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(Stats Video) Most days spent as #1 Batsman & Bowler in Test Cricket

TheJediBrah

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Wonder if the tail-end wickets factor could be decisive. Maybe also why Starc not having as high a rating.
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
Akram was the bowling equivalent of a Mark Waugh (ok, that is harsh, but you get the point...). Looks a lot better than what he actually did. Not that he was not a match winner but when comparing to the best of the best, he just seemed to somehow not take that final step of winning the game single handedly etc etc. Of course, a majority of the 90s he also had other great bowlers around him but I think you will see that his performances do not even rank him consistently higher than how someone like Holding did, for example, in his heyday when he had similar great bowlers around him.

Of course, I will always pick him in my ATG XI simply because I love the left arm variety and I think his bowling skill set (as well as his ability with the bat) is a point of difference when considering an actual XI to play on the park.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
Akram's performance was very consistent over long periods. A Sachin Tendulkar with the ball. It explains why there is lack of peaks. If you look carefully, you'd find he had far lesser troughs as well.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
Career average in the same range as other ATGs would certainly mean if he didn't have major peaks he also will not have big troughs.
 

cricketsavant

U19 12th Man
The ICC rankings are purely statistically based and make no allowance for opinions and common consensus. Akram's failure to reach #1 on the rankings is a reflection of the fact that his stats (relatively low wickets per match, high proportion of tail end wickets, relatively few match winning performances etc) do not match his reputation, rather than any flaw in the system. Irrespective of how highly Akram may have been rated by his opponents, journalists and the general public, there was no sustained period of time in which he was statistically the world's best Test bowler.

Having said this, Akram isn't even in the top 75 bowlers ever according to the ICC rankings, which does seem an excessively low ranking, especially when you consider some of the people ahead of him such as Bert Ironmonger, Geoff Lawson and Ken Higgs.

The more I read our posts, the more I wonder if you live in a warped reality. Excuse me if I do not take them seriously
 

a massive zebra

International Captain
The more I read our posts, the more I wonder if you live in a warped reality. Excuse me if I do not take them seriously
You simply don't have an argument. Do you claim the ICC ratings are not statistically based, in direct opposition to the claims, explanations and background context given by the very people who created and manage the ratings? If you accept they are a statistical exercise, you haven't provided one shread of evidence to counter my contention that Wasim was not statistically the best Test bowler in the world for any material period of time at any point in his career.

I never claimed that Wasim was not rated extremely highly by contemporaries, the press and the general public. The point is, someone who was clearly not statistically the best player should not be ranked first in a credible statistical ranking system, irrespective of the subjective, commonly held views of the community as a whole.

Nice talking to the individual with the least appropriate username ever.
 
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stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Wasim Akram was pretty awesome but had a huge amount of overlap with some of the greatest quicks in history. Coming in behind Ambrose for the majority of the 90s is in no way bad. Ambrose is one of the best quicks in history.
 

trundler

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Wasim Akram was pretty awesome but had a huge amount of overlap with some of the greatest quicks in history. Coming in behind Ambrose for the majority of the 90s is in no way bad. Ambrose is one of the best quicks in history.
Has any country filled a bigger hole left by an ATG so swiftly? WI were so lucky to have Ambrose step up when Macko retired. That 88 tour must've been painful as an English fan.
 

_00_deathscar

International Regular
Has any country filled a bigger hole left by an ATG so swiftly? WI were so lucky to have Ambrose step up when Macko retired. That 88 tour must've been painful as an English fan.
India with Sachin/Kohli but for ODIs. Tests too but took him a bit longer there.
 

h_hurricane

International Vice-Captain
It has to be WI ATGs. Sobers arrived on the scene in 1954 and started his ATG phase around 1958. After he retired in 1974, Richards promptly arrived, retired in 1991. Lara debuted a year earlier and carried on until 2007. That is 50 years of awesomeness for batsmen at that level..
 

a massive zebra

International Captain
It has to be WI ATGs. Sobers arrived on the scene in 1954 and started his ATG phase around 1958. After he retired in 1974, Richards promptly arrived, retired in 1991. Lara debuted a year earlier and carried on until 2007. That is 50 years of awesomeness for batsmen at that level..
Arguably you could take the run of WI ATG batsmen even further back, with Headley in the 1930s and Weekes and/or Walcott in the late 1940s and 1950s.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
Diluting it now. Leave it at Headley > Sobers > Richards > Lara for true awesomeness.

England in first half of 20th century had Hobbs > Hammond > Hutton coming back to back with some overlap too.
 

ataraxia

International Coach
Diluting it now. Leave it at Headley > Sobers > Richards > Lara for true awesomeness.

England in first half of 20th century had Hobbs > Hammond > Hutton coming back to back with some overlap too.
The real cool thing about this is that:

Headley's test career was from 1930 to 1954.
Sobers' was from 1954 to 1974.
Richards' was from 1974 to 1991.
Lara's was from December 1990 (oh... c'mon) to 2006.
 

pardus

School Boy/Girl Captain
I recall one particular poll on CW sometime back regarding the best West Indian batsman ever. It had a fair bit of participation and ended up unbelievably as a 4-way tie (at least until the time I followed the thread). It was absolutely incredible. At the time many wondered - could any other cricketing country have produced a 4-way tie for such a poll. Those tiny islands (excluding Guyana) with their tiny populations produced an insane amount of cricketing talent from 1930s to 1990s
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I recall one particular poll on CW sometime back regarding the best West Indian batsman ever. It had a fair bit of participation and ended up unbelievably as a 4-way tie (at least until the time I followed the thread). It was absolutely incredible. At the time many wondered - could any other cricketing country have produced a 4-way tie for such a poll. Those tiny islands (excluding Guyana) with their tiny populations produced an insane amount of cricketing talent from 1930s to 1990s
The talent is still there, it's the discipline and the money that's lacking.
 

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