Rank the world's first class competitions in order

[Richard]

Bond actually averaged 26.22, over the course of 14 Tests against Test-class teams over a period of 8 years. Fraser averaged 27.something over the course of a good few Tests over 10 years. Both missed hundreds of matches with injury and injury-related issues. And not entirely sure what the 1990s\2000s thing is relevant to - it's not as if either played regularly enough to catch the general pattern.

 

[GIMH]

Fraser better then Bond? Yeah and Ian Bell is better then Sachin Tendulkar.

Pietersen is the only world class player to represent England since Botham.

Depends what we're meaning by "world class" here I think. If we mean "all-time great" then maybe (although KP still has work to do on that front), but we've had blokes like Gooch who was the #1 batsman in the world for a year or so in the early 90s and chaps like Robin Smith, Thorpey, Goughy & Stewie who were all genuinely test class performers.

being the best player in the world for a couple of years circa 04-06 would surely lend a player a 'world-class' tag, no?

Guess who I'm talking about

 

[wfdu_ben91]

The same thing doesn't happen in Australia at all - relatively speaking, cricket is far more popular in Australia compared to various football codes than it is in England.

For what it's worth, AFL gets bigger attendence on game average then the EPL, but let's not go down that track.

Bond actually averaged 26.22, over the course of 14 Tests against Test-class teams over a period of 8 years. Fraser averaged 27.something over the course of a good few Tests over 10 years. Both missed hundreds of matches with injury and injury-related issues. And not entirely sure what the 1990s\2000s thing is relevant to - it's not as if either played regularly enough to catch the general pattern.

I thought batting got noticiably easier after October 2001 though? Anyways you just have to watch them both bowl and ask any batsman who'd they'd rather face. Trying to do a stats analysis on Shane Bond in Tests is pointless because it doesn't give any indication of how great he was.

Whenever Bond could get onto the field, his bowling was amongst the best of alltime. Longetivity for bowlers isn't anywhere near as crucial in comparison as it is for batsman, especially in Bond's case, which makes your claim for Angus Fraser being a better bowler - completely absurd.

 

[Richard]

For what it's worth, AFL gets bigger attendence on game average then the EPL, but let's not go down that track.

That's completely irrelevant. In part that's because grounds are bigger, in part it's because matches come with less regularity, in part it's because the league is miles smaller... if you compare total attendances for a season of AFL and a season of English football league (yes, that's right, football league not just the top division - there are actually four divisions, plus others below that which still attract not-inconsiderable crowds) you'll get the picture.

I thought batting got noticiably easier after October 2001 though?

As a general rule, it did. That doesn't mean there was no seam-friendly deck, ever, after September 2001, though - Bond actually played on several, none more notable than the ones against India in 2002/03 which were about as seam-friendly as it's possible for a deck to be.

Anyways you just have to watch them both bowl and ask any batsman who'd they'd rather face. Trying to do a stats analysis on Shane Bond in Tests is pointless because it doesn't give any indication of how great he was.

Whenever Bond could get onto the field, his bowling was amongst the best of alltime. Longetivity for bowlers isn't anywhere near as crucial in comparison as it is for batsman, especially in Bond's case, which makes your claim for Angus Fraser being a better bowler - completely absurd.

No, it doesn't - no bowler can be any good unless he's bowling, same way no batsman can be any good unless he's batting.

The contention that whenever Bond got into the field he potentially offered more than Fraser did has something going for it - plenty, in fact. But the idea that if a Test team was offered a bowler who'd give you Fraser's career and one who'd give you Bond's (which for all its promise only ended-up producing good results on the occasions he played) they'd take the latter is - yes, completely absurd. A bowler who's hardly ever fit to play is no use to anyone.

Asking a batsman who they'd rather face in itself is completely pointless in terms of ascertaining who the better bowler is. If you get the choice between hardly ever facing Bond and facing a decent bit of Fraser most batsmen would tend to take the former, anyway.

 

[andyc]

That's completely irrelevant. In part that's because grounds are bigger, in part it's because matches come with less regularity, in part it's because the league is miles smaller... if you compare total attendances for a season of AFL and a season of English football league (yes, that's right, football league not just the top division - there are actually four divisions, plus others below that which still attract not-inconsiderable crowds) you'll get the picture.

As a general rule, it did. That doesn't mean there was no seam-friendly deck, ever, after September 2001, though - Bond actually played on several, none more notable than the ones against India in 2002/03 which were about as seam-friendly as it's possible for a deck to be.

No, it doesn't - no bowler can be any good unless he's bowling, same way no batsman can be any good unless he's batting.

The contention that whenever Bond got into the field he potentially offered more than Fraser did has something going for it - plenty, in fact. But the idea that if a Test team was offered a bowler who'd give you Fraser's career and one who'd give you Bond's (which for all its promise only ended-up producing good results on the occasions he played) they'd take the latter is - yes, completely absurd. A bowler who's hardly ever fit to play is no use to anyone.

Asking a batsman who they'd rather face in itself is completely pointless in terms of ascertaining who the better bowler is. If you get the choice between hardly ever facing Bond and facing a decent bit of Fraser most batsmen would tend to take the former, anyway.

Think we should try to keep this thread on topic if possible. As it is the whole Bond-Fraser seems to stem from a misunderstanding with your original post; taking Bond over Fraser for a single game is admittedly vastly different from taking the career of Bond over Fraser. Maybe just agree to disagree and get this bad boy back on topic, or at the very worst create another vs. thread to battle it out (pick the first one, pick the first one!).

 

[Flem274*]

That's completely irrelevant. In part that's because grounds are bigger, in part it's because matches come with less regularity, in part it's because the league is miles smaller... if you compare total attendances for a season of AFL and a season of English football league (yes, that's right, football league not just the top division - there are actually four divisions, plus others below that which still attract not-inconsiderable crowds) you'll get the picture.

As a general rule, it did. That doesn't mean there was no seam-friendly deck, ever, after September 2001, though - Bond actually played on several, none more notable than the ones against India in 2002/03 which were about as seam-friendly as it's possible for a deck to be.

No, it doesn't - no bowler can be any good unless he's bowling, same way no batsman can be any good unless he's batting.

The contention that whenever Bond got into the field he potentially offered more than Fraser did has something going for it - plenty, in fact. But the idea that if a Test team was offered a bowler who'd give you Fraser's career and one who'd give you Bond's (which for all its promise only ended-up producing good results on the occasions he played) they'd take the latter is - yes, completely absurd. A bowler who's hardly ever fit to play is no use to anyone.

Asking a batsman who they'd rather face in itself is completely pointless in terms of ascertaining who the better bowler is. If you get the choice between hardly ever facing Bond and facing a decent bit of Fraser most batsmen would tend to take the former, anyway.

I'd take Bond as an ODI specialist alone.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

That's completely irrelevant. In part that's because grounds are bigger, in part it's because matches come with less regularity, in part it's because the league is miles smaller... if you compare total attendances for a season of AFL and a season of English football league (yes, that's right, football league not just the top division - there are actually four divisions, plus others below that which still attract not-inconsiderable crowds) you'll get the picture.

Grounds are bigger, but England's population is 3 times the size of ours. The area of Australia is also bigger, which makes it more difficult for opposition supporters to travel to away games.

No, it doesn't - no bowler can be any good unless he's bowling, same way no batsman can be any good unless he's batting.

The contention that whenever Bond got into the field he potentially offered more than Fraser did has something going for it - plenty, in fact. But the idea that if a Test team was offered a bowler who'd give you Fraser's career and one who'd give you Bond's (which for all its promise only ended-up producing good results on the occasions he played) they'd take the latter is - yes, completely absurd. A bowler who's hardly ever fit to play is no use to anyone.

Asking a batsman who they'd rather face in itself is completely pointless in terms of ascertaining who the better bowler is. If you get the choice between hardly ever facing Bond and facing a decent bit of Fraser most batsmen would tend to take the former, anyway.

No, it's about who was the better bowler whenever they got onto the park. If you're choosing a team for a series, anyone in the right mind would instantly pick Bond over Fraser without giving it a second look. The fact that Bond was injured allot doesn't take away the fact of how good of a bowler he is/was.

Sure if you're comparing Bond to Ambrose, Wasim, Donald, etc, then it is no comparison because he was probably as good as him when he got on the field, but he didn't play anywhere near as many matches to register as an alltime great. However, that doesn't mean that lesser bowlers like Angus Fraser are better then Bond, because realistically Fraser was never anywhere good enough to reach the heights that Bond did in his injury-plagued International career.

 

[Richard]

Think we should try to keep this thread on topic if possible. As it is the whole Bond-Fraser seems to stem from a misunderstanding with your original post; taking Bond over Fraser for a single game is admittedly vastly different from taking the career of Bond over Fraser. Maybe just agree to disagree and get this bad boy back on topic, or at the very worst create another vs. thread to battle it out (pick the first one, pick the first one!).

I'm not sure there's any more discussion to be had as to ranking the game's top competitions and I think if we agree to disagree then this thread will just stop now TBH. It's not really a case of misunderstanding of the point I was making, more a misunderstanding of the fact that no cricketer is any use if he's not able to play.

 

[Richard]

Grounds are bigger, but England's population is 3 times the size of ours.

Indeed it is - but both populations are easily big enough to fill a large ground. The fact that a capacity-100,000 ground gets bigger crowds than a capacity-60,000 one when full-houses are the norm is hardly surprising.

The area of Australia is also bigger, which makes it more difficult for opposition supporters to travel to away games.

That really doesn't matter. Football in England is more popular than cricket to a much greater extent than AFL in Australia is more popular than cricket.

No, it's about who was the better bowler whenever they got onto the park. If you're choosing a team for a series, anyone in the right mind would instantly pick Bond over Fraser without giving it a second look.

If you could guarantee fitness, maybe (and also maybe not), but you can do no such thing. If you had the choice of Fraser to play five Tests and Bond to miss five and be replaced by Chris Martin or Andrew Penn, I don't think there'd be many choosing the latter.

 

[Flem274*]

Indeed it is - but both populations are easily big enough to fill a large ground. The fact that a capacity-100,000 ground gets bigger crowds than a capacity-60,000 one when full-houses are the norm is hardly surprising.

That really doesn't matter. Football in England is more popular than cricket to a much greater extent than AFL in Australia is more popular than cricket.

If you could guarantee fitness, maybe (and also maybe not), but you can do no such thing. If you had the choice of Fraser to play five Tests and Bond to miss five and be replaced by Chris Martin or Andrew Penn, I don't think there'd be many choosing the latter.

You just compared Chris Martin to Andrew Penn?

Not even I'm that harsh on him.

 

[Furball]

The same thing doesn't happen in Australia at all - relatively speaking, cricket is far more popular in Australia compared to various football codes than it is in England.

No it's not, it's just that cricket is popular nationally whereas each code of football/rugby is more regional in its popularity.

The equivelant in England would be cricket being the 2nd most popular sport everywhere, rugby league being the predominant sport in the north, football in the midlands and Union in the south.

 

[Richard]

You just compared Chris Martin to Andrew Penn?

Not even I'm that harsh on him.

I did nothing of the sort - I picked two random names of Kiwi seamers short of any particularly outstanding class (yes one's far closer to it than the other) whose careers overlapped to some extent with Shane Bond's.

 

[Richard]

No it's not, it's just that cricket is popular nationally whereas each code of football/rugby is more regional in its popularity.

The equivelant in England would be cricket being the 2nd most popular sport everywhere, rugby league being the predominant sport in the north, football in the midlands and Union in the south.

I realise that - and it's precisely the point that I'm making. Cricket is nothing of the sort in the UK - in more places than not, it comes down below football and several other sports (union, league, tennis, golf, track-and-field, heck even squash is more popular in some parts). Only in relatively few of the UK's regions could cricket be said to be the 2nd-most-popular sport around.

 

[Furball]

I realise that - and it's precisely the point that I'm making. Cricket is nothing of the sort in the UK - in more places than not, it comes down below football and several other sports (union, league, tennis, golf, track-and-field, heck even squash is more popular in some parts). Only in relatively few of the UK's regions could cricket be said to be the 2nd-most-popular sport around.

Defends how you define popularity.

The biggest sport in Scotland is undeniably football, the biggest stadium is the national rugby stadium in Edinburgh. Yet in terms of participation, cricket is Scotland's 2nd sport.

 

[GIMH]

I realise that - and it's precisely the point that I'm making. Cricket is nothing of the sort in the UK - in more places than not, it comes down below football and several other sports (union, league, tennis, golf, track-and-field, heck even squash is more popular in some parts). Only in relatively few of the UK's regions could cricket be said to be the 2nd-most-popular sport around.

Squash? srs?

 

[Jarquis]

Squash? srs?

There are probably about 6 times as many people in the local squash league than players for my local cricket club.
Obviously that's only one town but all across the local region interest in cricket is abysmally low.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, squash is certainly more popular than cricket in much of the south-west; don't imagine it's the same elsewhere (certainly hope it's not!!!!).

"srs"?

 

[Richard]

Defends how you define popularity.

The biggest sport in Scotland is undeniably football, the biggest stadium is the national rugby stadium in Edinburgh. Yet in terms of participation, cricket is Scotland's 2nd sport.

I guess for much of this thread I've been talking about participation (certainly that's the significant matter in terms of how many domestic A-List sides are required), but really, a more accurate measure of "how the game's going" as it were, is viewing.

 

[GIMH]

There are probably about 6 times as many people in the local squash league than players for my local cricket club.
Obviously that's only one town but all across the local region interest in cricket is abysmally low.

Yeah, squash is certainly more popular than cricket in much of the south-west; don't imagine it's the same elsewhere (certainly hope it's not!!!!).

"srs"?

Fair enough. Craaaaaaaaaaazy

srs=serious

 

[slugger]

I realise that - and it's precisely the point that I'm making. Cricket is nothing of the sort in the UK - in more places than not, it comes down below football and several other sports (union, league, tennis, golf, track-and-field, heck even squash is more popular in some parts). Only in relatively few of the UK's regions could cricket be said to be the 2nd-most-popular sport around.

if thats a true reflection of where cricket stands throughout the UK in some places as high as football and in other parts struggles to compete against squash. then it would seem to me be a better vehicle if the county teams where reduced down fron 18. to nearlly half, why spread quailty thin.