"Great, but not without a helmet"

[Top_Cat]

Then you can come up with Boyc's favourite, uncovered pitches.. Surely harder to score runs on? In my book Bradman had it harder than anyone, which makes his performances even more unbeatable..

Bradman himself has said pitches back in his day were perfect for batting, though. Stickies aside (which didn't happen often), generally, batting was easier by his own reckoning.

This is what makes eras so difficult to compare. Incomparable, in my view, except with the broadest of terms of reference.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Richard, zaremba, you're right. I let myself get carried away by suggesting that anything written by Atherton tends to be not worth reading. I don't agree with the article in question, but yeah, shouldn't have gone to the extent I did.

 

[Uppercut]

Aye. I'm a big fan of Atherton's writing, there aren't many better than him. But this is indeed all a bit daft.

 

[tooextracool]

Think batsmen these days may benefit from the use of helmets, but they also suffer from the fact that their techniques can be scruitinized by the billions of forms of technology available for opposing teams to use. The argument that players without helmets are better than those with helmets is certainly about as daft as the idea that players in this era are worse than those in prior eras because they are exposed to flatter pitches.

My opinion on Tendulkar is that he is a great player, which is a reevaluated opinion off him based on his more recent performances, but that he is still very much an overrated player during the span of the game.

 

[Jono]

Yeah you've had that sig for a while now

 

[Redbacks]

Imagine facing a Flintoff, Harmison or Johnson without a helmet these days

Here's a decent example of what they might face:

YouTube - Dennis Lillee vs Vivian Richards

 

[Richard]

Imagine facing a Flintoff, Harmison or Johnson without a helmet these days

Techniques for playing the short delivery are now sufficiently (relatively speaking) poor that that is a frightening prospect. However, if a batsman had to do such and was growing-up with that reality, their technique for playing the short stuff would be far more adept.

You mould yourself to your time. If you've got a helmet, you don't need to be quite so careful about not being hit on the head - though clearly it's never something anyone is going to be blase about.