. Does that mean they are smarter, or a bigger genius, or a more important thinker, or in any fashion more worthwhile? If you were to make a team of great scientists and thinkers to deal with some sort of problem of fiendish complexity, would you omit Galileo, Newton, Einstein and so on because they might not know certain things which a modern scientist does, or include them because their world-changing brilliance is of greater value than inhereted scientific facts?
We are not talking potential here, we are talking about accrued skills.
Galeleo and Newton could probably blow me outta the ballpark IF they spent a few years catching up with me. But that does not garantee that newton or galeleo would make quantum breakthroughs in modern science.
But point is, if they bring their accrued knowledge, as in 'what they knew before they passed away', they would get hopelessly outclassed by me.
Just like if Hobbs was time-teleported into the 70s or 80s, he would be Imran/Marshall/Lillee/Holding/Roberts' b*tch.
He would have to sweat a LOT out in the nets before he makes even the English-A side.
And just like newton or galeleo, there is no garantee that he would succeed in the same level as greats of modern day have.
As per to the rest of your post,
there is no set demarcation from which everything stands still.
Things ALWAYS improve in the general trend and so has cricket.
Timing is just a miniscule part of cricket that doesnt change. But fitness, dedication, hard work, discipline and careful scrutinisation of the opposition have all taken an upward trend from 50-60 years ago.
Like i said, it is not a linear constant progress as in 'any point preceeding the current is inferior in quality' but a general upwards trend- like the stock index over the last 100 years, where the current point could be lower than the one immediately preceeding it but overall it is at a higher standing than a point 40-50 years ago. Cricket may have been harder in the 1920s compared to 1880s. But it was harder in the 1950s than it was in 1920s and it was harder in 1970s than 1950s. Simply because of the improvement in the quality of player fitness, analysis of the opposition, levels of competitiveness and discipline. Which is precisely why a player following the same routine as one from 1920s is gonna find an extremely hard time succeeding. You can no longer be a 'milkman or banker during the day' and 'cricketer during the evening and weekends' and still compete with the best of the best. Fitness levels have improved. More time is spent perfecting your craft, more effort expended in scrutinising the opposition.
As such, everybody who is before the golden age of cricket ( 60s-2000s) would take a hit- so would most players playing in 2005.
That is true for any human endavour when comparing over long periods of time.
