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What would Bradman average if he played in a typical (i.e. neither batsman or bowler favored) period of the modern era (1970 - current)?

What would the Don average if he played some time from 1970 - current time?

  • <50

  • 50-60

  • 60-70

  • 70-80

  • 80-90

  • >100

  • 90-100


Results are only viewable after voting.

Johan

Hall of Fame Member
the Bodyline series where his average was nearly cut in half, and how he failed on sticky wickets. And I don't disagree. When the mud rose, the bouncers came, and the fielders did their jobs, he was suddenly human. But averaging a hundred on flat decks in a couple of countries is still a herculean task.
No bat in history bar Bradman has averaged more than 45 against bodyline.
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
In the 2000's when batting was easy in Australia and the opposition bowling was crap, Ponting cashed in. So did Hayden. So did Clarke. So did Hussey. They all did.

Why are there not a bevy of Australian batsmen averaging 70+ in Bradman's time? I mean, they only had to play a single opponent and things were just too easy. Bradman did both things in batting that either one of tends to make you great, but appear to be mutually exclusive for everyone else... bat long - and bat quick.

Fielding may be better now, but boundaries are shorter and bats are thicker.

Bowlers still get tired. If the idea that they bowled a spell then became rubbish held any weight, there would be many batsman with Bradman-like averages at the time. Truth is, the balance between bat and ball was still there. The reason why Bradman excelled was because he stayed in and kept scoring runs quickly. Imagine Pujara and Brook's love child.

The only reason Bradman in today's world would not be a phenom is because he may have spent time **** posting on X rather than honing his hand eye coordination.
 

TheJediBrah

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This shows how much Bradman was better than others in his era. No surprises that majority of the highest batting averages belong to his time period.

View attachment 48750

So compared to Vijay Merchant and George Headley, he was about 30% better in first class cricket ..facing a wide variety of pitches and opponents.
Some shocking arguments being made in this thread. Respect the hustle though
 

the big bambino

Cricketer Of The Year
Bradman would have improved too, I am certain of it.. But he cannot improve at the pace of his opponents, who showed an exponential growth in numbers. And those numbers improve with technology as Bradman would have done so.
What of the reverse? If they could travel back in time to meet him would his opponents degrade exponentially to sub standard hacks?
 

Daemon

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Why is it so difficult to understand that it’s much easier to be an outlier in a sport that is amateur where 1-2 good players exist among a sea of crap? Bizarre that people look at the footage of the day and think it was anything more than european premier league level today. There would be odes written about Pavel Florin if he played back then I’m sure.
 

Daemon

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Isn't this like the top echelon of football.
I’m not sure if football has evolved as much as cricket. Overall a very low IQ sport (which explains its popularity) and most fans are equally dim with a tendency towards fanaticism and hooliganism. It’s the Donald Trump or Blackpink of sports.
 

Victor Ian

International Coach
Why is it so difficult to understand that it’s much easier to be an outlier in a sport that is amateur where 1-2 good players exist among a sea of crap? Bizarre that people look at the footage of the day and think it was anything more than european premier league level today. There would be odes written about Pavel Florin if he played back then I’m sure.
Agree about outliers to a degree, but footage reveals nothing. Have you seen people walk in old footage. They are all high as a kite. A lot to do with frame rates, resolution, etc.
Regarding outliers, perhaps people bunch more to the mean, but Bradman would still be 4 deviations better than average. What's the standard deviation of a batsman today, versus back then? Pavel Who? would still be unknown to me.
 

the big bambino

Cricketer Of The Year
Why is it so difficult to understand that it’s much easier to be an outlier in a sport that is amateur where 1-2 good players exist among a sea of crap? Bizarre that people look at the footage of the day and think it was anything more than european premier league level today. There would be odes written about Pavel Florin if he played back then I’m sure.
Cricket was professional from the 1800s.
Show us a picture of yourself so we can all laugh.
Fielding standards are so much better today. Just watch Pavel Jaiswal. Or Inzy Florin.
Cry harder.
 

karan_fromthestands

State Captain
Agree about outliers to a degree, but footage reveals nothing. Have you seen people walk in old footage. They are all high as a kite. A lot to do with frame rates, resolution, etc.
Regarding outliers, perhaps people bunch more to the mean, but Bradman would still be 4 deviations better than average. What's the standard deviation of a batsman today, versus back then? Pavel Who? would still be unknown to me.
Absolutely agree. Bradman would still be four standard deviations above the rest. Just look at the footage, the bowling that he dominated was top class. I see no reason to believe he wouldn't have absolutely dominated Holding, Marshall, Garner, Roberts, Walsh, Ambrose, Akhtar, Wasim, Waqar, Younis, Steyn, Morkel, Donald, Pollock, Bumrah, Archer, Rabada, Broad, Anderson, Murali, Warne, Kumble, Ashwin, and anyone else naive enough to bowl to him.

 

_00_deathscar

International Regular
Imagine that Don Bradman didn't exist, but the rest of cricket history went on unchanged.

Then imagine that Don Bradman plays now, averages like 66 over a full career of like 150-160 Tests. The current number 2 ATG bat is Sachin, and some people say it's competitive with Bradman. But the alternative reality Bradman is so far ahead of Sachin. We've NEVER had a player in the modern era bat over 60 (well not until we see Kamindu Mendis) over a really large full career sample size, and here comes a player who is comfortably in the upper mid 60s, imagine how much we'd be sucking him off. Arguably I think there would be a stronger ferver to anoint that player as the batting GOAT than the actual Bradman.
Smith was at 62 or 63 or something about 20 tests back
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
So anyone who can have a career averaging high 60s (close to 70) after 150 tests would be considered as good as Bradman. That would be equivalent of being more than 30% better than the next best of the era.
 

Coronis

Hall of Fame Member
Smith was at 62 or 63 or something about 20 tests back
So? Plenty of players have averaged around 60 at that point in their careers. And he had multiple contemporaries averaging 50.

Lets see Bradman was averaging 100 and his contemporaries 60…. slight difference
 

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