NZ v SA Test Series
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@MN5 said in NZ v SA Test Series:
There was an article on Stuff saying Steve Smith might be the best since Bradman. 20 test tons at 60 at a young age sure is impressive but is he THAT good ? ( Nice to see our boy nudge his average over 51
....)I think you just sort of wait and see at the end of his career.
The gear these guys have these days is so much better than in the past that I think you have to measure how much better they are than their contemporaries, when trying to compare against Bradman (working against that is that in these professional days I find it hard to believe anyone could consistently average 40 runs better than the next best - there's too few places to build a margin) and people like Viv Richards and even Tendulkar and Lara.
Smith is certainly a cut above his teammates, but in his era people like Voges and Handscombe have also constructed hugely impressive averages.
Interesting thing in Kane vs Smith is that Kane is a year younger and only three hundreds behind. He started quite a bit younger for NZ, as a less complete batsman, so his average is probably compromised a bit by that.
In terms of career hundreds - if NZ continues to play a solid test schedule and if Kane remains hungry, he will probably end up playing on after Smith retires (NZ having less playing resources), so might end up with more hundreds, but probably a lower average.
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@Gunner said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Tim said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Santner and Watling? This is gonna be a
runsnooze-fest.I've fixed your typo
No idea what you're talking about, BJ has walked out there and smacked 6 from just 28 balls.
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what is our goal here? We're behind in the series, we have a day and a half to win, and we meander? And then lose a wicket?
How is losing 1-0 better then losing 2-0?
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@mariner4life cos it is?
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@taniwharugby you reckon? You would rather play safe and lose the series, than have a crack, and maybe still lose the series, but at least go down swinging?
What are you? yellow?
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@mariner4life sorry, forgot the smilie...losing is losing, be it by 1 or by whatever.
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@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Interesting thing in Kane vs Smith is that Kane is a year younger and only three hundreds behind. He started quite a bit younger for NZ, as a less complete batsman, so his average is probably compromised a bit by that.
But Smith started batting at 8 as a specialist spinner? If Kane's average was 'compromised', so was Smith's
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Smith is certainly a cut above his teammates, but in his era people like Voges and Handscombe have also constructed hugely impressive averages.
The surprising thing about the list of highest averages is how few modern players are in the top 20
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/wi/content/records/282910.htmlVoges is an anomaly but most of the extremely high averages come from a long time ago. The modern guy who stands out on the list is Sangakkara, having that average across a huge number of games is incredible.
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@Duluth said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Interesting thing in Kane vs Smith is that Kane is a year younger and only three hundreds behind. He started quite a bit younger for NZ, as a less complete batsman, so his average is probably compromised a bit by that.
But Smith started batting at 8 as a specialist spinner? If Kane's average was 'compromised', so was Smith's
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Smith is certainly a cut above his teammates, but in his era people like Voges and Handscombe have also constructed hugely impressive averages.
The surprising thing about the list of highest averages is how few modern players are in the top 20
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/wi/content/records/282910.htmlVoges is an anomaly but most of the extremely high averages come from a long time ago. The modern guy who stands out on the list is Sangakkara, having that average across a huge number of games is incredible.
With his technique being so reliant on his hand-eye coordination I suspect (hope maybe?) that Smith will decline fairly quickly compared to some of the others test batsman so will end up in a similar category to someone like Ponting.
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@Cyclops said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Duluth said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Interesting thing in Kane vs Smith is that Kane is a year younger and only three hundreds behind. He started quite a bit younger for NZ, as a less complete batsman, so his average is probably compromised a bit by that.
But Smith started batting at 8 as a specialist spinner? If Kane's average was 'compromised', so was Smith's
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Smith is certainly a cut above his teammates, but in his era people like Voges and Handscombe have also constructed hugely impressive averages.
The surprising thing about the list of highest averages is how few modern players are in the top 20
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/wi/content/records/282910.htmlVoges is an anomaly but most of the extremely high averages come from a long time ago. The modern guy who stands out on the list is Sangakkara, having that average across a huge number of games is incredible.
With his technique being so reliant on his hand-eye coordination I suspect (hope maybe?) that Smith will decline fairly quickly compared to some of the others test batsman so will end up in a similar category to someone like Ponting.
You're saying that like Ponting is bad ????
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@Cyclops someone like Ponting? You mean brilliant? I didn't like him, but that guy was an unreal player. If he winds his career up a year earlier, his stats look even better.
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@mariner4life said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Cyclops someone like Ponting? You mean brilliant? I didn't like him, but that guy was an unreal player. If he winds his career up a year earlier, his stats look even better.
What I meant with Ponting was that in his prime his average was touching 60 but he played about 3 years too long and brought himself down to 'merely' great. That's the process I think we'll see from Smith but I think it will come sooner for Smith than it did for Ponting.
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@Duluth That's true about Smith - though they didn't persist with him as a specialist spinner for long - when he came back he was batting at 5 and 6.
There's quite a few in the top 10 who played/overlapped (in) the same era as Bradman, so you'd tend to think bat dominated ball through the 1930s/40s.
What's really noticeable to me is the lack of players near the top in the 1970s/80s - when the West Indians, Lillee and Thompson, Hadlee, Imran etc were operating. I think that was the toughest era to be a batsman.
If you take the list as a whole, about a quarter of the players are still active or retired in the last several years - say as far back as Dravid, so I'd tend to call this a batting friendly era.
e.g. I wouldn't yet be prepared to say Kane is a better batsman than Crowe, even though his stats are significantly better.
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@Duluth said in NZ v SA Test Series:
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Interesting thing in Kane vs Smith is that Kane is a year younger and only three hundreds behind. He started quite a bit younger for NZ, as a less complete batsman, so his average is probably compromised a bit by that.
But Smith started batting at 8 as a specialist spinner? If Kane's average was 'compromised', so was Smith's
@Chris-B. said in NZ v SA Test Series:
Smith is certainly a cut above his teammates, but in his era people like Voges and Handscombe have also constructed hugely impressive averages.
The surprising thing about the list of highest averages is how few modern players are in the top 20
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/wi/content/records/282910.htmlVoges is an anomaly but most of the extremely high averages come from a long time ago. The modern guy who stands out on the list is Sangakkara, having that average across a huge number of games is incredible.
Even more remarkable about Sanga's record is that he was a Keeper for a lot of that. His batting average, if memory servers me correctly, improved a lot when he gave up the gloves. I have him as the greatest player of the modern era.
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@Donsteppa Yeah - and now BJ goes down to the spinner and yorks himself. I was hoping those two would get to 150 and then just progressively press the pedal a bit harder until they were in "death" mode.
A long way to the 200 lead I'm looking for now.
