DoG's Top 100 Test Batsmen Countdown Thread

[Logan]

Describing the attacks Barrington faced overseas as terribad is just that

According to his logic :

When Sobers has a great record, it is because he was a great batsman.

When Barrington(who played in the same time period) has a slightly better record, it is because he faced terribad attacks.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I am surprised Ponting is rated behind Kallis and Sanga. Outside of India, his away record is just fine IMO

It's mostly fine but its also true that he never really had any dominant series overseas like he did at home many times

 

[Starfighter]

According to his logic :

When Sobers has a great record, it is because he was a great batsman.

When Barrington(who played in the same time period) has a slightly better record, it is because he faced terribad attacks.

The irony of that comment is that Sobers and Barrington would have faced much the same attacks when playing the same opponents.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I don’t believe in this average adjustment nonsense.

Jack Hobbs played 90% of his matches against one opponent when cricket was it’s infancy.

Cricket was much more competitive when Ricky Ponting played.

Impossible to compare them. Unless there is a Don Bradman level of difference.

Pre war Hobbs is the closest thing to Bradman in test history if you look at what he was doing compared to everyone else at the time

 

[Spark]

It's mostly fine but its also true that he never really had any dominant series overseas like he did at home many times

Am I misremembering something or did he not have a really good series away vs SA in 05/06 (or whenever that tour was)?

 

[Logan]

In the 1900s, Jack Hobbs averaged 36.

In the 1910s, Jack Hobbs had the highest average with 65 while the second best was Trumper with 58.

In the 1920s, Jack Hobbs averaged 61. Sutcliffe averaged 64. Hammond averaged 67. McCartney averaged 69.



Jack Hobbs is one of the top contenders for the greatest batsmen before Bradman. I am just saying it is impossible to compare a batsman who played almost 100 years apart unless there was a Don Bradman level difference.

 

[Spark]

He was a great three because he had all the gears. 1 fer bugger all - could grind and re-establish. 1 fer 100, could strike at 60 odd from the get go and just give you no let up.

Was interesting hearing him commentate the other day when he said when he was first in the side batting six, he felt he really didn’t deserve it because there were a lot of cheap runs on offer batting there and the side was very good, so he kind of felt incidental.

Obviously his record in India and his last 4 or so years hurt him, but he was such a great player. Him at three basically secured that line up’s greatness. And it’s taken til now wth Labushagne for us to (hopefully) find a decent replacement for him.

Yep and it's immediately made the batting lineup look stronger than it has in years. Even if it's not your best bat, it's just so absolutely vital to the long-term success and consistency of a side to be able to count on the bloke at first drop.

 

[akilana]

This has nothing to do with Barrington. He is trying to bring Sobers to Barrington's level, and if it's questionable if Sobers is behind Barrington, he can't possibly be better than Tendulkar.

Hence the Harping on Sir Garry's record in NZ.

Kind of like kyear2’s obsession with Imran Khan..

 

[Logan]

Ponting had a few great overseas series. Averaged 84 in SL once, 77 in SA once, 130 in WI once and 97 in NZ once.

 

[harsh.ag]

Pre-war record since Hobbs' debut

 

[akilana]

I am surprised Ponting is rated behind Kallis and Sanga. Outside of India, his away record is just fine IMO

Not surprising to me. Batting is generally harder in SA. Kallis doesn’t have a perfect away record but his overall average is really good. He was one of many reasons SA had a decent record in Asia.
Sanga’s away record isn’t perfect either but he played some great knocks away.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Am I misremembering something or did he not have a really good series away vs SA in 05/06 (or whenever that tour was)?

Think you're right, i was just going by memory.

Maybe I'm holding him an unfair standard but most of the greats from his era had a few of those massive 400+ run series and looking it up, Ponting only had one in the WI in 2003.

 

[Spark]

Think you're right, i was just going by memory.

Maybe I'm holding him an unfair standard but most of the greats from his era had a few of those massive 400+ run series and looking it up, Ponting only had one in the WI in 2003.

Yeah that's fair, but he was just super super consistent in his peak. And he had that pattern he tends to start out series a lot better than he ends up IIRC, which meant that he tended to stamp his authority on his series really early but fade and not necessarily completely own a series from beginning to end a la Smith.

EDIT: Or maybe not. Idk, my impression was always that he was basically nailed-on for a while to make a hundred in the first innings of a series during his peak.

 

[Coronis]

Jack Hobbs is one of the top contenders for the greatest batsmen before Bradman. I am just saying it is impossible to compare a batsman who played almost 100 years apart unless there was a Don Bradman level difference.

We should shut down the ATG thread, and this one too.

 

[vcs]

Didn't he hit two centuries in a match 3 times in around a year around 2005-06? That's just mind-boggling. I think Sachin never got 2 in a match and Kohli has only done it in that Adelaide game. Then he nearly repeated the feat against South Africa in 2008. That was probably the end of peak Ponting.

 

[sunilz]

Didn't he hit two centuries in a match 3 times in around a year around 2005-06? That's just mind-boggling. I think Sachin never got 2 in a match and Kohli has only done it in that Adelaide game. Then he nearly repeated the feat against South Africa in 2008. That was probably the end of peak Ponting.

Gavaskar, Ponting and Warner have done this thrice

 

[StephenZA]

We should shut down the ATG thread, and this one too.

First pull out DoG countdown posts into a new thread. Some great write ups.

 

[Logan]

We should shut down the ATG thread, and this one too.

Just stated an obvious fact that comparing cricketers across 100 years is a bad idea

 

[stephen]

We should shut down the ATG thread, and this one too.

Really just need to stop a couple of specific posters from stinking up the threads.

 

[stephen]

Didn't he hit two centuries in a match 3 times in around a year around 2005-06? That's just mind-boggling. I think Sachin never got 2 in a match and Kohli has only done it in that Adelaide game. Then he nearly repeated the feat against South Africa in 2008. That was probably the end of peak Ponting.

There was an inevitability about Ponting scoring runs during the early to mid 00s. The twin hundreds in his hundredth test was probably his absolute peak as a player.

It made his decline even more frustrating to watch IMO and I was calling for his retirement from 2009 given how poorly he was timing the ball compared to his peak.

Really the thing that hasn't been talked much about in this thread is that the real reason Ponting is behind some others was his relatively slow start. His first five years he only averaged around 40 and it wasn't until he sorted out his drinking problems that he really became the player that he could have been. Were he debuting today rather than in 1996 he would have hit that peak much earlier as cricketers are basically treated as elite athletes and aren't allowed to do that stuff regularly any more.

Seeing how good he was at other times it's almost comical how bad he was in India. He battered Murali six ways to Sunday but he struggled against a mediocre finger spinner. He smote Donald but struggled against Ishant. It was bizarre but that's cricket.