The Greatest Innings Ever Played

[gwo]

Geoff Boycott never even made 154* in a Test Match.

RARrrr

too many numbers

Goochy my friend is the intended name

 

[fredfertang]

hmmmm - I may have slightly misexplained it - Mr Jonkers calculated 66.3 for Gooch and these others

Botham 149* Headingley 1981 65.4
Bradman 334 Headingley 1930 64.1
Jessop 104 The Oval 1902 62.9
Trumper 74 Melbourne 1903/04 61.2
Nourse 231 Jo'burg 1935/36 60.3
Sinclair 104 Cape Town 1902/03 60.1
Foster 287 Sydney 1903/04 58.9
Trumper 185 Sydney 1903/04 58.7
Amiss 262 Kingston 1973/74 58.6

He didn't claim to have done any others so wasn't intended to be a definitive list even when he did it (1992)

 

[Richard]

I was thinking this thread had gotten a high amount of posts quickly,now I know why.

Ind33d. Always the same.

Richard, regarding the underlined part of your quote. Have you never see a batsman get clean bowled from a play and miss?

By "play-and-miss" I was clearly meaning "play-and-miss to a ball not on line to hit the stumps".

 

[Richard]

Your logic continues to escape me.

The chronology of when the batsman gets his slice of luck ("the batsman's sector of cricket" - honestly!) is irrelevant. Yes the batsman has some chance of influencing whether or not he gets an edge when the ball is approaching his bat. But when he plays-and-misses, that's a complete failure by the batsman in "his sector of cricket". His survival is not attributable to any skill of his own. In fact it generally shows a lower level of skill than the batsman who manages to get an edge and is then dropped. Bear in mind that what both batsmen are trying to do is to hit the ball with the middle of the bat.

I'm aware of that. There are, unavoidably, deliveries where the batsman survives despite being beaten all-ends-up by the bowler or despite making an error of large proportions to miss \ hit in the air a ball that should be dealt with easily. This happens in every innings. It's not realistic to expect it to not happen.

I don't say that every play-and-miss should be out! I don't count non-dismissals - it's you that wants to do this, not me.

Yet you want to tell me I cannot do it, and tell me that there's no difference between a play-and-miss and a dropped catch. I'm merely trying to explain that there is a considerable difference.

I simply can't begin to fathom why you think there's any logical difference between a play-and-miss and a dropped catch.

I've already explained how there is.

I also can't see the relevance of the frequency of occurrence of dropped catches v play-and-misses. What's that got to do with the price of fish?

Nothing. But it has plenty to do with what's legitimate to remove from the equation and what isn't. You cannot expect an innings to have no play-and-misses, or similar errors. It's not realistic. Yet most catches are taken. Therefore a dropped catch is, relatively speaking, unusual. Most times a batsman walks to the crease, he will not be dropped before he returns to the pavilion at the end of that innings.

 

[Richard]

I hate the discussion of luck in sport. Luck is a fact of lide, it will happen, if you don't have any then go and get some.

I hope that's in jest, naturally. Luck by definition cannot be "got" - it happens completely by random, the person getting it has no influence on their getting of it, and thus inevitably some sportsmen are luckier than others.

The main point of watching sport is, to me, to ascertain the skill of the players. To do this, you must reduce the amount of luck involved to the maximum possible degree.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I was thinking this thread had gotten a high amount of posts quickly,now I know why.

Not all that quickly considering the thread started last August.

 

[steve132]

hmmmm - I may have slightly misexplained it - Mr Jonkers calculated 66.3 for Gooch and these others

Botham 149* Headingley 1981 65.4
Bradman 334 Headingley 1930 64.1
Jessop 104 The Oval 1902 62.9
Trumper 74 Melbourne 1903/04 61.2
Nourse 231 Jo'burg 1935/36 60.3
Sinclair 104 Cape Town 1902/03 60.1
Foster 287 Sydney 1903/04 58.9
Trumper 185 Sydney 1903/04 58.7
Amiss 262 Kingston 1973/74 58.6

He didn't claim to have done any others so wasn't intended to be a definitive list even when he did it (1992)

There are MANY great innings omitted from this list. I'd say that the analysis is incomplete.

 

[fredfertang]

There are MANY great innings omitted from this list. I'd say that the analysis is incomplete.

I didn't suggest otherwise

 

[Evermind]

Gillespie's double against the Bangers. Just cause it came outta nowhere. I was kinda expecting him to "get out next ball" for like 5 hours. More edge-of-the-seat than any other innings I've seen.

 

[Jarquis]

Gillespie's double against the Bangers. Just cause it came outta nowhere. I was kinda expecting him to "get out next ball" for like 5 hours. More edge-of-the-seat than any other innings I've seen.

Some great recent innings would be.
KP in the ashes, 158.
Gilchrist in the WC final.
AB De Villiers in the recent run chase against Australia.
Sehwag 300 odd at more than a run a ball.

Obviously nothing in comparison to some of the all time innings, but great in their own right.

 

[Richard]

Sehwag's 319, ridiculously flat pitch or not, was certainly a damn good knock and far above any of the others named above.

 

[Jarquis]

That would be the stand out innings out of the 4 I named.

However Pietersen's knock to ensure a draw and to win us the Ashes.
Gilly's as it epitomised his entire career.
AB's as it held together such a huge run chase and showed the SA really were going to push AUS to the limit in every match.

 

[Something_Fishy]

Have been wondering: who says the greatest knock ever had to be in a Test match? What about Arthur Collins' 628* in 6 hours and 50 minutes when he was only 13?

Check

 

[Lillian Thomson]

However Pietersen's knock to ensure a draw and to win us the Ashes.

Drum roll 5................4.....................3........................2............................1
"Sitter dropped by Shane Warne - crap innings."

 

[Jarquis]

He was dropped once so it's a crap innings?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

He was dropped once so it's a crap innings?

 

[Jarquis]

What have I missed?

**Dropped twice

 

[Lillian Thomson]

What have I missed?

Don't worry about it, in this case ignorance really is bliss.

 

[Jarquis]

Ok I stated that innings as a great one for it's importance to England as a nation.
Watching Pietersen take us home to an ashes victory for the first time in 18 years.
It was a fairly important knock.
It may not have been the most assured innings, it may not have been what you would classify as a "brilliant" innings.
But to me, against that Australian attack it was no mean feat.
Warne dropped a sitter at slip when he was on 15.
He then offered a difficult chance in the deep, it would've been a contender for catch of the decade had he taken it. That shouldn't detract from Pietersen's innings nor the significance.
So rather acting all smug as you disagree with the statement I made, and you personally find it quite laughable, try offering an explanation.

 

[Jigga988]

What have I missed?

**Dropped twice

A poster on here - Richard (the dude with 70 000 posts......... yes 70 000 posts) believes in some first chance average thingy, where by if you're dropped early in an innings then the innings isn't that good... I havn't been here long so I don't really know what it's all about, just trying to put you out of your anger and misery.... the longer posters here have heard about it time and time and time and time and time and time again so you're better off getting the info from them or Richard.... all quite proposterous tbh.