bagapath
International Captain
yeap
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Choose the two opening bowlers for Post Packer World XI
- Thread starter bagapath
- Start date
stephen
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah this is all true. Miller was cut short in his prime really. He could have been so much better statistically if he hadn't got the injury. Oh well at least he survived the war and came back and showed us what he did.
Ikki
Hall of Fame Member
I don't think I'd put Hadlee in the "average" batsmen category. It depends who you think is average though.
I'd say it's the difference between:
A good batsmen vs someone who can hold the bat if need be; and
A great bowler (probably outside the all-time greats vs an all-time great.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
True - his career was brilliant enough for us to sometimes overlook the fact that, due to the war, Miller played a grand total of one Test before his 27th birthday. And even that wasn't actually recognised as an official Test match until two years later!
Anyway, I'll stop making this thread into a Miller tribute now.
Anyway, I'll stop making this thread into a Miller tribute now.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
My approach to raw figures:
Batting average
- Divide runs scored by number of times dismissed.
- Where a batsman happens to bat for 5 minutes and makes 2 not out, do not treat it as effectively 2-and-out, because that would quite obviously produce an unfairly distorted batting average.
Subtract bowling average from batting average.
Simple!
archie mac
International Coach
Comparing Hadlee to Miller with the bat
stephen
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
So by this reasoning Kallis is as good as Sobers? Botham worse than pretty much everyone else?
Top_Cat
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Same ground 8 years earlier was just as good a spell of bowling overall. Difference is, he was threatening all day back then. 2005 his opening spell was sheer awesome but afterwards, was okay.
Lord = McGrathville.
stephen
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
He really exploited that ground better than anyone else. Picked up a Michelle there every test he played.
Precambrian
Banned
Kallis is overtly underrated.
Uppercut
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Yep. How does someone possibly, in this era, become such a quality batsman and bowler? It was different in Sobers's day, cricket was so much less professional and occasionally you would come across exceptional talent in two areas. But with the amount of training and work people do today in order to be as good as they can in sport, I find it incredible that someone can be SO good at batting, bowling and slip catching. Kallis is probably in my all-time XI.
The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Being underrated and being as good as Sobers aren't the same thing though.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Obviously it's not the only way of analysing a player's ability or his contribution.
But it is a very good rule of thumb, for the simple reason that an all-rounder has to bat and bowl on the same pitches, and in the same conditions.
(Kapil may be a little hardly treated here, because he was a fast bowler who played much of his cricket in conditions that favoured spin bowling).
In Kallis' case, the similarity between his stats and Sobers' are striking. Sobers is in my view the greater player because he was a better and more attacking batsman, and this was both players' primary suit. Kallis as a bowler didn't have Sobers' versatility but his record is nonetheless highly impressive and his bowling is often, as W might say, misunderestimated.
In Botham's case, his stats really don't lie.
(1) Overall career performance: he was, on balance, a very good all-rounder, as reflected by his averaging 5 more with bat than ball.
(2) First half of his career: he was one of the finest all-rounders in history, as reflected by his averaging (?) 18 more with the bat than ball. (40 v 22 IIRC).
(3) Second half of his career: he was bloated, complacent and mulleted. His performances were fitful and infrequent and he scarcely deserved his place in the England team, let alone a World XI. His stats, once again, reflect this perfectly: he averaged much more with the ball than the bat.
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The Sean
Cricketer Of The Year
Dead set awful maths right there.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Oops!Dead set awful maths right there.
I meant 40 v 22
No, you should hope that we do run out of steam...
Uppercut
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I don't know whether Kallis was as good as Sobers, but I definitely think he belongs in the debate. When Sobers played, the standard you needed to push yourself to in order to play international cricket to a good standard was lower- there was still an amateur ethos, fitness wasn't so vital, fielding was less intense. This is the case for all players compared across eras- it's generally not fair to hold it against players from earlier eras.
However, on the other hand, you have to give Kallis the credit for being good enough to bat and bowl to the standard he has in this era. I think people are so accustomed to it that it's forgotten how awesome an achievement it really is. It's almost the equivalent of one of the greatest footballers in the world also being good enough to represent their country at rugby. Yet both skills are combined into the same sport, giving one incredible match-winning machine. I haven't even started on his slip-catching.
And he's kept on doing it for years and years and years without being burnt out. His 14-year career has contained 128 tests and almost 300 ODIs. He has over 20,000 international runs and is just short of 500 international wickets. And he's STILL going!
Kallis gets nowhere near the respect he deserves IMO. He maybe isn't glamorous or inspiring- he's never hit six sixes off an over, he takes most of his wickets through tight, economical bowling, he scores with a lower strike rate that a lot of his contemporaries. But he just quietly keeps on churning out the runs and taking the wickets. In his own way, he truly is one of the most incredible cricketers around.
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Australia#1
Cricket Spectator
I would go Marshall and Lillee
weldone
Hall of Fame Member
Though I voted for Greenidge in the openers' poll (alongwith Gavaskar), I won't mind if Hayden wins that poll....unlike this poll where I voted for Hadlee and want him to win over McGrath so badly...though I am almost a die-hard fan of McGrath, and I think all of Marshall, Hadlee, Imran, Wasim and McGrath are very worthy candidates...I wouldn't have cared about the fast bowlers' poll had Murali won the spinner's poll, then I would have been happy to vote for Hadlee for the 4th bowler option over Warne...But if Hadlee and Murali fight for the 4th bowler option, it'll be so hard for me to choose one since I want both of them to be in the playing XI so badly...
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