Choose three batsmen for the Post Packer XI middle order

[honestbharani]

Well, it's really just Harbhajan. But that's how it goes. You can't be perfect, can you? Because if Ricky were to not have succumbed to Harbhajan his record would be without flaw.

Ricky himself belted Murali...who is better than Harbhajan, so again, your argument has no leg to stand on.

Sometimes great batsmen meet an opponent who might not be great but for some reason gives them trouble. The point is, on the whole, Ponting is superior to Tendulkar. I mean, it would be really hard to argue based on their records. Ponting scores more runs against a broader range of opponents, at a higher average and SR, home and away, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th innings...against the best or mediocre...his record is so damn complete.

I was just thinking of another example where I might make it clear why your method was just so flawed. It's like including Shane Bond simply because his record is outstanding, but failing to realise that he played for NEW ZEALAND () and they didn't have a great anything besides him. And imagine if I brought that in: Ricky averages 107 against Shane Bond and Tendulkar averages 25.

But that would muddy the comparison. The reason I name 4 great bowling attacks because that's exactly what they were. They had 2 all-time great bowlers at least and had the batsmen to put up a fight as well. So in every way they are challenging. Of course, I already put up the stats with regards to these teams and these are, as you put it, cold-hard-facts.

I accept your point, Ikki and to be honest, I did feel sometimes that Sachin's record against Australia does seem to be misleading.. I mean, it is totally different when you are facing Wilson, Bichel, MacGill and Co than when you are facing McGrath, Warne, Gillespie and MacGill... But as they always say, the best way to judge a player is to have watched them over their career and I have basically watched all 3 almost throughtout their careers till now and I do think Lara and Sachin were a notch ahead in terms of batsmanship.. It is hard to define it but you always thought Sachin or Lara could always score more against in tough conditions (pitchwise and bowlingwise) than Ponting did. This is not a slur on Ponting but I do feel Sachin and Lara are better batsmen.. Stats are not everything and you especially should know that.. If I were to go by stats,Warney would not be close to Murali, will he?

 

[Ikki]

yes it was. i got into a long winded argument because ikki was questioning why the whole world was failing to rank ponting on par with or above sachin. i think i should've stayed quiet. but it was good fun anyway.

since ikki chooses to use the stats of bowlers before 2002 i am using the same parameters and giving stats of sachin and ponting against Eng, SA, WI, Pak, Aus/ Ind.

SR Tendulkar 56 96 6 4722 179 52.46 16 21 5

RT Ponting 39 65 7 2335 197 40.25 7 10 6


sachin's record is great. ricky's is merely above average. i am going to see how else ikki can twist this further to arrive at the pre-designed answer he has. may be he will choose to compare sachin and ricky post 2002 now. remember i didnt do this on my own. he suggested we should consider the bowling attacks of major teams only upto 2002 because the greats retired after that.

btw, if he wants to remove india from ricky's opponents his record looks marginally better but nowhere near anything great.

RT Ponting 29 48 5 1811 197 42.11 5 8 3

Ikki has a tendency to create smoke screens suggesting some arbitrary years, setting complicated conditions (ignore india against ponting/ ignore sachin's record against murali etc.)

what i've done is simple and straight forward. i've taken the major cricketing nations and compared the batting averages of sachin and ricky's against them.

if he still doesnt agree sachin deserves to be considered better than ricky overall, at least let him stop saying ricky's record is better than sachin's either pre 2002 or post 2002. it is not if you look at pre 2002 records. when the great bowlers were fully in action ricky was just another batsman on planet. sachin was already seated with the legends.

I tried to accept that you just didn't understand but it's now gotten to the level of embarrassing.

Ricky Ponting only averaged 44 prior to the 2000s, he did pretty badly against the average sides, but he belted the best ones. Post 2000 he did well against all, hence why he is better. Because he learned how to beat the average sides, as well as having a record of besting the best.

You put England and India there when neither were strong or near the "major cricketing nations" at the time so it doesn't prove anything about his ability to play high quality bowling it just showed that he was green and inconsistent against the lesser teams. You may as well include every team there is bar the minnows if you include them. That was the difference between Ponting and Sachin in the 90s, Sachin killed the average sides and was average against the best. By adding England you just inflate Sachin's record even more under the guise of "best attacks". Sachin averaged 44 against the best, get a grip. There is only one reason I bring up the 90s and that's because it had the best attacks in the history of cricket, not because of the mediocre teams.

But really, this was absolutely pathetic. If you continue, I'll elaborate more. I want to see if you accept what you did was misleading or to see if your reasoning was honest to begin with - if not just plain flawed.

 

[Ikki]

Bagapath... >_<



To be honest, Ikki, I think you are creating a bit of a strawman and then pummeling it to death. I dont think any CW poster, or at least the good majority of them, really considers Tendulkar a "God" or "Godlike" or any such thing. Neither I think do they mythologise Tendulkar, althouth that may happen in the future as time goes on. Tendulkar had gotten plenty of heat on these forums over the years, you only have to look at some of the India vs X threads or other threads going back a year or two to when Tendulkar was suffering from poor form and injury.

It is, I think, more than a little patronising and condescending to think that a good many of the CW members who picked Tendulkar were or are sucked in by a 'myth'. A good many of these individuals have watched Tendulkar for years, watched him fail and succeed and in my view would have good grounds for choosing Tendulkar as one of the three premier batsman of the post packer years. I have already explained some of my reasoning, here and in greater depth elsewhere. Simply it comes down to the fact that I have never seen anyone embody the craft of batting better than Tendulkar. To watch him score a good hundred is to see intelligence, method, and organisation at the crease married to a great technique, and a touch of flair. It is to see a master craftsman at work. And in my experience, I dont think I have ever seen a more intelligent batsman at the crease. In that sense, he is the batting version of Shane Warne. This is not to say anything negative about Ponting or to believe that people are ignoring him by 'choosing' Tendulkar. Ponting is, as I said, arguably the second finest Australian bat of all time. IMO only G Chappell is his competition. Only that, to re-iterate my original point, with five stellar batsmen up for three slots, two of these batsmen missing out is, in my view, indicative of little.

Busting the so-called myth certainly does have validity in the case of Sobers. Most of us, after all, did not watch the man. Certainly, as I said in the other thread, Kallis vs Sobers is a good debate, and you raise some excellent points about Sobers' bowling. But I doubt you can claim the same with regard to Tendulkar.

Anyway, good luck with the argument. Its usually enjoyable reading.

It's fine, and you can judge how you like. But for me, personally, it's the biggest cop-out in the world to say x player bowled nicer or batted craftier. It is absolutely irrelevant to the job of batting. Nevermind that it's entirely arbitrary.

I accept your point, Ikki and to be honest, I did feel sometimes that Sachin's record against Australia does seem to be misleading.. I mean, it is totally different when you are facing Wilson, Bichel, MacGill and Co than when you are facing McGrath, Warne, Gillespie and MacGill... But as they always say, the best way to judge a player is to have watched them over their career and I have basically watched all 3 almost throughtout their careers till now and I do think Lara and Sachin were a notch ahead in terms of batsmanship.. It is hard to define it but you always thought Sachin or Lara could always score more against in tough conditions (pitchwise and bowlingwise) than Ponting did. This is not a slur on Ponting but I do feel Sachin and Lara are better batsmen.. Stats are not everything and you especially should know that.. If I were to go by stats,Warney would not be close to Murali, will he?

Fortunately, the stats show that no matter what time of the innings it was or the class of opponent he faced, Ponting had the better record. Even when you look at Lara's record vs the great attacks (he is as good as ponting in that respect), his away form is not upto scratch.

 

[bagapath]

It's so pathetic how you try your best to stat-pick. I tried to accept that you just didn't understand but it's now gotten to the level of embarrassing.

Ricky Ponting only average 44 prior to the 2000s, he did pretty badly against the average sides, but he belted the best ones. Post 2000 he did well against all, hence why he is better. Because he learned how to beat the average sides, as well as having a record of killing the minnows.

You put England and India there when neither were strong or near the "major cricketing nations" at the time so it doesn't prove anything about his ability to play high quality bowling it just showed that he was green and inconsistent against the lesser teams. You may as well include every team there is bar the minnows if you include them.

Absolutely pathetic.

stats?????

 

[Athlai]

Ponting pre 2000's

2092 @ 44.51
v. England 32
v. India 36.60
v. New Zealand 39.66
v. Pakistan 63.20
v. South Africa 49.60
v. Sri Lanka 63.71
v. West Indies 39.71
v. Zimbabwe 31

 

[Ikki]

stats?????

Ponting pre 2000's

2092 @ 44.51
v. England 32
v. India 36.60
v. New Zealand 39.66
v. Pakistan 63.20
v. South Africa 49.60
v. Sri Lanka 63.71
v. West Indies 39.71
v. Zimbabwe 31

Great against the best, average to bad against the rest.

 

[bagapath]

by the way i had removed india already in my first post before you realized i was "pathetic"

why dont you remove england and post their relative stats?

 

[Ikki]

by the way i had removed india already in my first post before you realized i was "pathetic"

why dont you remove england and post their relative stats?

I've already posted his record, when you remove England and India Ponting faces all those great bowlers that we mentioned before: Donald, Pollock, Wasim, Waqar, Ambrose and Walsh. He averages 56 against them.

This is the whole point. Ricky was great against the best from the beginning and acquired the run-scoring touch against the rest. That's why including the others was not even in the discussion. I wasn't arguing that he was as good as Sachin in the 90s at beating average sides, but that he was better than Sachin against the best attacks. So when you said I was making a smokescreen it was tripe.

 

[bagapath]

ikki.. i've incldued ponting and chappell at the no.6 poll.. vote for him over there if you want... you dont have to change for me... i dont have to change for you... and peace, love and happiness...

 

[Ikki]

ikki.. i've incldued ponting and chappell at the no.6 poll.. vote for him over there if you want... you dont have to change for me... i dont have to change for you... and peace, love and happiness...

LOL, how do you go to insulting me in one post, to wishing me peace love and happiness?

 

[bagapath]

well you insulted me too! does it mean you dont wish me peace, love and happiness? we are debating over a fictional cricket team. the beer is missing. otherwise this is typical bar room banter. you dont want to beat me up, do you?

btw, i am almost 35, married for 5 years, 4 guys in early 20s work under me. they and my wife will laugh at me if this heated argument reaches their ears.

 

[Ikki]

well you insulted me too! does it mean you dont wish me peace, love and happiness? we are debating over a fictional cricket team. the beer is missing. otherwise this is typical bar room banter. you dont want to beat me up, do you?

btw, i am almost 35, married for 5 years, 4 guys in early 20s work under me. they and my wife will laugh at me if this heated argument reaches their ears.

I never said anything to you until you said something to me. We went through this tussle with me having to explain myself to you because you wouldn't understand for a few pages. And every time you "thought" you had the right stats you tried to rub them in my face, as if I was hiding them.

 

[bagapath]

I never said anything to you until you said something to me. We went through this tussle with me having to explain myself to you because you wouldn't understand for a few pages. And every time you "thought" you had the right stats you tried to rub them in my face, as if I was hiding them.

i still think i was right but will not be dragged into it any more. end of story for me.

 

[honestbharani]

It's fine, and you can judge how you like. But for me, personally, it's the biggest cop-out in the world to say x player bowled nicer or batted craftier. It is absolutely irrelevant to the job of batting. Nevermind that it's entirely arbitrary.



Fortunately, the stats show that no matter what time of the innings it was or the class of opponent he faced, Ponting had the better record. Even when you look at Lara's record vs the great attacks (he is as good as ponting in that respect), his away form is not upto scratch.

Fortunately, stats are NOT the way or at least the ONLY way to rate players.. at least for me.

 

[Ikki]

i still think i was right but will not be dragged into it any more. end of story for me.

Explain why you were right...I dare you .

 

[Ikki]

Fortunately, stats are NOT the way or at least the ONLY way to rate players.. at least for me.

With all due respect, what are you judging them on then? I've seen both play. You can't say one is better than another in a particular situation (that just happens to be quantifiable) because you "feel" they would when the record shows that your feeling is largely against logic and reality.

 

[bagapath]

i will leave it to the 36 other guys who chose sachin ahead of ricky...

 

[Ikki]

i will leave it to the 36 other guys who chose sachin ahead of ricky...

But they won't get into it, maybe out of fear of having to explain themselves...who knows. You seem willing, so why not? Wow me.

 

[honestbharani]

With all due respect, what are you judging them on then? I've seen both play. You can't say one is better than another in a particular situation (that just happens to be quantifiable) because you "feel" they would when the record shows that your feeling is largely against logic and reality.

of course, there is the small matter who faced whom in the said "away" conditions..

 

[Ikki]

of course, there is the small matter who faced whom in the said "away" conditions..

How so? They faced the same bowlers for most of their career. In the 90s Lara's away record was even worse than what it was overall.

Or when you talk about having a feeling about Tendulkar against the best...that was quantifiable and shown here that he was the inferior of the 3.