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Test Top 5s (as of now)

Shri

Mr. Glass
yeah he's started getting really consistent, and I love him, but i still never feel that confident when he's at the crease. he looks like getting out a lot to me just because of his 'ugly' style.

but yeah as i say this i realise his results are too damn good to ignore. still think he's the most likely to 'fall off' in his late 20s/early 30s and not make the 35+ hundreds we expect all 4 to make. cant really justify this thought other than gambhiring/ugly technique. hope im wrong too
Chanderpaul made an ugly technique work for him well into his mid 30s.
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
see i have all the confidence in the world Kohli will come back with a bang in the next test series he plays in. he seems too damn hungry and his technique just looks so damn classy.

it didnt even seem like his confidence took any kind of dent that series against us. body language remained so positive in the field and stuff
 
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mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Chanderpaul made an ugly technique work for him well into his mid 30s.

yeah i know. its def possible but i have less confidence for him thats all. anyway, its a little sad shiv is considered so much lower on the totem pole than his peers despite being statistically right up there with them
 

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
still think there's nothing separating the big four.
see i have all the confidence in the world Kohli will come back with a bang in the next test series he plays in.
This will totally be something that comes back to bite me in the ass, but I think we've got enough data now to say that Kohli is a tiny smidgeon below the other three. Smith, Root and Williamson, then Kohli just a tiny tier below them.
 

srbhkshk

International Captain
see i have all the confidence in the world Kohli will come back with a bang in the next test series he plays in. he seems too damn hungry and his technique just looks so damn classy.

it didnt even seem like his confidence took any kind of dent that series against us. body language remained so positive in the field and stuff
imo, unlike the other three Kohli's favorite format is ODIs, so he might not reach the level of the other three even if he has the quality for it.
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
i had the same opinion as you guys before Kohli starting hitting double tons for fun. Was it 4 in less than a year? That made me realise Virat is the real deal

And while his flop of a series against us should have swayed me back to the opinion you guys share, it hasnt. its a little up in the air now i guess
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
just checked on cricinfoand yep, 4 series in a row he got a double ton. in less than 12 months.

that's some damn good stuff. didnt think he'd crash as hard as he did against us but he couldnt maintain that level of quality forever. he'll be back
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
for what's it worth, Bradman never hit double tons in 4 series in a row. I don't think anyone ever has except for Kohli but my search has started and ended with Bradman.

Bodyline was a big help there for my case but alas, it still says something about Kohli as a test bat doesn't it.
 
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Groundking

International Debutant
just checked on cricinfoand yep, 4 series in a row he got a double ton. in less than 12 months.

that's some damn good stuff. didnt think he'd crash as hard as he did against us but he couldnt maintain that level of quality forever. he'll be back
Or it was just an outrageous purple patch, as evey other year so far bar 2013 where he scored 616 runs @ 56 he's scored runs in the mid 40's, it's only 2016 he did significantly better than that.
 

MW1304

Cricketer Of The Year
The same Broad who, over the same time period since the start of 2014, has an almost 3 run worse average, a worse strike rate, fewer 5 fors, no 10 fors (Jimmy has 1) and a worse best match?
Jimmy is significantly better than Broad at the minute and has been his whole career, particularily over the past 3.5 years.
Well thanks for the bare stats but, as I said before, Jimmy has definitely had the better career. I wouldn't necessarily go as far back as 3 and a half years ago when considering who is better right now - certainly not in raw stats.

Jimmy pretty much wrecks every home season, where Broad often does well overall with maybe one magic spell. But I'd hazard a guess that Broad's away stats in recent years are far more consistent, and I think that's too important when considering them as players. I doubt Broad has had a bad away series since...actually I really don't know. He did decently in India, where Jimmy struggled a bit, admittedly coming back from injury. He was great against Bangladesh; great against South Africa; pretty good in the UAE (where to be fair Jimmy was awesome); probably going too far back now but he was the best thing about the 5-0 in Australia. I trust him to stay fit more these days, would consider him more destructive on his day, and would bank on him to perform better away from home.

Jimmy is my favourite bowler, but as of this current moment I think Broad is marginally better and it shouldn't be controversial to think that.
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
but it shows what he's capable of. it was him finally finding himself as a test bat (or maybe that was his 4 tons in one series against us down under)

anyway i think the tools are there.
 

OverratedSanity

Request Your Custom Title Now!
In the beginning of last year I felt Kohli needed to have an insane run over the next 2 years or so to reach that next level and he was in the middle of doing just that when he had that stinker against Australia. Don't know what to make of him. He's had some ridiculous series where he piles it on (2014 Australia and 2016 England) but he's had two absolutely woeful series now against those same teams. The other 3 just haven't had any series as bad.
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
surely Smith and Root had some stinkers at the start of the career.

And Kohli only had 5 innings in that stinker series. I know that's enough to say it sucked but say he had 8-9(like Smith or Root would get in an Ashes) then he might have finally knocked off some much needed 100 and we'd all say his series wasn't that bad after all, like Smith's face saving ton against SL in SL when we as a country batted like crap the whole series basically sans one partnership
 
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OverratedSanity

Request Your Custom Title Now!
surely Smith and Root had some stinkers at the start of the career.

And Kohli only had 5 innings in that stinker series. I know that's enough to say it sucked but say he had 8-9(like Smith or Root would get in an Ashes) then he might have finally knocked off some much needed 100 and we'd all say his series wasn't that bad at all, like Smith's face saving ton against SL in SL
I'm not counting early career stinkers. Kohli had one in the Windies in 2011.

But extremely poor series in the middle of what should be your prime are concerning. Others in the big 4 haven't had one.
 

mr_mister

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Sure, fair point and all. But Smith was def one false shot away early in his face saving ton from having a horror series against tiny little Sri Lanka


basically, a better point for me to make is nobody should be judged on one bad series
 

Gob

International Coach
Sure, fair point and all. But Smith was def one false shot away early in his face saving ton from having a horror series against tiny little Sri Lanka


basically, a better point for me to make is nobody should be judged on one bad series
Which he didn't just like my aunt has no balls for me to call her my uncle. The mare fact that you have to conjure up hypothetical series failures to downgrade him proves that Smith is ahead of the rest.

Both Root and Williamson had poor serieses but neither had absolute stinkers like Virat and that that coupled with the fact that he has the worst stats does make him the worst out of the big four
 

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