Jacques Kallis vs Allan Border

[shortpitched713]

Yes.

Would you like to share with the class?

 

[ataraxia]

Sir Donald Bradman
Sir Garfield Sobers

 

[TheJediBrah]

Sorry Himann, don't really agree with your Kallis take here. Feels like you're downplaying him a lot saying his runs were valuable for himself rather than the team.

He was the key batsman and prized wicket in a team that rose to #1. If you have an issue with his strike rate, then Border's is less. If it's about winning games of cricket for their team then Kallis did a heck of a lot of that. (Obviously Kallis won more games than Border due to overall team strength but even proportional to their number of wins Kallis contributed centuries in almost half of his Test wins, Border was way short of that.)

>

I think it’s a case of him scoring slowly when he’s more than capable of scoring much quicker if he wants to. Also it’s him scoring slowly when his team would, at that point in the game, value runs scored quicker to help them get a win. So it’s not just about him scoring slowly but the context of the runs he scores in my view.

I don’t think Border is a particularly quick scorer, but would he score quicker if it would help his team win? Absolutely he would. He’d walk through walls to help his team if he can.

 

[BazBall21]

Big Allan Border has got level

 

[ashley bach]

Big Allan Border has got level

Who hit the most boundaries?

 

[ashley bach]

Big Allan Border has got level

And he's coming home down the outside with momentum, he's gonna get up in the last stride.

 

[BazBall21]

Who hit the most boundaries?

Got to be Kallis

 

[subshakerz]

Nah, it’s ridiculous that it’s this even.

Kallis mostly just got into his shell and accumulated his runs regardless of the match situation. He was a good bat for sure, but nothing in comparison to Border who pretty much played a lone hand for most of it and kept his team competitive despite the rest of them being rubbish for most part.

Border scored runs just as much as Kallis but they were runs that were far more valuable to his team. The runs Kallis accumulated were mostly just valuable to himself.

Border’s wicket was key to beating the Aussies and he often stood in the gap against opposition that was stronger than his team. The only gap that Kallis ever stood in was the one in the line to the cafeteria.

Kallis is the single most overrated bat on this forum. This thread is just a confirmation of that.

The best argument so far for Kallis here is 'um, he has a higher average'.

Kallis was a very good bat but the fact that he is put in this forum in the top 20 of all time is crazy. He was not nearly that great or even recognized as such for most of his batting career.

Most of his career he was stuck in one mode of slowmo batting and couldnt dominate or accelerate even when the team needed it.

He doesnt have a well rounded away record.

Unlike some posters who pretend he was batting in a Zimbabwe XI, he actually had a decent lineup of accumulators around him like Kirsten, Gibbs, Cullinan, etc.

He was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the flat pitch era, before which he was averaging in the low 40s. Despite that, It took him ages to even score his first double ton.

 

[subshakerz]

He was the key batsman and prized wicket in a team that rose to #1.

Border was the prize wicket when his team was bottom tier and was still the top wicket when he took them to top tier.

By the time SA rose to no.1, Smith, Amla and ABD were scoring around as heavily as Kallis was. In fact, the phase in 2008/2009 when they won in England and Australia coincided with a drop in Kallis' form.

 

[subshakerz]

I don't understand this point. Like at a fundamental level. If you score runs, they get added to your teams total. Just because they're slower than another player's runs scored doesn't make them disappear. And whether it helps more for them to be scored quickly or slowly is dependent on complex, case by case match situations.

On this site, instead I often hear (not from you mind, but this is an opinion I've seen here) low sr = bad, high sr = good. Like for real, this sort of opinion is flabbergasting, as when I watch Test cricket it looks an awful lot like all the guys are trying to help their teams win by scoring the runs or taking the wickets they do.

If you watch cricket, then you know cricket is a momentum game. Scoring quicker is also about putting pressure on the opposition.

Quality bowlers will prefer bowling to guys like Dravid and Kallis as they are predictable. I remember a quote from Mohd Asif who said he liked to bowl to Dravid since he allowed him to get into his own rhythm. Whereas once Lara gets on top of you, you lose control of the game.

And this is not even mentioning those situations when your team is short on time and you need to accelerate to chase or put a score on the board for the opposition, something Kallis was known to be poor at.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Quality bowlers will prefer bowling to guys like Dravid and Kallis as they are predictable. I remember a quote from Mohd Asif who said he liked to bowl to Dravid since he allowed him to get into his own rhythm.

I remember a quote from Pat Cummins who said the toughest batsman he has had to bowl to was Pujara

 

[Bolo.]

I think it’s a case of him scoring slowly when he’s more than capable of scoring much quicker if he wants to. Also it’s him scoring slowly when his team would, at that point in the game, value runs scored quicker to help them get a win. So it’s not just about him scoring slowly but the context of the runs he scores in my view.

I don’t think Border is a particularly quick scorer, but would he score quicker if it would help his team win? Absolutely he would. He’d walk through walls to help his team if he can.

In careers as long as theirs, and with similar low SRs, I'd expect variance in game stage requirements to smooth out and their overall SRs to be pretty indicative. I know Kallis left runs behind by not accelerating ftom watching him and didn't really see Border. But Kallis scored faster overall, batted higher where SR is much less of an issue, and looking at innings by innings list, did seem to play a lot more quicker innings.

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

Where's the idea that Kallis should get more flak on this than Border coming from? The opposite seems to be true.

 

[subshakerz]

I remember a quote from Pat Cummins who said the toughest batsman he has had to bowl to was Pujara

That was a particular strategy that India employed in the recent series. Pujara was meant to take time, bat slow and wear down the bowlers so the lower order could attack, while Cummins thought Pujara would score more quickly.

Similar to Dravid batting like a rock for the other bats to take a free hand to attack.

 

[Victor Ian]

There is nothing wrong with being a slow accumulator so long as you hang around. You wear out opposition bowlers, you give your teams accelerators a break, even reigning them in before they self implode. While, potentially eating up time that might cost a win, you also eat up time that prevents the opposition from winning.
Its a bad reason to not rate someone, except regarding entertainment value.

 

[Coronis]

One thing is, the bolded isn't a point in Tendulkar's favor. As a batsman, you're supposed to maximize your runs scored to help your team get better results, regardless of the conditions. I think there's a big tendency to fetishize "hard" conditions, when oftentimes at a fundamental level batting run accumulation is about taking advantage of the "easy" (loose bowling, loss of movement or bounce, tired bowlers, etc.). It takes different kinds of mental discipline to make the most of all of these factors.

On the other hand, I've already given my points for the reasons I have my opinions. I don't think we're really getting anywhere, or that we're arguing too much on points of fact. I've got Tendulkar in an All-time Great bracket, just not as high up it as the general consensus on the site seems to be ( I'd put Lara, and Smith given a continuing current career trajectory, in a clear tier above Tendulkar. )

Did you really mention Lara in a post about maximizing runs?

 

[subshakerz]

There is nothing wrong with being a slow accumulator so long as you hang around. You wear out opposition bowlers, you give your teams accelerators a break, even reigning them in before they self implode. While, potentially eating up time that might cost a win, you also eat up time that prevents the opposition from winning.
Its a bad reason to not rate someone, except regarding entertainment value.

Slow scorers definitely have a role, but all things being equal, I would prefer an aggressive bat to a grinder or accumulator.

I dont think its a coincidence that the best sides in history were full of free flowing bats. At best, in your top six, I would have 1 slow bat to give a bit of balance.

 

[subshakerz]

The thing in Kallis' case that people forget is that he was supposed to be the team's alpha aggressive bat, not the guy who others bat around. They had several other good accumulators around him to set a platform. Ideally he should have been the one to intimidate and turn the screws which he showed only later in his career that he was capable of.

Border played mostly for a much weaker lineup, so him grinding it out was more justified as a form of damage control.

 

[Bolo.]

The thing in Kallis' case that people forget is that he was supposed to be the team's alpha aggressive bat, not the guy who others bat around. They had several other good accumulators around him to set a platform. Ideally he should have been the one to intimidate and turn the screws which he showed only later in his career that he was capable of.

Border played mostly for a much weaker lineup, so him grinding it out was more justified as a form of damage control.

He was supposed to be the opposite of the role given to him by his team, because you decided it?

I'm declaring that Border was supposed to be a hard hitting right arm quick, and marking him down for his failure to match my expectations.

 

[subshakerz]

He was supposed to be the opposite of the role given to him by his team, because you decided it?

I'm declaring that Border was supposed to be a hard hitting right arm quick, and marking him down for his failure to match my expectations.

Not because I decided it, because his position demanded it.

 

[Coronis]

The thing in Kallis' case that people forget is that he was supposed to be the team's alpha aggressive bat, not the guy who others bat around. They had several other good accumulators around him to set a platform. Ideally he should have been the one to intimidate and turn the screws which he showed only later in his career that he was capable of.

Border played mostly for a much weaker lineup, so him grinding it out was more justified as a form of damage control.

Why? Throughout his entire career he was surrounded by a great supporting cast of batsmen, the only ones who batted as slowly as him being Kirsten and Prince. What is so wrong about him being a relatively slow ATG batsman amongst a team that already had a bunch of quality faster scoring batsmen?