Sehwag, an all-time Indian great?

[Ikki]

You make it seem like Sehwag could easily walk into an Indian all time XI, when you couldn't be farther from the truth. He'd struggle to make the second XI itbt.

He has more than a suitable case for being in the first XI, let alone the 2nd. And would you care to name the batsmen in the 2nd XI who would still keep him out? Again, not trying to be harsh but India's all-time selection of batsmen is not vast enough to keep Sehwag out.

 

[Uppercut]

Sehwag is, IMO, the best aggressive batsman to watch in the past ten years by some distance. He doesn't slash at everything like a Jayasuriya or Gayle, he simply has every shot in the book and several more. There is literally nowhere you can bowl to him that he can't hit for a boundary. In my opinion he's an all-time great simply for the memories he's given me of his incredible quickfire big scores. But it's highly subjective, i'm not going to bother arguing with anyone who feels otherwise.

 

[SJS]

Sehwag is, IMO, the best aggressive batsman to watch in the past ten years by some distance. He doesn't slash at everything like a Jayasuriya or Gayle, he simply has every shot in the book and several more. There is literally nowhere you can bowl to him that he can't hit for a boundary. In my opinion he's an all-time great simply for the memories he's given me of his incredible quickfire big scores. But it's highly subjective, i'm not going to bother arguing with anyone who feels otherwise.

fair enough.

 

[SJS]

By the way, Sehwag also heads India's bowling averages in 2008 with ten wickets

• at 21.4 each and
• a strike rate of 47.3 and
• an economy rate of 2.73.

All three figures are the best in the team.

 

[silentstriker]

Classic case of statistics deceiving, in both his overall record and his current bowling stats.

 

[Sanz]

You make it seem like Sehwag could easily walk into an Indian all time XI, when you couldn't be farther from the truth. He'd struggle to make the second XI itbt.

Even if he could, it is no big achievement walking into an all time Indian XI as an opener.

Not a knock on Sehwag as a batsman though, I am a great fan but he has a while to go before his name can be written along side the likes of Gavaskar, Kapil, Kumble, Sachin, Dravid etc.

 

[SJS]

Classic case of statistics deceiving, in both his overall record and his current bowling stats.

Current bowling stats is okay because he has bowled so little it cant be taken to mean much but to talk of his batting stats over 59 Tests and 5000 plus runs is to display gross bias.

I would have expected a more measured response from you SS. Disappointed my friend.

 

[SJS]

The problem is that only one of them opens and for a team we need two openers.

No one is putting Sehwag in the same category as these 'great' players but he makes a better choice than the alternatives.

Merchant is the only really 'great' name for that spot and I have explained in detail why Sehwag might , just might, be prefered. All others like Siddhu, Chetan Chauhan, Srikkabth or any other names one can propose for India openers do not stand competition to Sehwag.

Its not just about how 'great' Sehwag is but also about the paucity of 'great' opening batsmen in India over the last 76 years of Test cricket.

One needs to stop being emotional about opposition to Sehwag and think who can be an opener in his place alongwith Gavaskar in an all India side. Other than Merchant, no name comes to mind besides Sehwag. So at worst he is one of the three best Test openers from India in the history of Indian Test cricket. I think everyone including Sehwag can live with that

To try to do more either way, without any qualification is just bias or sentimentality - neither stands the test of objectivity.

 

[Sanz]

The problem is that only one of them opens and for a team we need two openers.

No one is putting Sehwag in the same category as these 'great' players but he makes a better choice than the alternatives.

The question asked in the first thread was :-

IS Sehwag an all-time Indian great, along with Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid? Discuss

The answer (IMO) is - NO.

If you believe otherwise, fine.

It has nothing to do with being biased or anything. I love Sehwag, the test batsman. Wasn't even sure why he was dropped from tests.

 

[SJS]

The question asked in the first thread was :-



The answer (IMO) is - NO.

If you believe otherwise, fine.

It has nothing to do with being biased or anything. I love Sehwag, the test batsman. Wasn't even sure why he was dropped from tests.

I agree completely. Sorry I misunderstood.

I have already said the word 'great' is much abused.

 

[Richard]

This "poor catching" stuff, is bizarre, I thought it was worse in other decades, tbh. Fieldings improved in all ways, imho.

Nope, wrong. Catching standards have dropped dramatically in recent times, even Richie Benaud thinks that. I'd imagine many others would do too, if the matter came up in question.

In any case, there are always players who'll have far more fortune than others. Sehwag is one.

But then again, you basically refuse to accept that dropped catches even happen when assessing batsmen, so there's little point trying to detail these things.

I'm surprised that there seem to be some who are keen to play down his extraordinary achievements. As has been explained elsewhere, it's ridiculous to claim that Sehwag's consistent success over an extended period can be put down to "luck" as opposed to ability.

See, no-one puts his success down exclusively to luck. Sehwag has had far more good fortune than most players, but he's still played plenty of fine innings and is still a good batsman - even as an opener.

I don't believe he'd be much cop as an opener against good seam-bowling on helpful surfaces and good catching, and on the tiny number of occasions he's faced such a thing he's come-up woefully short.

But he has played plenty of good innings, and even his first-chance average as an opener I'd imagine would be about 40, which is far from poor at all.

However, Sehwag's achievements aren't "extraordinary" IMO, not at all. Though some of his innings have been. Like Vivian Richards, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and a few others, his best innings' really are beyond the pale of what near enough anyone else ever to pick-up a bat would be capable of.

 

[Cricket_God]

Nope, wrong. Catching standards have dropped dramatically in recent times, even Richie Benaud thinks that. I'd imagine many others would do too, if the matter came up in question.

In any case, there are always players who'll have far more fortune than others. Sehwag is one.

But then again, you basically refuse to accept that dropped catches even happen when assessing batsmen, so there's little point trying to detail these things.

See, no-one puts his success down exclusively to luck. Sehwag has had far more good fortune than most players, but he's still played plenty of fine innings and is still a good batsman - even as an opener.

I don't believe he'd be much cop as an opener against good seam-bowling on helpful surfaces and good catching, and on the tiny number of occasions he's faced such a thing he's come-up woefully short.

But he has played plenty of good innings, and even his first-chance average as an opener I'd imagine would be about 40, which is far from poor at all.

However, Sehwag's achievements aren't "extraordinary" IMO, not at all. Though some of his innings have been. Like Vivian Richards, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and a few others, his best innings' really are beyond the pale of what near enough anyone else ever to pick-up a bat would be capable of.

What a joke

A Guy who averages above 53 and has got hundreds in south africa,australia,england
its will be a insult if i even reply to any of your posts or you write anything more not to shewag but to yourself and your brains.

he may not be a great yet but will surely be oneday,his main strength is his mind and few cricketers have that ability to just play the game as a game.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

What a joke

A Guy who averages above 53 and has got hundreds in south africa,australia,england
it will be a disgrace if i even reply to your posts

I think the horse might have bolted there old son.

 

[grecian]

What a joke

A Guy who averages above 53 and has got hundreds in south africa,australia,england
its will be a insult if i even reply to any of your posts or you write anything more not to shewag but to yourself and your brains.

he may not be a great yet but will surely be oneday,his main strength is his mind and few cricketers have that ability to just play the game as a game.

Yes, I'd rather you didn't quote him, please.

He seems to want to get in another argument about F_C_A, which I have no interest in. He knows my view that over a long time, luck does even up. Yet he wishes to obfuscate that fact in gobbledy-gook, and I just wish he wouldn't reply to me, TBH. I've asked him not to, yet he can't have one of his truths argued with.

It's just my opinion that fielding standards haven't changed, or that luck evens out. I don't claim MY opinion to be inviolate. Both things can not be proven in stats. Yet I've read every one of Richards opinions hundreds of times. I disagree with them, so I have no wish to carry on talking to someone who believes he wins the arguments when you give up in disgust.

I have asked people not to quote his replies to me, as I'm very weak and susceptible to trolling. Thankyou.

 

[zaremba]

Catching standards have dropped dramatically in recent times

What's your evidence for this? You've told us that you've watched cricket seriously since only 1998 so I imagine that you're relying on commentators or authors for this information. In my time of watching cricket (which is a little longer) I've not noticed the "dramatic drop" in catching standards that you have announced. If you have evidence in support of your claim, then let us know what it is - I would (genuinely) be interested.

Sehwag's achievements aren't "extraordinary" IMO, not at all. Though some of his innings have been.

1. His innings are among his achievements!
2. He averages over 53 in Test cricket.
3. In Test matches where he has opened his average is nearly 55.
4. His conversion rate of 50s to 100s is over 50%.

5. Take one example of a memorable innings/achievement - he carried his bat while scoring 201no (out of 329) v Murali and Mendis, an innings which ultimately helped his team to win the 2nd Test. And it's not as though the other batsmen dropping like flies around him in that innings were idiots or novices.

Those are extraordinary achievements.

 

[Richard]

What a joke

A Guy who averages above 53 and has got hundreds in south africa,australia,england

Well done on mentioning something not of the slightest significance to anything I said in that post at all.

 

[Richard]

What's your evidence for this? You've told us that you've watched cricket seriously since only 1998 so I imagine that you're relying on commentators or authors for this information. In my time of watching cricket (which is a little longer) I've not noticed the "dramatic drop" in catching standards that you have announced. If you have evidence in support of your claim, then let us know what it is - I would (genuinely) be interested.

As I say - I've read plenty, and dropped catches do seem to me to have increased. This is evident even in the time I've been watching. Even when I wasn't watching terribly seriously I still noticed when someone dropped a catch. I can't really put an exact time on it, but there are certainly more catches going down in recent times than there were when I started taking notice of the game. And I do tend to take more assidious notice of it than some people. For most, dropped catches are just another part of the game - for me, they're things that stand out way above almost anything else.

As I say - I recall Richie Benaud saying a few years ago that he thought catching standards had dropped even despite ground-fielding standards raising immeasurably in recent years. And the fact that dropped catches have been so common recently, having been apparently less so in times I don't remember and certainly less so in some earlier times I do, suggests that wasn't an unreasonable comment.

1. His innings are among his achievements!
2. He averages over 53 in Test cricket.
3. In Test matches where he has opened his average is nearly 55.
4. His conversion rate of 50s to 100s is over 50%.

5. Take one example of a memorable innings/achievement - he carried his bat while scoring over 201no (out of 329) v Murali and Mendis, an innings which ultimately helped his team to win the 2nd Test. And it's not as though the other batsmen dropping like flies around him in that innings were idiots or novices.

Those are extraordinary achievements. However some people can't let facts stand in the way of a nice comfortable prejudice.

I don't do prejudice. It's utterly pointless. I don't make-up my mind on players then search for facts to back-up such ideas.

Sehwag has achieved several very fine innings'. However, his scorebook average flatters him greatly. That's all I put it as. "His achievements" is something I generally read as an average or something cumulative.

 

[Napier16]

What a joke

A Guy who averages above 53 and has got hundreds in south africa,australia,england
its will be a insult if i even reply to any of your posts or you write anything more not to shewag but to yourself and your brains.

he may not be a great yet but will surely be oneday,his main strength is his mind and few cricketers have that ability to just play the game as a game.

Don't bother.

Richard will claim Ramps & Hick > Sehwag as a test player, so what's the point?

 

[Napier16]

As I say - I've read plenty, and dropped catches do seem to me to have increased. This is evident even in the time I've been watching. Even when I wasn't watching terribly seriously I still noticed when someone dropped a catch. I can't really put an exact time on it, but there are certainly more catches going down in recent times than there were when I started taking notice of the game. And I do tend to take more assidious notice of it than some people. For most, dropped catches are just another part of the game - for me, they're things that stand out way above almost anything else.

As I say - I recall Richie Benaud saying a few years ago that he thought catching standards had dropped even despite ground-fielding standards raising immeasurably in recent years. And the fact that dropped catches have been so common recently, having been apparently less so in times I don't remember and certainly less so in some earlier times I do, suggests that wasn't an unreasonable comment.

I don't do prejudice. It's utterly pointless. I don't make-up my mind on players then search for facts to back-up such ideas.

Sehwag has achieved several very fine innings'. However, his scorebook average flatters him greatly. That's all I put it as. "His achievements" is something I generally read as an average or something cumulative.

Drops from teams such as Pakistan, Windies have increased...but not really England or Aus.

 

[Richard]

Yes, I'd rather you didn't quote him, please.

He seems to want to get in another argument about F_C_A, which I have no interest in. He knows my view that over a long time, luck does even up. Yet he wishes to obfuscate that fact in gobbledy-gook, and I just wish he wouldn't reply to me, TBH. I've asked him not to, yet he can't have one of his truths argued with.

This is a public message board. If I think a post is inaccurate, I'll reply to it. I couldn't give a stuff about who ignores me, ignore-lists, when used on anything other than rank cretins, are mostly (not exclusively) used by poor-quality posters.

The idea that luck evens-up is wrong and purely something for those idealistic of mind, or who've never given the matter serious thought, so I'll state such a thing. I have no wish to get into any arguments about first-chance averages, merely to try to make as many people as possible see the, yes, truths of the matter.

I have asked people not to quote his replies to me, as I'm very weak and susceptible to trolling. Thankyou.

You're also not very informed about cricket, IMO.