Thorpe vs Jayawardene vs Martyn

[PlayerComparisons]

Thorpe: 6744 runs @ 44.67
Jayawardene: 11814 runs @ 49.85
Martyn: 4406 runs @ 46.38

How would you rank them?

 

[howitzer]

Tough call between Thorpe and Jayawardene for me. Heart wants me to go for Thorpe but I'm thinking Jayawardene probably did enough over a long enough period of time to be ahead of him despite the HTB issues.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Jayawardene might have 15000 runs if SL played as many tests as Eng. A bit underrated IMO

 

[Bolo.]

Tough call between Thorpe and Jayawardene for me. Heart wants me to go for Thorpe but I'm thinking Jayawardene probably did enough over a long enough period of time to be ahead of him despite the HTB issues.

I think Jayawardene gets more grief than most for being a HTB. Why does he get called out to such a degree (when people bother thinking about him at all) while other with similar home/away splits get left alone? He's got the extra issue of only being good in Asia tbf, but his home/away isn't crazy unusual.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

I think Jayawardene gets more grief than most for being a HTB. Why does he get called out to such a degree (when people bother thinking about him at all) while other with similar home/away splits get left alone? He's got the extra issue of only being good in Asia tbf, but his home/away isn't crazy unusual.

Yea his home away split isn’t any worse than Clarke or Pietersen or Laxman and he’s got far more runs than those guys. He also scored multiple tons in England, NZ and Australia so not like was useless outside Asia

 

[BazBall21]

Jayawardene is underrated by some. Often gets called a flat track bully which is wrong. Gun player on rank turners. Better than Sanga against conventional spin.

In terms of the home/away split though, he was somewhat of an Asian specialist. Averaged 32 outside the subcontinent (not including Zimbabwe). Not useless, but he struggled quite a lot. That's why I voted for Thorpe who was very good everywhere.

I'd often vote for Jayawardene against a player that isn't very flexible in alien conditions either but also doesn't specialise in any kind of overly tough conditions like he did on bunsens. His record in Galle is incredible.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

It’s all subjective but I think a selector in real life is picking the guy who has 12k runs and 34 hundreds over the guy with 6k runs and 16 hundreds. Career value is what actually matters IMO

 

[BazBall21]

Yeah well everyone is allowed an opinion on here. I never said Thorpe is definitely better.

 

[Bolo.]

Yea his home away split isn’t any worse than Clarke or Pietersen or Laxman and he’s got far more runs than those guys. He also scored multiple tons in England, NZ and Australia so not like was useless outside Asia

His split is 'worse' than Pieterson and Laxman, but this is mainly due to being better at home, which is a obviously a positive. He's close to Clarke, plus a few more from recent years. Hussey, Hayden and kohli off the top of my head. And his split is better than some like Warner and Rohit who do get stick for it.

 

[Himannv]

I think both Mahela and Thorpe are underrated.

Thorpe was easily the best England bat for a good while and I feel he would have a better record in a slightly stronger team. His record is pretty good in most countries and his average only dropped a bit against SA and ZIM (surprisingly). There are very few players I've seen play Murali well when touring here and he's one of the rare few. My only criticism of him is that I feel he didn't score more against weaker opposition consistently enough and dominate more.

Mahela is just unbelievably good against spin in general and he's probably the most talented batter we've ever produced all things considered. He was a bit too vulnerable to the moving ball outside his off stump and didn't do enough to work around that weakness so there are just so many instances of him being caught behind while on a relatively low score. When the conditions suited him and when he was set, he could probably score a double hundred with a blindfold on. He has the natural ability to score all round the wicket and picks the gaps in the field with zero effort. Probably one of the best batsmen to watch while in full flow.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yea his home away split isn’t any worse than Clarke or Pietersen or Laxman and he’s got far more runs than those guys. He also scored multiple tons in England, NZ and Australia so not like was useless outside Asia

He averaged almost 10 runs lower than Laxman outside Asia. Home-away split isn't what usually matters, outside the subcontinent is where the challenge lies when talking of truly challenging conditions.

 

[BazBall21]

I think both Mahela and Thorpe are underrated.

Thorpe was easily the best England bat for a good while and I feel he would have a better record in a slightly stronger team. His record is pretty good in most countries and his average only dropped a bit against SA and ZIM (surprisingly). There are very few players I've seen play Murali well when touring here and he's one of the rare few. My only criticism of him is that I feel he didn't score more against weaker opposition consistently enough and dominate more.

Mahela is just unbelievably good against spin in general and he's probably the most talented batter we've ever produced all things considered. He was a bit too vulnerable to the moving ball outside his off stump and didn't do enough to work around that weakness so there are just so many instances of him being caught behind while on a relatively low score. When the conditions suited him and when he was set, he could probably score a double hundred with a blindfold on. He has the natural ability to score all round the wicket and picks the gaps in the field with zero effort. Probably one of the best batsmen to watch while in full flow.

Thorpe was a very good all-round batsman but the lack of big hundreds hurt him. Mahela is one of the greatest against spin.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Thorpe might only have like 10 hundreds if Eng played as many tests as SL

 

[howitzer]

Thorpe might only have like 10 hundreds if Eng played as many tests as SL

He'd have played a lot more Tests if England's selectors hadn't been such ****wits, particularly during the first two thirds of his career. So much chopping and changing meant he missed a lot of games he should have been playing.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

He averaged almost 10 runs lower than Laxman outside Asia. Home-away split isn't what usually matters, outside the subcontinent is where the challenge lies when talking of truly challenging conditions.

I don’t agree that’s what matters but it’s all pretty subjective

 

[Line and Length]

Martyn's Test career stats are affected by the fact he was dropped from the Test side after a loose shot which undid his solid defensive work in the 93/94 series against South Africa. Chasing a modest 117, he and Craig McDermott took the score from 8-75 to 8-110 before that fateful shot. I found it strange that he was blamed for the defeat when others had obviously failed before him. I might add, he was second top scorer in Australia's first inning with 59.
Martyn wasn't selected again in the Test side until 2000. Six years is a big gap in a player's Test career.

I'm not suggesting he is better than Jayawardene or Thorpe, I'm just explaining his more modest total Test runs.

 

[Johan]

Feel like Mahela's issues were downplayed here, he isn't a case like Ashwin who, at the very least, dominated sides like West Indies and a strong Sri Lanka away from home, he didn't even do that well in Asia outside Sri Lanka, he has a good record in India (62) which is inflated by one inning on maybe the flattest wicket ever that ended in a draw, His record in Pakistan (42) is just alright even with a 240 in the 644/7 and 765/6 game, his record in UAE (29) is just plain bad somewhat salvaged by a good hundred. His record outside Asia is just shocking, he was below par in Australia (31), bang average in England (35), just straight up bad in New Zealand (27) and South Africa (27), was ordinary even in the West Indies (42) and failed the harder games. It's not like he did his tours in a difficult era, other than the one game at the oval in 1998, all his tours come in the flattest era of the game and failing that bad outside two stadiums in that era might be just inexcusable. On top, a minnow basher (76).

Especially when he's being compared to two Batsmen who did well pretty much everywhere, atleast Thorpe did, Martyn was also exceptional in Asia from memory.