If Bradman played in today's era?

[Richard]

It's obviously been said before but wow does he hit that ball cleanly

Yep. And that too with bats far, far lighter than those which most people have used for the past 20 or 30 years.

 

[Richard]

A quick look at Grace's stats.....continued

So how did WG Grace fare against his contemporaries in the English first class seasons over the 20 year period of 1868-1887

• WG averaged 45.17 during this period.
• The average of all others who played in the first class game in those years put together is 16.00.
• This gives WG a multiplier of 2.82 over his contemporaries in these two decades.
• The average in the English season in the 21st centuries (2000-2007) has been 31.55
• Thus if there was someone who dominated English first class cricket today as WG did for those 20, he would have had to average 89.06 !!

An average of 89.06 for a period of 20 years !!

Not too different from Bradman's career first class average of 95.14 .

WoWee. I knew he was dominant, but not to that extent.

Is this average of 16 that for those of front-line batsmen or all players?

 

[SJS]

WoWee. I knew he was dominant, but not to that extent.

Is this average of 16 that for those of front-line batsmen or all players?

Of all players.

This is almost exactly half of the average of all first class batsmen in 2000-2007. That gives a very good idea of how different batting was at that time.

The stats dont differ at least from the time of the late 1920's. I will do the analysis for the periods before that one of these days to see when exactly the batting averages started moving up and at what speed.

 

[SJS]

Its even more amazing that in that 20 year period, every 7th first class century scored in England was scored by WG !!

 

[Somerset]

Kind of off topic, but does anyone know where to get Bradman film footage? I have a picture in my mind of how him batting would look. Something of a mix of Brendan McCullum and Sachin.

I can understand the Sachin part of the mix but McCullum?? Bradman was notorious for hitting the ball along the ground and finding the gaps, McCullum just goes out there and smashes the daylights out of it!

 

[Somerset]

Its even more amazing that in that 20 year period, every 7th first class century scored in England was scored by WG !!

Thats quite amazing, puts WG into perspective; an average of 90 for 20 years...not bad going at all!

 

[SJS]

Thats quite amazing, puts WG into perspective; an average of 90 for 20 years...not bad going at all!

People just don't seem to be able to appreciate the time span of these cricketers' careers. We just devalue their performances by looking at their averages, where as what we could do if we were willing to look more objectively is consider what would have happened had they NOT played that long.

WG was at his best in the years 1866 to 1876. A 12 year period and not short by any standards. I have absolutely no doubt that his fast increasing girth had an increasingly detrimental effect on his performance even in his early thirties. Its only because he was so FAR above his contemporaries that he could continue to play.

• During this period he averaged an astonishing 56.67 per innings !!
• The rest of the players averaged just 14.91 during this period.
• That makes WG's figures 3.8 times those of his contemporaries.
• Extrapolating over 2000-2007 it would need a batting average of 119.9 for someone to dominate in the current decade as WG did in those 12 years in the 3rd quarter of the 19th century !!

During this period WG scored a third of all centuries scored in England (56 out of 123) !!

 

[a massive zebra]

A quick look at Grace's stats

WG Grace for his times was as great a cricketer as Bradman was in his. This alone makes him worthy of being placed at the very top of any shortlist of all time great cricketers. Unfortunately we tend to look at his stats and tell ourselves

• Come on he averaged just 32.3 in test matches.
• His first class average at 39.45 is no great shakes either (remember Bradman averaged in the nineties)
• If a fat fifty year old was playing active cricket the standards couldn't be that great could they?

and so on and so forth​

What we need to understand is

1. When test cricket started, it wasn't considered the ultimate to participate. The English domestic cricket was THE cricket. Many players did not take interest in it and opted out of an opportunity to play tests particularly if there was money to be made elsewhere.
2. WG played his first test at 32, his second at 34, his 3rd at 36 !! By the time he played his 9th test he was 40.
3. He did not go to Australia for ALL the first eight tours England made down under !! and he was by a zillion miles England's (and the world's premier batsman of the times).
4. He was in his 44th year and well past his prime when he played his firsat test in Australia.
5. The fact that he played till past fifty does not mean he was as good a player at fifty as he was when younger. He was well past his prime. Its just that he was still good enough to play first class cricket. Surelyy it affected his averages as it would affect any player's (including Bradman) if he continued playing competitive cricket well past his prime. Thats why instead of looking at Grace's figures in totality over the entire career, we need to first understand that he was at his prime in his twenties and early thirties and then declined as any cricketer would.

Here are WG's first class figures broken up by decades to show how he declined as he grew older.

WG was born in 1848, so I have taken him to be 20 years old in 1968, 40 years old in 1988 and so on. I have taken full calendar year records even though he was born in July because the records are available more easily on calendar year (English domestic season mainly) basis.

[B]              	M's	Inns	NO	Runs	Ave	100	50	Ct	St	M/100	M/50plus[/B]

[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Teens/20's	222	366	35	17927	54.2	58	65	300	3	3.8	1.8[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"]30's          	223	385	30	13058	36.8	25	69	277	2	8.9	2.4
40's          	279	485	25	15947	34.7	30	77	240	0	9.3	2.6[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]50's onwards	146	242	14	7279	31.9	11	40	59	0	13.3	2.9[/COLOR]

[B]OVERALL   	870	1478	104	54211	39.5	124	251	876	5	7.0	2.3[/B]

• As a batsman, WG clearly has three distinct phases. He was at his peak till he gets to the age of thirty.
• He was not just younger till then he was not as fat as he was to become.
• From then for the next two decades he is clearly a lesser batsman though he did have a sudden lease of life from 1895 to 1898 (his 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th years) he scored 7526 runs at a very impressive 44.0) scoring 20 centuries and crossing 2000 runs in a season twice while crossing 1500 on the other two occasions.
• He declined very fast after this second wind and his 100's became much less frequent though he was not so bad with fifties. Clearly the body was very tired.

...to be continued

Fantastic post SJS, agree with nearly all of it. Just one point to note though, I am fairly certain Mr Grace visited Australia around 1873, which was the third English cricket tour of Australia.

 

[Goughy]

The Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is the only sportsperson to match Bradman in my opinion.

I was asked to interview him for a newspaper about 2 months ago but declined as Id never heard of him.

 

[PhoenixFire]

I was asked to interview him for a newspaper about 2 months ago but declined as Id never heard of him.

Dire, I am appalled.

 

[a massive zebra]

Hi Funnygirl

Here is the dampener for all Bradman 'devotees'

The world batting averages haven't changed much since Bradman's era. If anything they are marginally lower. The lowest being during Richard's era at 30.21 as compared to 31.856 during Bradman's times. Thus Bradman's average during the times of these other greats - extrapolated on the basis of the world averages and Bradman's 'multiplier' works out as -

• Hammond's Era : 97.93
• Richard's Era : 94.97
• Gavaskar's Era : 95.50
• Lara's Era : 95.85

He played in the best era of them all. So the only chance Bradman had for keeping his three figure average intact was if he hadn't played that last test

This analysis ignores the fact that Bradman alone raised the overall batting average of his time by about 1.5 runs during his career. If one subtracts his performance from the overall figures, the resulting average is almost identical to that of Viv Richards time.

 

[SJS]

This analysis ignores the fact that Bradman alone raised the overall batting average of his time by about 1.5 runs during his career. If one subtracts his performance from the overall figures, the resulting average is almost identical to that of Viv Richards time.

Thats very correct.

If you take away Bradman's average from that era, it would be fair to take away the other great's average from his era also. Which would make the comparison as under.

The Rest of the world average in the era's of the five greats and Don's extrapolated average

[B]Player/Era  	ROW avg	Don's avg[/B]
Richards	29.94	97.86
Gavaskar	30.08	98.34
Brian Lara	30.30	99.04
Wally Hammond	30.21	98.73
Don Bradman	30.58	99.94

I am afraid the final conclusion remains the same even though the figures are slightly different - Bradman's era was the best of the lot for batting ........ or had the best batsmen take your pick

 

[Beleg]

I am pretty sure he'd be an excellent batsman - but averaging in the 90's? Heh, no chance. Not even close.

 

[Richard]

What makes you think that, then?

 

[Debris]

I am pretty sure he'd be an excellent batsman - but averaging in the 90's? Heh, no chance. Not even close.

Yeah, it would be way above that.

 

[Craig]

The Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is the only sportsperson to match Bradman in my opinion.

AWTA.

 

[Top_Cat]

The Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx is the only sportsperson to match Bradman in my opinion.

Gretzky too. Four Stanley Cups, nine Hart Trophies (MVP), 10 Art Ross trophies (most goals in a season) and still the only player in hockey history to score 200 points in a season, which he did four times. So far apart from even Gordie Howe and Howe was a bonafide hockey genius.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

The only man who should be mentioned in the same breath as Bradman is Muhammad Ali. Although unlike The Don he's not unequivocally recognised as the greatest ever in his field (although many argue that he is), in terms of impact on the sport, and in particular global recognition, he outstrips everyone.

 

[SJS]

The only man who should be mentioned in the same breath as Bradman is Muhammad Ali. Although unlike The Don he's not unequivocally recognised as the greatest ever in his field (although many argue that he is), in terms of impact on the sport, and in particular global recognition, he outstrips everyone.

Tiger Woods if he goes on like this for another, say, ten years ??

 

[Briony]

I think there are three things which might lower his average.

1. the much greater quality of fielding


2. bowlers who are tall and can extract bounce from the pitch. Bradman was vertically challenged.

and

3. Scientific captaincy. In those days captains tended to move the fieldsmen where the last boundary went. I've read a lot of books on that era and this is commented on ad nauseam. Today with computer analysis, there would be much greater probing of a key batsman's weaknesses.

If you ever read a description of all his innings, it's amazing how often he was dropped. Sometimes more than once. And fieldsmen in those days didn't dive for the ball so you would find he would score slower today with fielders able to cut off boundaries.

If you look at the old tapes, there seemed to be a lot of pie chuckers from that era. And they all seemed to be under six feet.