FaaipDeOiad
Hall of Fame Member
I've made this argument on CW before, but it's ridiculous to sit there and say "Slater played in an era with more good bowlers, thus he made his runs against better players and is better than Hayden". That's not the way cricket works.
Slater scored 14 test centuries, and 7 of them were against England, who were fairly average throughout the 90s. Gough and Caddick were good bowlers but certainly not great, and no better than most of those Hayden has faced. He scored three centuries against Pakistan when they included Wasim. One of those was in Wasim's final tour of Australia in a side which included Gilchrist, Langer and other players accused of inflating their averages against weak bowling, and one of them was in Pakistan on a road on which two teams scored over 500. The other one is one of his best knocks, and was against Wasim, Saqlain, Azhar Mahmood, Mushtaq Ahmed and part-timers. A handy attack, but certainly not great.
Two of the other four are against New Zealand... not the best attack of the 90s, and one is against Sri Lanka circa 1995. The other one was against Walsh and Ambrose in a very low scoring match, and is probably his best test century. Still wasn't against them at their peak though (1999), and that's only one out of 14.
That's not to say that Slater was a poor batsman or had bad averages against South Africa, Pakistan or the West Indies during the 90s, because he didn't, but I don't know who these great bowlers he supposedly smashed around were, according to the cricinfo roundtable. Just like every other good batsman in every era, he worked his way through against the best bowlers of his era and occasionally made runs, struggled on the toughest wickets and usually failed on them, and against the weak bowlers and on the flat pitches he cashed in and made runs while they were easier to make. The only reason people have a go at current players about it is because there's a general higher number of flat wickets and average attacks currently, and because people remember the easy innings more clearly.
Slater scored 14 test centuries, and 7 of them were against England, who were fairly average throughout the 90s. Gough and Caddick were good bowlers but certainly not great, and no better than most of those Hayden has faced. He scored three centuries against Pakistan when they included Wasim. One of those was in Wasim's final tour of Australia in a side which included Gilchrist, Langer and other players accused of inflating their averages against weak bowling, and one of them was in Pakistan on a road on which two teams scored over 500. The other one is one of his best knocks, and was against Wasim, Saqlain, Azhar Mahmood, Mushtaq Ahmed and part-timers. A handy attack, but certainly not great.
Two of the other four are against New Zealand... not the best attack of the 90s, and one is against Sri Lanka circa 1995. The other one was against Walsh and Ambrose in a very low scoring match, and is probably his best test century. Still wasn't against them at their peak though (1999), and that's only one out of 14.
That's not to say that Slater was a poor batsman or had bad averages against South Africa, Pakistan or the West Indies during the 90s, because he didn't, but I don't know who these great bowlers he supposedly smashed around were, according to the cricinfo roundtable. Just like every other good batsman in every era, he worked his way through against the best bowlers of his era and occasionally made runs, struggled on the toughest wickets and usually failed on them, and against the weak bowlers and on the flat pitches he cashed in and made runs while they were easier to make. The only reason people have a go at current players about it is because there's a general higher number of flat wickets and average attacks currently, and because people remember the easy innings more clearly.