Other Cricket
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200 for Waj
Career well and truly saved.
462/3 off 110 overs
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@NTA said in Other Cricket:
@No-Quarter said in Other Cricket:
Honestly every since I made that post about Smith being past it and his technique being found out he's just piled on the runs. Regret saying anything now.
And he's been far less weird about it. Probably because it is mostly spin and not pace, but no exaggerated movements, or loud "NO RUN" calls etc.
Strange fella but you can’t fault that record.
Enough to be Australia’s second best ever batsman ?
Maybe.
Ponting faded a bit as his career went on, he should have retired earlier.
Greg Chappell was by all accounts a genius and played in a very tough era for fast bowlers.
Border and S Waugh had that gutsy, battler style and were dogged as fuck. Border gets extra kudos for averaging more overseas than at home.
Bradman rated McCabe very highly despite him averaging less than half of what he did……
Smith has to be in the discussion.
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@KiwiPie said in Other Cricket:
Women's Ashes test going the same way as the ODIs and T20s so far - it's 12-0 to Australia and looking likely to finish 16-0. Alana King is a lovely bowler to watch, flight, dip, turn - everything that a leggie should have.
Absolutely - landing them superbly and unlucky not to get a 5-for.
Her average before this match was 60. Tho that Test "career" is now 4 matches old over several years. Not a lot of long-form cricket for the womens.
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@MN5 Don't forget Hayden. I would have Chappell just ahead of Ponting. Chappells best years were lost to WSC. He played in an era dominated by bowlers and still produced the goods. Probably the most stylish of the candidates.
Ponting did decline but your talking about best batsmen not best record. At his peak he was unbelievable good - the bastard.
Smith's the opposite of Chappell. You could never call him stylish and it's not a great bowling era, so while he has to be in any discussion he just doesn't make the cut IMO.
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I'm not old enough to have seen Chappell, but I did see a lot of Ponting. The reason I'd potentially have Smith ahead of him is the importance of Smith's runs compared to Punter.
Ponting's prime largely co-incided with Australia's prime - 2002-2006. He played some fantastic innings but my memory can't really pull up many 'match winning' innings, as he was just surrounded by class in that side.
Smith has featured in a pretty successful team but hasn't had the luxury of coming in after Langer/Hayden. And as such I can list off the top of my head at least 3-4 genuine match winning innings - a couple in the 19 Ashes, Pune in India, etc etc.
So I think his runs have carried a bit more weight than perhaps what Punter's did. But we're really splitting hairs.
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@barbarian similar to how Gilchrist's record was great, but always clouded by the fact he was usually coming in after the top order pounded shit out of everyone.
Years ago I saw a stat that counted Gilchrist centuries in an innings where someone else had a century above him - and it was more often than not I believe.
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Is that recency bias though?
You would think that South Africa were the 2nd best team in Punters era, and he scored two hundred in a test to beat them in Sydney, two hundreds in a test to beat them in Durban. Hundreds against good teams in India.
It is an interesting way to look at it though. Eye test says Punter was the "better" batsman, but greatness isn't measured in numbers, and as you say, one way to look at it is, who else is in the order, and who were they batting against? We're in a pretty good era of test cricket parity at the moment, with most nations having a useful attack. Ponting probably didn't have that depth of opposition.
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@NTA said in Other Cricket:
@barbarian similar to how Gilchrist's record was great, but always clouded by the fact he was usually coming in after the top order pounded shit out of everyone.
Years ago I saw a stat that counted Gilchrist centuries in an innings where someone else had a century above him - and it was more often than not I believe.
Gilly gets labelled with this a little unfairly. I think i did the math on it once and he came in at 5 for less than 200 before going on to get a hundred around half of his centuries. I think that stat gets blown out by the guy above him having time to get a hundred because the #7 averaged 50. (i do seem to remember a hundred opening the batting once as well which probably affects this math)
It's like people are trying to pick holes in that team because Australia had the good fortune to put together a test XI of all time players at the same time.
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my job is very boring
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Gilly was a game changer.
I always liked Alec Stewart as a keeper batsman but Gilly blew the role out of the water.
Hayden would be one of my openers but then I saw a good article saying that Taylor/Slater ( fine players in their own right ) faced better attacks ? Will try and dig it out.
Justin Langer was an excellent player but if I remember rightly he retired at the same time as Warne and McGrath and pretty much got forgotten about ? Speaks volumes about how amazing that team was
In my mythical all time Aussie team Smith, Ponting and Chappell fight for two spots. Whichever way you look at it a legend will miss out.
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@MN5 said in Other Cricket:
Whichever way you look at it a legend will miss out
that's their entire order though. They've had that many fucking good players, and that's just the ones i can remember over the past 40-odd years, let alone the guys from the 70s and 80s.
Ridiculous cricketing nation. The Aus all time 3rd XI is probably as good as most nations Firsts.
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@mariner4life said in Other Cricket:
@MN5 said in Other Cricket:
Whichever way you look at it a legend will miss out
that's their entire order though. They've had that many fucking good players, and that's just the ones i can remember over the past 40-odd years, let alone the guys from the 70s and 80s.
Ridiculous cricketing nation. The Aus all time 3rd XI is probably as good as most nations Firsts.
Definitely. Guys like Clarke, Hussey, Martyn, M Waugh etc are absolutely no chance of an all time XI. Possibly not even 2nd…….
I don’t reckon they have quite the same depth in the bowling department.
……and Keith Miller was their only great all rounder. They are a nation of specialists on the whole.
