Bradmanesque

[Shri]

This might be true but the main reason he averaged ~100 is pretty clearly because he was just so much better than anyone else at avoiding mistakes when he got in (in the same way that Smith is marginally today, but to a much much much larger degree). That part of the game hasn't changed one bit since 1877.

You might find some minor deficiency, but then he might also fix it, and either way he'll still get plenty of starts and he'll be far better at turning his starts into big scores than anyone else.

Did he ever deal with a field similar to one of Cook's in-out fields or the modern day defensive fields? Bodyline kills you but captains like Cook make you want to kill yourself as a batsman. You never know what could happen if you block off most boundaries to a batsman like him. And current standards of fielding would bring him fewer runs as well. But, he would still probably be the best or among the best.

 

[TheJediBrah]

You're one of the aforementioned empty vessels, that's for sure!



Were they legal back then?

Stop embarrassing yourself mate

 

[TheJediBrah]

If he played today, he would still probably be the best by some distance but the gap wouldn't be as big with analysts obsessing over finding flaws in his game. He would probably not be affected by the tactics employed or the obsessive scrutiny of his technique but the second part of his career when he gets old would not be anywhere near as successful, imo of course.

Definitely possible, but just as likely he'd still be just as much better than everyone else as he did in the 30s & 40s. Simply impossible to tell.

Personally I think he'd be just as good. Any advance in tactics, technology etc. that would help fielding sides against him would also be at his disposal to help him.

 

[Spark]

Did he ever deal with a field similar to one of Cook's in-out fields or the modern day defensive fields? Bodyline kills you but captains like Cook make you want to kill yourself as a batsman. You never know what could happen if you block off most boundaries to a batsman like him. And current standards of fielding would bring him fewer runs as well. But, he would still probably be the best or among the best.

Yeah this is fair but I dunno, I just see it hard to see a batsman of his voracity being bothered by taking tons of singles. And of course there's also the fact that if he had a stick like Warner's, he wouldn't have to middle it to get boundaries on the regulra.

Fielding is a better point but still not that important, ground fielding is where the major strides have been made in cricket in the last few decades (if anything the quality of slip catching has declined in the time I've been watching cricket) and that's less important to Tests.

Would be an interesting question how he'd go in a modern (i.e. post-2011 WC) ODI team.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Christ, imagine opening the bowling to Sehwag and Warner. Be an absolute nightmare.

At a much much lower level, we used to play against a bloke who was a ridiculously devastating opening bat. He looked like a fat Ned Kelly and had coke bottle glasses, so the first time I played against him I'm wondering why the skipper has five blokes out on the boundary ball one.

Bloke was insane. Pulled the first ball over a four lane road onto railway tracks and the second straight *over* a railway bridge behind the bowler. Ball got lost and we pulled out a new one, to which he said "you can't have a new ball". He'd usually get out for about 60-70 after seven or eight overs, then the field would come in and normal cricket would be played. I mean, he played first grade in the 80s and against really good sides the score would regularly be 0/55 off four or something. Was like T20 before it existed.

We had something similar in our side but for us. We had a teacher from a private school play for us regularly but one week we had half the team missing so he got his mate who was the sports teacher to play. He didn't actually open but we lost a wicket in the first over anyway so he may as well have. We were 80-1 after 8 overs against the top of the league and he had 70 of them and he didn't hit the ball in the air once. Was ridiculous watching him, turned out he played for his university in South Africa a few years before. He played 3 games for us and got 2 hundreds and an 80. Was a really nice bloke too, kept buying jugs at the end of the game as he said he was earning too much money to spend it as he lived in at the school so had no bills.

 

[Spark]

It is funny that this thread appeared the day after I listened to Neil Harvey go on and on for 20+ minutes yesterday about how much more difficult batting was in the 1940s and 50s, btw. Just as a juxtaposition of extremes.

 

[Spark]

Definitely possible, but just as likely he'd still be just as much better than everyone else as he did in the 30s & 40s. Simply impossible to tell.

Personally I think he'd be just as good. Any advance in tactics, technology etc. that would help fielding sides against him would also be at his disposal to help him.

Yeah this is my stance as well. With the exception of Bradman, the main reason the great batsman have always averaged in the 50-60 bracket is because any improvements on the batting or bowling side either cancel out or are actually very marginal (which is my view) in light of the fact that the two most important things that determine great batsmen are (a) hand-eye coordination and (b) concentration, which no amount of technology or tactics can really change.

 

[karan316]

It was a master stroke. The only one for its time when cricket was a "gentleman's game" with opposition players putting Bradman up on a pedestal and clapping his shots to the boundary. That's why they wussed out and changed the rules. By the way body line bowling still exists today. NZ's Neil Wagner is an effective proponent of it. He's got a whole bunch of wickets recently using this strategy.

Yes it was, and I wouldn't mind seeing how modern batsmen tackle something like that. "Whining" is the last thing they'll do IMO.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I never said bodyline is what Bradman would face in the modern era. I said he would be up against tactics that would be light years ahead of anything he faced back in he 1930s. You're taking my comments about bodyline out of context. I am saying that when tactics e.g. bodyline, were used Bradman was not as effective as his 99 average would suggest.

You literally said Wagner bowls bodyline today. Which is bollocks.

 

[Spark]

Of course they'd whine, modern batsmen will whine about literally anything these days. Have you seen how they react any time a pitch is vaguely green?

 

[honestbharani]

or if it turns a few inches..

 

[Spark]

Honestly if some crazy circumstance occurred such that the actual Bodyline tactic (almost exclusively bouncers aimed at the head with a stacked legside cordon) was used, the backlash wouldn't just be at the team but at the sport in general.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah.. just so stupid to bring it up when the Hughes accident is still so fresh in the memory.

 

[Spark]

Yeah.. just so stupid to bring it up when the Hughes accident is still so fresh in the memory.

Right. It seriously could have gotten someone killed.

 

[karan316]

LOL, Bradman played in the era of flattest wickets, go and get your facts right first.

“Cricket is a batsman’s game. The pitches are prepared to suit run-making. The laws are made to preserve the batsman’s wicket. It was so biased in favour of the batsmen (in the 1920s and 1930s) that there was no pressure on them at all. If we got four wickets down in a day, we’d done a good day’s work. If we got five, we had an extra drink,” – Harold Larwood.

 

[Spark]

Yes, fast bowlers have so rarely complained about cricket being a batsman's game. Doesn't happen at all these days.

 

[Kirkut]

I agree with karan316's opinion that every cricketer is unique and fair comparisons are not possible since we cannot grasp multiple parameters required for it.

Mike Atherton is one of my favourite batsmen, while he did have big problems against spin and seam bowling of Ambrose-Walsh-Mcgrath he has played few exceptionally good knocks on bad wickets, rearguard innings which I wouldn't even expect from Viv Richards, Tendulkar, Lara or Dravid. Alas, his average of 37 does no justice to his natural talent.

 

[Coronis]

LOL, Bradman played in the era of flattest wickets, go and get your facts right first.

“Cricket is a batsman’s game. The pitches are prepared to suit run-making. The laws are made to preserve the batsman’s wicket. It was so biased in favour of the batsmen (in the 1920s and 1930s) that there was no pressure on them at all. If we got four wickets down in a day, we’d done a good day’s work. If we got five, we had an extra drink,” – Harold Larwood.

Pretty sure I've heard people say the same thing about today's wickets. Speaking of which, I'd love to see how modern batsmen would handle a proper sticky.

 

[honestbharani]

Yes, fast bowlers have so rarely complained about cricket being a batsman's game. Doesn't happen at all these days.

Ashwin made the very same point on twitter just yesterday.. Maybe the irony was lost on Karan.

 

[Spark]

Honestly, and it relates to recent discussion here, but unless you're exposed to Australian media and the coverage of cricket between play and on ABC radio etc etc, you don't really get a sense of just how deeply unimpressed most fast bowlers have been with the wickets here the last few years, and in general tbh. Forever begging for more pace and bounce.