A batsman's average is nothing to do with runs per innings or the amount of innings he has, it's based on the number of times he's dismissed. In Imran's case he was Not Out about 20% of the time and his average was thus inflated.
Average of 25 as a batsman & 28 as a bowler is fine tbh but we're talking about peaks here.Imran played much more cricket in the part of his career I mentioned.
Slightly ahead of Bradman, clearly ahead of Grace and only fractionally behind Dave Mohammed.Better than Bradman, then?
The point it he was at the top for a period of 5 years, but you not its not fair to just regard that as Waqar and disregard the rest of his career.
Even in that period he was poor against the West Indies though. Also, most of the teams he played against had lost their Packer players. Still, very, very impressive.
You missed my point spectacularly. My point was that Botham, for those 4 or 5 years, was arguably playing as well as anyone in Test history who's surname wasn't Bradman. I don't consider him the second best cricketer of all time because I do take his whole career into account, but for those few years he was as good, or just about as good, as anyone who ever played the game.
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone describing Imran as an all time great batsman, not even BhupinderSingh. Unless you can show me where someone said that, I think the point of him being a very very good lower order player is valid.
These not outs go in his favour,not against him as he was not batting as a tailender @ 9/10.It shows that he was good at staying at wicket & making partnerships with lower order batsmen & tailenders.He could've easily averaged 45+ if he didn't have the load of bowling on his shoulders.
Genuinely surprised his batting average is as low as that - I thought it was closer to 40. Perhaps I was a year out either side and was considering his batting performances in 1982. Or perhaps I should have followed my instincts and not used the word "statistically".
I've never said such a thing.All I say is that he's bit underappreciated as a batsman.People criticize him as if he achieved average of 50 in those 10 years with empty numbers.
I'm not saying that he was better than them but that he could've averaged more if he was not a bowler.
Now you are going overboard. VVS Laxman, Atherton, Ganguly, Vaughan....none of them average 45. Imran was not better than any of them.
I'm not saying that he was better than them but that he could've averaged more without the load of bowling.
But bowlers don't get lots of wickets (of good batsmen) with bad balls, that's the thing. If their only way to get wickets is with bad balls, they won't get many.
I know.
It's just impossible to mean what he said and have any understanding of cricket TBH.actually no i didn't...most of the greats have had such brilliant stretches...tendulkar was once considered 2nd to bradman when he was at his peak in the late 90s...being considered the 2nd greatest cricketer in history even for a brief period is a significant bump-up for any player however great he is and flashes/periods of brilliance where he might have even played better than bradman is just not enough as far as i can see.....you might as well say something like, for those 15 overs/2 games etc, he was even more brilliant than bradman would've been...extrapolating that to 3-4 years would mean the player sustained his brilliance for a significant period of time, that's all...