Cricket - best ever, trivia etc
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@Godder said in Modern batting averages:
Not sure how we're defining the modern era, but if it's players still playing, then Smith has it in tests, with the caveat that things change between the peak of a career and the end.
If it's completed careers of players who played in the 80s or later, I'd say Tendulkar or Sangakkara, although Kallis is in the conversation as well.
No love for Ponting, Hayden or ( most shocking of all ) Lara ?!?!
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@Rancid-Schnitzel said in Modern batting averages:
@antipodean said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
@antipodean said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
@antipodean said in Modern batting averages:
@No-Quarter said in Modern batting averages:
Bradman's numbers are so insane that we'll never have any genuine GOAT conversations about modern day players. A few players have managed those numbers for a couple of seasons - I remember Ponting in his prime averaging close to a hundred for a decent period of time, but to just straight up average 95+ across both first class and tests for such a prolonged period is time is absolutely bananas no matter what era it is.
Imagine if modern bowlers had to provide batsmen with a sporting opportunity to score runs. How'd Bradman go against bodyline? How do we think he'd go against the WIndies fearsome line up? Not 99.94 I'd wager.
Yeah but those arguments are pretty churlish and discredit a genuine great of Bradmans era in Wally Hammond who ‘only’ averaged 58.
I just don’t think you can logically argue that Bradman isn’t the most dominant ( relative to his peers and all time ) sportsman of all time.
Did I do that? No I fucking didn't. Just pointed out his dominance would unlikely to have been as statistically as great an outlier. And for that there's sufficient evidence.
I don’t reckon there’s anything concrete. Averages as yardsticks have fluctuated a fair bit ( ie in the 80s mid 40s put a player pretty close to elite ) but Bradmans ridiculous numbers skew all of that. How many guys of the era were close to Hammond let alone the Don himself ? ( less cricket teams in those days granted )
A twenty year test career with those numbers ? with the first class figures thrown in for good measure ?Yeah he’s the greatest by a long shot.
How many modern players played in only two countries, playing tests only on 10 grounds, against largely amateur players (while being for all intents and purposes a professional) during their career? How often did Bradman face defensive fielding and bodyline style bowling?
There's no doubting his talent, but there's no way he'd score the average he did in the modern era. None. It would be at least 20 less. See the marked disparity of his series average in England and Australia.
He still averaged over 50 during bodyline. And that was with no helmet and primitive protection. Give him modern kit and time to adapt and he probably would have mastered it.
Its just so difficult to gauge anything regarding Bradman. His stats are so ridiculous that comparisons are pretty much meaningless. As a youngster I presumed that there must have been a heap of guys with averages in the 70s and 80s from his era. But there aren’t. The guy was an utter freak.
Well no, at the risk of sounding like a broken record the next best is Smith ( not counting Labuschagne, his will surely dip ) and he's still THIRTY SEVEN runs behind......or to put it another way, a whole Nathan Astle behind.......
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@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
@Godder said in Modern batting averages:
Not sure how we're defining the modern era, but if it's players still playing, then Smith has it in tests, with the caveat that things change between the peak of a career and the end.
If it's completed careers of players who played in the 80s or later, I'd say Tendulkar or Sangakkara, although Kallis is in the conversation as well.
No love for Ponting, Hayden or ( most shocking of all ) Lara ?!?!
Hayden could get the opener's discount perhaps.
For the sake of discussion, I downloaded the highest average record from Cricinfo (qualification is 20 innings - seems reasonable to me) and calculated averages without NOs.
There are 42 players on that list with a conventional average of 50+. That drops to 16 when NOs are ignored, with Lara being one of them (51.52), but Sangakkara (53.21) still being ahead of Lara. Tendulkar drops to 48.39, Kallis to 47.46, Hayden to 46.88. Of current players, Smith drops to 55.17 but Labucschagne stays put at 63.43 (no NOs apparently!).
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@Godder said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
@Godder said in Modern batting averages:
Not sure how we're defining the modern era, but if it's players still playing, then Smith has it in tests, with the caveat that things change between the peak of a career and the end.
If it's completed careers of players who played in the 80s or later, I'd say Tendulkar or Sangakkara, although Kallis is in the conversation as well.
No love for Ponting, Hayden or ( most shocking of all ) Lara ?!?!
Hayden could get the opener's discount perhaps.
For the sake of discussion, I downloaded the highest average record from Cricinfo (qualification is 20 innings - seems reasonable to me) and calculated averages without NOs.
There are 42 players on that list with a conventional average of 50+. That drops to 16 when NOs are ignored, with Lara being one of them (51.52), but Sangakkara (53.21) still being ahead of Lara. Tendulkar drops to 48.39, Kallis to 47.46, Hayden to 46.88. Of current players, Smith drops to 55.17 but Labucschagne stays put at 63.43 (no NOs apparently!).
I love stats like this, makes Lara look good which makes me happy as to me he's the closest to genius I've ever seen play.
Sangakkara is a genuine great who is easily forgotten for whatever reason. Even more so when he hung up the gloves.
I do remember Kallis getting loads of not outs despite batting pretty high up, S Waugh and Border too but obviously they batted 5-6 for so much of their career so more not outs was inevitable.
Labuschagne has obviously had an amazing start to his career but way to early to mention him in any shape or form.
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@Godder apply those same criteria to NZ and we only have three above 40 Richardson 43.27 , Crowe 42.19 and Williamson 41.25
Only nine others make it over 35 - Turner, Ryder, Latham, Jones, McCullum, Taylor, J F Reid, Wright, Fleming.
Mind you the likes of Laxman, Stackpole, Bell, Stokes, Stewart, Chanderpaul don't even get to 35!
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@dogmeat said in Modern batting averages:
@Godder apply those same criteria to NZ and we only have three above 40 Richardson 43.27 , Crowe 42.19 and Williamson 41.25
Only nine others make it over 35 - Turner, Ryder, Latham, Jones, McCullum, Taylor, J F Reid, Wright, Fleming.
Mind you the likes of Laxman, Stackpole, Bell, Stokes, Stewart, Chanderpaul don't even get to 35!
Rigor is our GOAT !!!!! That'll piss off a bunch of snowflakes.
KW, for shame
but seriously, it's one of those 'intangibles'......I'd say Adam Gilchrist as one example smashed some quick unbeaten runs against a demoralised attack on numerous occasions and padded the average....but Hayden up top averaged more blunting the attack with statistically far less chance of a not out.
Chanderpaul was obviously bloody careful ( as I remember him with his strange stance )....that's a massive drop of over 15 runs !
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@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
Sangakkara is a genuine great who is easily forgotten for whatever reason. Even more so when he hung up the gloves.
I like Kumar, but I can't say he ever really excited me. You didn't stop what you were doing because you heard Sangakkara had come to the crease.
A great cricketer, fantastic career, amazing numbers but missing a bit of X-factor IMO.
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@barbarian said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
Sangakkara is a genuine great who is easily forgotten for whatever reason. Even more so when he hung up the gloves.
I like Kumar, but I can't say he ever really excited me. You didn't stop what you were doing because you heard Sangakkara had come to the crease.
A great cricketer, fantastic career, amazing numbers but missing a bit of X-factor IMO.
yeah but you could say the same about Kallis, Border, S Waugh, Dravid......all undoubted greats but none particularly thrilling to watch.
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Did Don Bradman’s cricketing genius make him a statistical outlier? - Significance magazine
The test career batting average of Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman of 99.94 runs per innings is one of the most famous and iconic sporting performance statistics in history. Bradman...
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@NTA said in Modern batting averages:
Did Don Bradman’s cricketing genius make him a statistical outlier? - Significance magazine
The test career batting average of Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman of 99.94 runs per innings is one of the most famous and iconic sporting performance statistics in history. Bradman...
I like it when nerds back up shit I’m trying to say with graphs and shit
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@barbarian I’m in the Ricky Ponting camp when it comes to better quality batsman than Smith.
Maybe one for the grumpy old man thread, but watching Smith bat is annoying and so I tend to switch off. Punter on the other hand was almost effortless (not quite as much as Mark Waugh). So Punter has both the stats and form.
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@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
yeah but you could say the same about Kallis, Border, S Waugh, Dravid......all undoubted greats but none particularly thrilling to watch.
Speak for yourself this innings from Dravid was one of the more thrilling I've seen in person.
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Smith is a bit of an outlier rating him against other Aussie batsman - I'm not sure whether he is a scrapper or a natural. He has way more fight in him than other naturals (Ponting, Gilchrist), but a lot more flair than some of the other scrappers (Waugh, Border etc).
Like ACT I don't enjoy watching him bat but how much of that is his technique and how much of it is that he produces runs for Australia with annoying regularity I'm not sure. He is special though.
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@rotated said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
yeah but you could say the same about Kallis, Border, S Waugh, Dravid......all undoubted greats but none particularly thrilling to watch.
Speak for yourself this innings from Dravid was one of the more thrilling I've seen in person.
I’m fairly sure during a Boxing Day test some years back I fell asleep when Dravid was on 3 not out and woke up about 45 minute later ( on of those classic old man on the couch sleeps, snoring loudly and dribble everywhere ) and his score was unchanged.
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
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@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
To bat for my life on a good day I'd take Canterbury legend Rahul Dravid... on a bad one Chris Martin looks like a good option.
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@rotated said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
To bat for my life on a good day I'd take Canterbury legend Rahul Dravid... on a bad one Chris Martin looks like a good option.
it's a really good question that goes past averages, and brings in those mentally tough folk who just refuse to be beaten.
SWaugh was up there for me. Remarkable player, and the mental strength to lead a team to a new place was fantastic
on the players I'd pay to watch bat, there's Tendulkar, Lara, RIchards (by reputation) and Sehwag. Arguably Chris Martin makes the list as well ... not there for a long time
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@nzzp said in Modern batting averages:
@rotated said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
To bat for my life on a good day I'd take Canterbury legend Rahul Dravid... on a bad one Chris Martin looks like a good option.
it's a really good question that goes past averages, and brings in those mentally tough folk who just refuse to be beaten.
SWaugh was up there for me. Remarkable player, and the mental strength to lead a team to a new place was fantastic
on the players I'd pay to watch bat, there's Tendulkar, Lara, RIchards (by reputation) and Sehwag. Arguably Chris Martin makes the list as well ... not there for a long time
Even a guy like Mike Atherton and our very own pairing of John Wright and Bruce Edgar deserve a mention for this.
I remember reading about Jeff Thomson sledging Edgar and telling him ‘he’ll never die of a stroke’ after he continually blocked or left every delivery.
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@nzzp said in Modern batting averages:
@rotated said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
To bat for my life on a good day I'd take Canterbury legend Rahul Dravid... on a bad one Chris Martin looks like a good option.
it's a really good question that goes past averages, and brings in those mentally tough folk who just refuse to be beaten.
SWaugh was up there for me. Remarkable player, and the mental strength to lead a team to a new place was fantastic
on the players I'd pay to watch bat, there's Tendulkar, Lara, RIchards (by reputation) and Sehwag. Arguably Chris Martin makes the list as well ... not there for a long time
Saw both these guys, in the flesh, make a hundred on McLean Park.
Tendulkar v Central Districts in a warmup one-day game before the 1994/95 Centenary Series and Richards in a three-day match in 1986/87 on the West Indies tour.
Tendulkar's was elegance, Richards' was force.
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@Number-10 said in Modern batting averages:
@nzzp said in Modern batting averages:
@rotated said in Modern batting averages:
@MN5 said in Modern batting averages:
But.....teams need those ‘bat for your life’ guys and he along with others I mentioned was terrific.
To bat for my life on a good day I'd take Canterbury legend Rahul Dravid... on a bad one Chris Martin looks like a good option.
it's a really good question that goes past averages, and brings in those mentally tough folk who just refuse to be beaten.
SWaugh was up there for me. Remarkable player, and the mental strength to lead a team to a new place was fantastic
on the players I'd pay to watch bat, there's Tendulkar, Lara, RIchards (by reputation) and Sehwag. Arguably Chris Martin makes the list as well ... not there for a long time
Saw both these guys, in the flesh, make a hundred on McLean Park.
Tendulkar v Central Districts in a warmup one-day game before the 1994/95 Centenary Series and Richards in a three-day match in 1986/87 on the West Indies tour.
Tendulkar's was elegance, Richards' was force.
I think Richards would easily average north of 60 in test cricket ( and very possibly ODI ) if he played today. As it was he was a massive hitter with far inferior bats. The game now would be tailor made for him.
He’s another whose legacy exceeds his figures. His record is obviously excellent but on paper others of his era like Gavaskar, G Chappell, Miandad and Border averaged the same or more.
But he’d be ahead of all of them in a world XI.
