What he means is the value of a Cricketer should be noted by the impact he had and his accumulatives can have rather than on what round of imaginary mental masturbation XIs they make.
First off, let's not just use your selective edit and use the entire quote.
There's no scenario I'm not choosing Marshall.
In a team of no bodies, is Imran's batting going to elevate the batting and subsequently the team to where it's viable?
No.
A 26 rpi bat isn't making your team better if it's that bad.
And as per your statement about team composition not correlating to overall rating is where this entire forum has gone off the deep end. I swear this is the only sport where empty calories supersedes impact.
If it doesn't correlate to team selection and improvement, it doesn't matter.
What brings success is what brings value.
This cannot be this hard.
First off, the response was a direct reply to a question for a scenario I didn't propose.
Again, it's not about masturbation XIs, it's about which skills helps a team best, any team, and actually directly and consistently contributes to victories.
It's fine to say 26 is more than 15, but are those 10 runs a match making up for any perceived lack of bolwing aptitude.
Most of the same advocates for Imran often cites Pollock for having less impact because of the nature and timing of said runs. Which also leads to the fact that all runs aren't equal, and that has notning to with the batting position, but the context, which had been raised by you in the past as well.
At the end lf the day, stats can't be viewed in isolation, but entirely in the context of team and yes, impact.
And there are multiple perspectives on what is an acceptable trade off during selection of a team. But lets take away the names, and if you were selecting a club team and had a hierarchical list built on bowling ability / effectiveness, and one guy was 9th on that list. Are you immediately inclined to have him included in your final 4 attack, because he had the potential to score 10 more runs per innings?
Regardless on if your batting lineup is good or not, how is the impact of those 10 runs offset by choosing any of the 8 bowlers better than said person. Now different people can come to different conclusions on comparable value, and that's the point. It's not static and it has to be viewed through the lens of the benefit of a team, and which gets you closer to success.
And I want to make this part particularily clear because some of you are trying to distort my position.
With regards to the purpose of the thread, I don't belive that any of the three are useless, I belive all have value, the goal is simply to rank them.
I think that some here egregiously over rank the importance of lower order batting. I believe that has been borne out by historical and contemporary selection practices, especially with regards to top teams. Doesn't mean I don't rank it second or write off it's value. Sometimes you need the tail to wag, as they say.
Where I separate is that, when I look at which is more closely aligned to successful teams and more directly contributes to winning matches.... and then also, that if any of them is objectively bad, that your team has little to no chance of being a great team, or even consistently competing... it brings one to the same conclusion. Said skill is also the only one that absolutely requires a specialist if not elite skill level to succeed.
In contrast.
The lower down one bats, the less of an opportunity one gets to contribute and to positively impact a game. That's also directly paired to the fact, that as a lower order batsman, you're considerably less consistent, which correlates to less reliable. Less opportunities and lesser consistency doesn't equal to greater value.
Also if you're a team that's consistently relying on your lower order for runs, you have bigger issues. And those issues aren't fixed by a better no 8.
I think stacking your lower order is less important than ensuring you have a strong cordon, and having a viable 5th bowling option is almost mandatory.
I do belive that ideally your 8 and 9 should be capable. Two guys capable of at least staying with a top order bat or mounting a rear guard fightback when needed. I also think that this can be achieved without making concessions from the bowling attack, as it's all but impossible not to default onto that among your best 4 bowling options.
But as the primary objective of any test match XI is to take 20 wickets for as little runs as possible, and there literally being only 4 primary bowling options, I dont think that your attack is the best place to prioritize a secondary skill.
Even with the all rounder postion this is applicable, as to why generally there's only one spot allocated, and they still have to be good enough to bat in the top 6, which prioritizes a minimum batting standard as well.
