Kallis vs Sobers, Donald vs Steyn, Trott vs Pollock

[SeamUp]

Donald was hostile more often but Steyn has the ability to get wickets without being hostile.

At peak pace, I would say they are similar though. Donald prob edges it.

 

[MrPrez]

I don't remember much of Donald's levels of pace, but I don't think he could hit 150kph (I might be wrong).Steyn had a stage in his career where he would hit 150kph multiple times in a single over.

 

[SeamUp]

I don't remember much of Donald's levels of pace, but I don't think he could hit 150kph (I might be wrong).Steyn had a stage in his career where he would hit 150kph multiple times in a single over.

Allan Donald wasn't nicknamed White Lightening for nothing. He got up to the 152-153 mark did Allan.

Steyn bowled about 155kmph in one of those Indian T20 tournaments but thats once off. But if he wants to crank it up and especially for South Africa...he normally is about 150 then max.

Thats why I said, pretty similar and not even worth debating for too long.

 

[Rasimione]

Allan Donald wasn't nicknamed White Lightening for nothing. He got up to the 152-153 mark did Allan.

Steyn bowled about 155kmph in one of those Indian T20 tournaments but thats once off. But if he wants to crank it up and especially for South Africa...he normally is about 150 then max.

Thats why I said, pretty similar and not even worth debating for too long.

True. He was very quick. Quicker than Steyn, but not by much. The problem with Donald is that speed guns were not used for majority of his bowling peak. But from 1998 when he was ruffing up Atherton, he looked genuinely fast. But from what i have seen, Steyn has better stamina. How many fastbowlers do you see bowling at 145km/h during the last few overs during the day?

 

[MrPrez]

I didn't realise AD could hit that speed, thought only Nantie could. Apologies.

Anywho... Trott vs Pollock makes me laugh

 

[Jacknife]

Allan Donald wasn't nicknamed White Lightening for nothing. He got up to the 152-153 mark did Allan.

Steyn bowled about 155kmph in one of those Indian T20 tournaments but thats once off. But if he wants to crank it up and especially for South Africa...he normally is about 150 then max.

Thats why I said, pretty similar and not even worth debating for too long.

Agree, Donald was the fastest guy around in the 90's, I went to watch him when England played SA in '94 and he was visibly quicker than anyone else, he scared the life out of guys. Watched him play for Warwickshire a couple of times as well and he tormented County batsman, the guy was all about being quick. People who think Steyn is quicker haven't watched too much of Donald imo.

 

[MrPrez]

Yep I was born in 1995 and don't claim to have watched him at his peak

 

[Cabinet96]

Remind me what that's got to do with comparing him with Gary Sobers...

Well your post was hardly comparing Kallis with Sobbers, more of a personal dig at Kallis.

 

[kyear2]

Unlike for bowlers, batsmen have never been rated purely oe even heavily based on stats and averages. Like Sobers vs Kallis, Trott even if he retains his current average can never be seen as the superior to Pollock. Batsmen who are more attacking or who are match winners will always be rated higher that batsmen of attrition or those who bat more slowly. They are even seen as selfish as with the case of Kallis and Barrington (though for some reason not for Dravid, though Dravid had exhibited in other ways his team first attitude). Pollock and Sobers were stroke players and according to the Don the best two left handers he has ever seen. Kallis, Trott and guys like Barrington were the supporting acts, Players like Sobers, Pollock, Richards and Ponting were the match winners.

Steyn and Donald are both ATGs, and too close to call, Donald have on his side his complete body of work, Steyn on the other hand still has productive years ahead of him and playing agains batsmen un-accostomed to quality fast bowling in this era doesnt hurt his cause.

 

[GotSpin]

True. He was very quick. Quicker than Steyn, but not by much. The problem with Donald is that speed guns were not used for majority of his bowling peak. But from 1998 when he was ruffing up Atherton, he looked genuinely fast. But from what i have seen, Steyn has better stamina. How many fastbowlers do you see bowling at 145km/h during the last few overs during the day?

 

[Burgey]

Well your post was hardly comparing Kallis with Sobbers, more of a personal dig at Kallis.

No it wasn't a dig at Kallis at all, actually.

 

[uvelocity]

Well your post was hardly comparing Kallis with Sobbers, more of a personal dig at Kallis.

reminds me of the gif I posted tbh

 

[MrPrez]

Unlike for bowlers, batsmen have never been rated purely oe even heavily based on stats and averages. Like Sobers vs Kallis, Trott even if he retains his current average can never be seen as the superior to Pollock. Batsmen who are more attacking or who are match winners will always be rated higher that batsmen of attrition or those who bat more slowly. They are even seen as selfish as with the case of Kallis and Barrington (though for some reason not for Dravid, though Dravid had exhibited in other ways his team first attitude). Pollock and Sobers were stroke players and according to the Don the best two left handers he has ever seen. Kallis, Trott and guys like Barrington were the supporting acts, Players like Sobers, Pollock, Richards and Ponting were the match winners.

Steyn and Donald are both ATGs, and too close to call, Donald have on his side his complete body of work, Steyn on the other hand still has productive years ahead of him and playing agains batsmen un-accostomed to quality fast bowling in this era doesnt hurt his cause.

That shouldn't be the case imo. Someone like Jacques Kallis spent his career trying to be the backbone of a brittle middle-order - we've seen recently how he can attack when he has guys like Hashim around - who can stick around for long periods.
I do agree that there is zero comparison between Trott and Pollock, don't get me wrong.

 

[nexxus]

I was going to wade in by pointing out our historically brittle batting lineup, but that's been done.

I hope this isn't too rambly and that I somehow get my point across...

Guys like Sobers, Richards, Hayden, Sehwag, et al are always going to be the superstars, the people that get the people to pay the entrance fee. They're the ones who play the match turning knock, that aerial flick off the hips that gets whips the crowd into a frenzy, that savage blow that breaks a window in the commentary booth or the six that avoids the follow on. People like Dravid & Kallis are forever feted to grinding out that 150 that draws the game, an innings built on incomparable guts & grit, on that people respect but never long for. They're usually the person on the other end, the supporting act who got a 100* while enabling the genius on the other end to perform his wizardry. If they're lucky, they'll play a knock like Atherton did against Donald, something with blood & thunder & incredible defiance that'll go down the ages.

As often as it's been said, it's not true, Sobers did not win matches on his own, other people contributed to enable him to turn the match. Players like Kallis & Dravid make it possible for players like Sehwag to exist. They give their outrageous attacking play a safety net. Sri Lanka played it to perfection in the late '90s with Jayasuria & Kalu followed by a trio a ticker-overs in Gurusigna (sp?), Ranatunga & de Silva. It shoved the pressure firmly onto the opposition, if Sanath got out cheaply, those 3 would still ensure that SL got to a decent score, if he came off SL would probably win. Same for Sehwag today, he's suddenly mortal now that Gambir, Tendy, VVS, et al are struggling (not to mention the moving, bouncing ball) The analogy isn't 100% perfect but I think it's fair to say that the lack of a safety net, coupled with a downturn in form/technique, hugely compounds the pressure.

The same is true for SA who despite the lack of trophies, still have an enviable win/loss record. To not attribute a large part of this to Kallis' platform building is doing him a great disservice especially considering the he was often in quite early after a Gibbs brain fade, Smith chop on or both. Sure, we could make the argument that platform building does not make for a good cp strategy. SA have always been a league team who get knocked out by cup specialists, because long term consistency matters not a jot on the day Lara/Tendy/Gilchrist wake up in a glorious mood.

It's clear that Sobers & Kallis are markedly different weapons, Sobers is a sword, an offensive weapon occasionally used to block. Kallis has primarily been a spiked shield, defensive with the occasional bludgeoning/impaling. As a unit, if you flew in all blades & no shields, you'd be hacked down in an instant (there's a slight chance you'd fantastically slaughter the enemy, I think this is called the Pakistan way) or if you trundled in full armour but no cutting edge, you'd eventually get whittled down in a courageous effort (or they'd break your lines and slaughter you epically, as SA have often found)

 

[MrPrez]

AWTA.
One thing though - people often think of Kallis as an ugly grafter, which couldn't be further from the truth! He is a classy batsman who happens to have an incredible defence, one that he ended up using most of the time due to the brittle batsmen around him. I would watch an on-song Kallis over any other batsman in the world.

 

[ankitj]

Loved your spikes and shields analogies, nexxus. Post more often

 

[watson]

Here is an article entitled; 'Is Kallis the Greatest of them all?' by Michael Jey.

Different Strokes | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

For example;

Comparing him to Sobers' Test record, the stats alone make it hard to split them apart. I could not determine Sobers' strike-rate but despite the romantic memories of yesteryear, I wonder if he scored much quicker than in the modern era. He would probably have scored quicker than Kallis' strike-rate of 45, but how much quicker? In terms of hundreds and fifties, Kallis has scored 96 in 150 Tests, at a rate close to 66%. In other words, he makes a score 50 or more in two out of three Tests that he plays in. Sobers has a similar rate, perhaps slightly lower. In 93 Tests, he got to 50 or more on 56 occasions. Not a whole lot separating them here.

On the bowling front, Kallis' strike-rate is significantly higher than Sobers, 68 compared to 91. Kallis is also a shade ahead on average: 32 versus 34. Their catching records are equally impressive, more than one catch per Test. So Kallis loses nothing in comparison on a purely statistical basis.

You could argue that Sobers played in an era when there was a lot less cricket played, therefore opposition teams were a lot fresher. Fair point but that argument works both ways. Sobers himself would have been less fatigued. You could argue that as a batsman, Sobers played in an era before the third umpire replays were in operation, therefore, if umpires honoured the tradition that benefit of the doubt goes to the batsman, he might have escaped the odd close decision that Kallis did not survive. The standard of fielding is generally accepted to be much higher in the modern game but that is probably balanced out by the smaller boundaries and better cricket bats that Kallis has enjoyed. You can reverse those arguments when talking about their bowling records.

A few hundred prawns the wiser, we moved on to more important topics like which one of us had behaved more disgracefully on past cricket tours and which one of us was the worst player among our group of friends. I won the latter category with some ease – there was no need to debate that one for too long. This was not so much about demoting any other cricketers’ achievements but to elevate Kallis to the highest possible plane, to recognise him as one of the very greatest cricketers to have ever played the game. For neutral Australian cricket fans to unequivocally endorse this fact, says it all really. For us, last night, Kallis was indeed king.

 

[Spark]

Think the Sobers being less fatigued isn't that accurate, because he'd have played a lot more FC cricket (which would have been at a far higher standard/level of importance than today)

 

[Prince EWS]

Think the Sobers being less fatigued isn't that accurate, because he'd have played a lot more FC cricket (which would have been at a far higher standard/level of importance than today)

Then so would have his opposition. That's the point - whichever way you look at that issue, it becomes a non-issue because it works both ways.

 

[smash84]

I
It's clear that Sobers & Kallis are markedly different weapons, Sobers is a sword, an offensive weapon occasionally used to block. Kallis has primarily been a spiked shield, defensive with the occasional bludgeoning/impaling. As a unit, if you flew in all blades & no shields, you'd be hacked down in an instant (there's a slight chance you'd fantastically slaughter the enemy, I think this is called the Pakistan way) or if you trundled in full armour but no cutting edge, you'd eventually get whittled down in a courageous effort (or they'd break your lines and slaughter you epically, as SA have often found)

lol.....nice analogy