Miller v Kallis

[archie mac]

Being non-professional is a accolade? Duh!

I don't think anyone is saying whether it is or not, just a fact

 

[Matt79]

Miller carried the burden of being, along with Lindwall, his teams lead fast bowler. In matches where he was not required to bowl himself ragged, he averaged notably better than his career average of 37 with the bat.

Who can say how Kallis would have gone if he and Donald or Pollock had been the only two world class quicks in SA's team during his career, and he'd had to bowl a full load in the majority of his matches?

 

[Ikki]

Miller carried the burden of being, along with Lindwall, his teams lead fast bowler. In matches where he was not required to bowl himself ragged, he averaged notably better than his career average of 37 with the bat.

Who can say how Kallis would have gone if he and Donald or Pollock had been the only two world class quicks in SA's team during his career, and he'd had to bowl a full load in the majority of his matches?

Towards the end of his career he also had more trouble with his injuries as well. For half his career (the first half) Miller averaged 45 with the bat and 22 with the ball. That sets up apart from all all-rounders IMO. Even his weaker 2nd half he averages 33 with the bat and 24 with the ball - which even that itself would put him amongst the best all-rounders of all time.

He was also a great fielder and a very smart captain. Considering his post-war attitude towards life meant he never gave Cricket too much importance...he's a bit of a freak. The most naturally talented Cricketer IMO. #5 for the Invincibles and at times only 2nd to Lindwall in bowling shows that there probably never was a Cricketer who was as good at both disciplines as Miller.

 

[Migara]

Kallis is a great par with Sobers in the place of batting all rounder, no doubt, but Miller is better for a team as he is a bowling all rounder. But, Imran is the best of all.

 

[nightprowler10]

Miller for me quite easily but I'm biased towards the man.

 

[The Sean]

Miller for me quite easily but I'm biased towards the man.

This.

 

[Uppercut]

Miller carried the burden of being, along with Lindwall, his teams lead fast bowler. In matches where he was not required to bowl himself ragged, he averaged notably better than his career average of 37 with the bat.

Who can say how Kallis would have gone if he and Donald or Pollock had been the only two world class quicks in SA's team during his career, and he'd had to bowl a full load in the majority of his matches?

Then again, who can say how Miller would have gone if he had been required to play 128 tests rather than 55, not to mention 287 ODIs on top of that?

 

[pskov]

Then again, who can say how Miller would have gone if he had been required to play 128 tests rather than 55, not to mention 287 ODIs on top of that?

It's a point, especially considering Miller had to battle injury at times in his career, but Miller played a lot more domestic cricket than Kallis the difference is not quite so stark. Plus Miller's conditioning and fitness could only improve if he was a modern professional as opposed to an amateur. Then again you just have to look at Flintoff to see how much stress and strain the international calendar of the last few years can have a player expected to both lead the bowling attack and bat in the top 6.

 

[Uppercut]

It's a point, especially considering Miller had to battle injury at times in his career, but Miller played a lot more domestic cricket than Kallis the difference is not quite so stark. Plus Miller's conditioning and fitness could only improve if he was a modern professional as opposed to an amateur. Then again you just have to look at Flintoff to see how much stress and strain the international calendar of the last few years can have a player expected to both lead the bowling attack and bat in the top 6.

Yep- as I say, you can only speculate, noone can realistically tell how he would have coped with it. Just as noone can realistically tell how Kallis would have fared having to lead the attack- the opportunity could have made him a much better bowler, or the added workload could have affected his batting and/or caused him to break down.

 

[Precambrian]

Oh FFS. I'll settle this early to save 4.5 weeks of irrelevant and irrational dribble.

The square root of Kallis's pecker is apparently 7/8 of a millimetre longer than Miller's was when flaccid, thereby meaning, according to statsguru, that Kallis is more penetrative.

Of course, to counter-balance that argument, you have to take into account that Miller's strike rate, according to the statistics, was much better than Kallis' with the ladies, taking out of course his poor tour to England in 48 when he struggled against the swingers, meaning he couldn't really cope with top class opposition.

This despite several contemporaries rating Miller's efforts in the bedroom as good as any of all time.

But we discount that, because these stories are hero worship only and really don't reflect the lack of statistical domination on a warm afternoon in the WI in the mid-50s when apparently Keith was struggling to play "on the rise".

Of course, things are "easier" in the modern era, so we have to take a certain proportion of Kallis' otherwise excellent stats away to reflect this. There's no reason for that, we just do it because it suits our own argument.....

And of course, there's diversity involved here. Kallis has played in more countries, meaning Miller misses out there, because we can only assume he would have picked up as consistently well at those venues - we can't prove it,because there aren't the stats to back it up.

Besider, Miller's dead. His returns in later years were terrible - clearly a decline.

Blah Blah ****ing Blah.

And on it goes, backwards and forwards for as long as it takes everyone to realise that this argument is really no more than a few posters repeatedly playing with their OWN equipment.

Fin.

This.

 

[Ikki]

Then again, who can say how Miller would have gone if he had been required to play 128 tests rather than 55, not to mention 287 ODIs on top of that?

Yeah, but I think it's more true for bowling all-rounders than batting all-rounders. Pace bowling takes much more of a toll physically It's no coincidence that in the top 30 players of all time with most tests only 3 bowled pace (McGrath, Walsh and Kapil Dev). The rest are batsmen and spinners.

 

[Richard]

If this draft stuff is proposed as a long-term thing, please please please could this get some consideration? Gets very tiresome (for me) to have 4 or 5 "draft" threads on the front page of CC and if what everyone has always said about most people not clicking on the little "2" at the bottom of the page is true, it also stymies discussion.

First thing is could someone involved in the thing tell me whether it's proposed as a long-term thing, 'cos if it is I'll air the suggestion somewhere where it's likely to get more attention than here.

It's really annoying to have some on-title-topic discussion disrupt this vital line of questioning.

Answer me, NUFAN!!!!!!!