thierry henry
International Coach
yeah, nah.Would be more inclined to mount a case for Watson in test matches than ODI's itbt.
Cairns' stats are probably deceptively poor, but was the sort of guy who could turn, and win, a match on the back of his performance alone. Probably didn't have the technique and patience to do this at test level as regularly.
I think when the dust settles on their respective careers, Watson will probably have a better test career, and probably better ODI stats, but I think Cairns will always be the more valuable ODI player and Watson a more valuable test asset.
Cairns stats are better in tests than ODIs because he was better at tests than ODIs.
In both forms he was a big hittin', fast scorin' batsman who failed too often to be regarded as a genuine batsman despite appearing to have all the skills to do so. I would say in both forms he was of a similar standard- admittedly a fast 50 or 60 is generally more useful in ODIs than tests, but if you look back at Cairns' best performances with the bat they are actually pretty evenly spread between tests and ODIs.
With the ball he was clearly a lot better in tests. Frankly, he was rather sub-par in ODIs. Admittedly this has a bit to do with the fact that he sometimes bowled in ODIs despite being half-injured (bowling 125kph off a short run, that sort of thing). I honestly can't think of another cricketer who bowled as much as Cairns whilst freely admitting that he was not fully fit, and as I recall there were chunks of his career where he didn't play any tests because he wasn't fully fit, but played ODIs.
But nevertheless I think those poor ODI bowling figures over a long career are representative of the fact that he was probably just one of those attacking bowlers who is more effective in tests.