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Jacques Kallis vs Steve Waugh

Who was the greater test batsman?

  • Jacques Kallis

    Votes: 34 61.8%
  • Steve Waugh

    Votes: 21 38.2%

  • Total voters
    55

subshakerz

International Coach
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...er_involve=1795;template=results;type=bowling

Overall bowling average in matches Steve Waugh played.


Overall bowling average in matches Jacques Kallis played.

Not even a 1 run difference. The difference in home conditions virtually cancels out the era difference. This means that it's fair to compare their base stats head to head. And there's a clear winner there.
Yeah, lets ignore impact innings, the way the batsman plays, peer rating, etc. Let's pretend Kallis didn't cash in on minnows and weak attacks either.
 

Red_Ink_Squid

Global Moderator
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...er_involve=1795;template=results;type=bowling

Overall bowling average in matches Steve Waugh played.


Overall bowling average in matches Jacques Kallis played.

Not even a 1 run difference. The difference in home conditions virtually cancels out the era difference. This means that it's fair to compare their base stats head to head. And there's a clear winner there.
When @Prince EWS did his standardised average thingy his analysis found that Waugh's average needed standardising downwards whereas Kallis' got a slight bump, suggesting that of the two, on average, Kallis faced the tougher attacks/conditions.


Admittedly his ratings also reckoned that Peter Siddle was a better bowler than Dennis Lillee. But, anyway, don't forget that Waugh was a coward who batted at 5 and didn't protect the tail.
 

Bolo.

International Captain
Imagine looking at the guy with the highest number of MoM awards ever (nearly 50% more than the bat with the next highest number) and claiming he lacked impact
 

trundler

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Yeah, lets ignore impact innings, the way the batsman plays, peer rating, etc. Let's pretend Kallis didn't cash in on minnows and weak attacks either.
If we take out minnows, the overall quality of attacks Kallis faced will only go up. Steve Waugh faced the worst English attacks in living memory more often than any other anyway.
 

StephenZA

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I love how much minnows make the difference... you know the 9 of his 166 Test where he scored less than 1000 of his 13000+ runs. But all that minnow bashing...
 

OverratedSanity

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Yeah, lets ignore impact innings, the way the batsman plays, peer rating, etc.
There is basically no difference in the way they play, it was a dumb thing to bring up in the first place. If anything Waugh faced more credible accusations of selfishness than Kallis ever did. Peer rating is often nonsense, and Kallis is rated quite highly anyway among his contemporaries.

There's only one thing here that has a little bit of merit: Impact innings- I will say that imo Kallis probably played fewer innings I'd consider ATG level than any great player I saw so this is a fair thing to bring up. I don't think it's entirely baseless either because DoG's thread of great innings didn't have a single one of his knocks. Then again it had 0 steve waugh innings too. He played several more of what I'd call "great" innings imo but a lot of this could also be because :

(i) he played for Australia so a lot of his better innings contributed to the greater ongoing narrative of the Australian team's rise to dominance. For instance, his double ton vs WI while obviously a great knock would receive way less fanfare if it didn't have the story of Australia "dethroning" West Indies. This frankly has less to do with the innings itself and more with the circumstances of the two teams. I'm quite confident Kallis could've played an innings like that if he batted 5 for Australia that day but you're free to disagree. This wasn't a unique display of genius like Lara's 153, it was "merely" an ATG knock against a great attack that I think quite a few other great players could have, and have played.

(ii) He battedat 5 where his best hundreds were often those that rescued the team from a precarious position. Top order batsmen are never going to get these opportunities. They have the frankly tougher job of averting the crisis from happening in the first place. Unless you're playing in a terrible lineup like Lara, playing those kind of knocks is obviously going to be rarer. And there are few better 'crisis averters' than Kallis.
 

akilana

International 12th Man
Not to these guys. It's all about raw averages. Which makes Kallis better than Tendulkar, Lara and Ponting too I guess.
it's to you too when it suits your argument. You used the 'average' thing in discussions of Steyn and Ambrose.
 

StephenZA

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Imagine looking at the guy with the highest number of MoM awards ever (nearly 50% more than the bat with the next highest number) and claiming he lacked impact
But that is because of all the bowling he did in SA which does not count because of easy you get wickets...
 

trundler

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Kallis routinely walked in with scores of 2 down for **** all and did better in those circumstances than Tendulkar or any other #4. Make of that what you will. I don't know how to dig up the exact stat so if anyone knows what I'm referring to, please help.
 
Last edited:

Coronis

International Coach
Yeah, lets ignore impact innings, the way the batsman plays, peer rating, etc. Let's pretend Kallis didn't cash in on minnows and weak attacks either.
Yeah true I wouldn’t consider any of Kallis’ outstanding batting performances impact innings. Not his first century, against McGrath and Warne on Boxing Day 97 to save the test. Not his 110 and 88 in the Cape Town test in 99 against Courtney Walsh. Not his 87 in the second innings at Kandy in 03 against Murali.
 

OverratedSanity

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Yeah true I wouldn’t consider any of Kallis’ outstanding batting performances impact innings. Not his first century, against McGrath and Warne on Boxing Day 97 to save the test. Not his 110 and 88 in the Cape Town test in 99 against Courtney Walsh. Not his 87 in the second innings at Kandy in 03 against Murali.
Kallisball game vs India was probably his best one
 

Anil

Hall of Fame Member
Kallis was not exciting enough... thus he was not good enough. It does not matter what he actually did for his country for 15 years.
is anyone actually saying that though? he was a great player by any measure, is it such a stretch to think that waugh was the greater batsman?
 

Xix2565

International Regular
is anyone actually saying that though? he was a great player by any measure, is it such a stretch to think that waugh was the greater batsman?
If the supporting argument is based mainly on intangibles then sure.
 

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