If you can't see the difference in achievement between Sobers averaging 57 over a 20 year career and Davis averaging 54 over 15 Tests then you are really not qualified to assess players.
Do you not understand where my statements come from or do you willfully ignore what the contention was about?
It was stated that Sobers' average of 34 is better than other 34s. While that may be true, it still isn't a talking point. I say, IF that is a talking point, then the fact that Sobers' era was one of the higher averaging eras means that Sobers' 57 is lower than other 57s.
Now, Sobers' bowling average maybe should be 32 and his batting should be 55, but it doesn't change anything about him that we already know.
Now, you say there is a difference between Sobers average of 57 and Davis' 54, that's great. I know there is. Davis only played within the time of Sobers' career and only played 15 matches, and that was his end of career average. The contention was not that Davis is actually THAT calibre batsman. He was just an example of many batsmen that I showed averaged quite healthily in this period.
Sobers can still be the best of his era, that's not the point.
The"facts" that you present are tendentious, because you ignore evidence that does not suit your preconceived thesis.
The irony, my "facts" are tendentious. Yours aren't promoting anything right?
I have proved to an extent, if not completely, many of your "facts" being wrong. You keep trying to stretch an opinion or a single performance as a generalisation of a person's career. Tendentatious, indeed.
Can you identify any batsman other than Bradman who did not fail against any country? How many batsmen have better Test records than Sobers does?
LOL, what does that have
anything to do with it? I didn't say Sobers isn't one of greatest, and I didn't say he had to be perfect. I said what I said, so if people are haggling for 1-2 average points, they can look at his batting career overall.
In any case, your initial claim was that Sobers piled up runs against weak teams. I pointed out that this argument was false, because his worst record was against the weakest team of his era. You are now making the directly contradictory argument that his failure against minnows "is a huge blot on his record." If you want to attack Sobers you should at least get your arguments straight.
WRONG.
Whether he failed against a minnow doesn't mean he didn't pile up runs against them either. Remember the Hayden example I gave to you? He didn't do well against Bangladesh but hammered Zimbabwe. It doesn't mean he didn't take advantage of a weaker team. Now, you expect greats to do this. In fact, there are few greats that don't have a close example like this.
Success for greats is different. It IS a huge blot on his record if he conclusively fails against a minnow just as it should be taken with reservation when they hammer the crap out of them. Beating minnows is not something that tells us much about a great.
This is absurd. If one team beats the other in three out of four series and draws the fourth they are not by any reasonable definition of the term "close," nor is the difference between them "very small." Anyone familiar with cricket in the Sobers era knows that not only was India's batting stronger than New Zealand's, but India also possessed a number of high quality spinners (Gupte and Mankad in the first half of Sobers' career, Bedi, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna and Venkataravaghan in the second), while New Zealand had nothing comparable. Both Sobers and Everton Weekes described Gupte as the best leg spinner they ever saw. Viv Richards described Chandrasekhar as the most difficult bowler he had to face. The duel between the West Indian batsmen and the second set of Indian spinners in 1971 was one of the most absorbing contests I have ever seen.
LOL, do you take what you just said seriously? The difference between teams is not established through just looking at who won the series. A team may lose to another in 5 series of 3 test matches where one team keeps winning 1 test and tying the other 2. It doesn't mean that one team is that much better at all. The distance between teams is not established just through loss or win.
Furthermore, I gave you their record against OTHER teams. Maybe the NZers were just poor against Indian spinners, for example. And I showed you, they are much closer than you think. In fact, I'd say there is at least the same difference between NZ and India in this time that there is between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I also gave you the results between these two teams as well. But conveniently, you ignored it.
Whether Weekes thinks Gupte is great or whether Richards thinks Chandra is great is fine. It didn't make the Indians greater than what they were. The WIndies were known for being tender against spin. In fact, India's spinners were pretty lethal on the right pitch and when they clicked.
But look at the whole, as I showed you, India in 20 years only won 16 test matches, that is less than 1 test win a year. They also played 90 odd tests in this time. In terms of matches played and won, India is the 2nd worse side of the era with only NZ worse. Pakistan, not much better than India.
Once again you made a claim that has been shown to be false, and you are now trying to weasel your way out of this awkward position.
LOL, someone who you said has spent a lot of time in this thread and has been so fervent is not the kind of person who will weasel out of anything. The fact that I have squashed a lot of what you said is what matters. If others come through this thread with a clean slate, see how I've treated each of your points - without trying to dodge them or misstate them, as you have done mine - then it was worth the time spent.
Awkward position...
I don't have my ego in this as it seems you do. I have been accepting from the start from others that they may know something that I don't and I will take them into consideration.
The fact that we moved on from Sobers the all-rounder and you're trying to argue something about Sobers the batsman (which I didn't dispute) clearly shows you're trying to save some grace.
