anyone saying anything remotely along the lines of "once you take 20 wickets you win".

Mind I've often wondered how many Tests there tend to be where all 40 wickets are taken. I never seem to notice very many such things. That's completely irrelevant, BTW, to the "take 20 wickets to win" question but it's just an observation.

 

[Richard]

While bowlers are obviously more important to win matches - take the recently concluded 1st Test between India and Sri Lanka as a perfect example - the idea that batsmen can't win matches is nonsense.

Had India's bowlers been able to bowl out Sri Lanka twice, there's no way that Rahul Dravid's 1st innings batting would be any less match winning than any hypothetical Indian bowling heroics.

It'd be a knock which had a huge influence on the match, but I'd still not use the term "match-winning" on it or anything else. I don't consider Laxman's 281 (and Dravid's century - forget the exact score) at Eden Gardens, nor Dravid's twin performances at Adeliade as "match-winning" knocks, just knocks that set-up the match. The match-winning things were Harbhajan's 14-for (or whatever it was) and Agarkar's second-innings 6-for.

 

[JBMAC]

I think a lot of statements made here are personal perception and erroneous. Cricket is a funny old game.It consists of eleven players on each side.There are batsmen to score runs, bowlers who try to get them "out" and fielders who try to restrict the runs.IMPO there is no ONE element of these fundamentals contributing to a"match winning" formula. All these elements of the game MUST come together to result in a win. Cricket is a TEAM game and as such all fundamentals of the game produce wins.