Top 5 modern day greats

[ret]

Warne
Murali
Lara
Tendulkar
Gilly

 

[Lostman]

1st four were easy for me Lara, Tendulkar, Murali and Warne.
The 5th was the tricky one, was stuck between Gilchrist and Kallis. Decided to go with Kallis.

 

[stephen]

Yes, i know the one you were talking about, i watched that game. It was a rebuilding exercise, the powerplays were over so it was time to bat sensibly until the death, they felt. There were plenty of big hitters down the order for the Saffers, in Boucher, Kemp and Pollock. He decided to bat through with a run-a-ball type of innings and let them accelarate towards the end.

Unfortunately, Hoggy got him out before he could catch his strike-rate up after playing himself in, and he finished with, i see 48 off 63 balls- hardly exactly stinking up the joint. Let's look at a few other examples of much more "selfish" innings from players who get no such criticism:

Kumar Sangakkara hitting 44 off 86 balls against India on a flat deck.

Salman Butt's 35 off 64 balls leaving Pakistan woefully short during the Asia Cup.

Kevin Pietersen taking 41 balls to score 12 against Sri Lanka

Pretty much any one-day innings played by Rahul Dravid fits the bill, too. And as you say, if you're selfish in one form of the game...

How come Kallis gets **** for trying to bat through in one-dayers but with these guys it's never mentioned? Where did all the selfishness bollocks even come from?

Because Kallis is technically not as limited as most other batsmen but never seems to read the game correctly.

You're probably right in that other batsmen do not cop as much criticism as Kallis for it and they should. Either way, if it's because Kallis is more technically limited than he appears or if he's selfish, he's nowhere near as good of a batsman as the big three.

The reason that nearly everyone rates Dravid as being worse than Tendulkar despite similar averages is probably for similar reasons - a much lower career strike rate means that the batsmen do not give their respective teams as much of a chance to win matches as do the batsmen who score at a quicker rate. That's not to say they're bad, only to say that they're not as good as the other batsmen. Most teams around the world would pick both Kallis and Dravid as one of their first picked players if they could, but that doesn't mean that they're the best players of the last 20 years.

Kallis is the best batting allrounder for a good number of years (possibly since Sobers), but that doesn't necessarily mean he's in the top 5 players of the last two decades. Not when Gilchrist, McGrath, Warne, Murali, Lara, Tendulkar and Ponting have all played in the same era.

Though as I have said previously, I don't really rate allrounders as highly as selectors worldwide seem to. To me an allrounder is only really necessary or desirable if you have a rubbish spinner. If you have a decent spinner (of say Panessar's quality of a couple of years ago) you really don't need an allrounder in the team, given a decent pace bowling attack.

I can't imagine Kallis getting too many overs if he was to play for Australia in the 1995-2007 period.

 

[Ikki]

The thing with all-rounders (I guess batting all-rounders) like Kallis and Sobers is that they fit a role in their own teams. However, in a greater team their usefulness is mooted.

 

[Xuhaib]

So going by the poll its proved now that Warne > Murali & also Sachin> Lara

 

[0RI0N]

So going by the poll its proved now that Warne > Murali & also Sachin> Lara

How do you come to that conclusion,Dr. Watson?

 

[Ikki]

How do you come to that conclusion,Dr. Watson?

Look at the poll numbers Sherlock.

 

[0RI0N]

Look at the poll numbers Sherlock.

at the end of the day its OPINIONS.Like Imran is the greatest allrounder.Ever.
Keith Who?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

So going by the poll its proved now that Warne > Murali & also Sachin> Lara

And Bond > Pollock.

 

[0RI0N]

So going by the poll its proved now that Warne > Murali & also Sachin> Lara

/
and fleming > inzi?
And bond > donald?
Massive fail

 

[Xuhaib]

/
and fleming > inzi?
And bond > donald?
Massive fail

I thought gave it away.

 

[0RI0N]

I thought gave it away.

no worries xuhaib.

 

[Fusion]

Warne
Murali
Akram
Lara
Tendulkar

Cotinue to be surprised by the lack of love for Wasim. But as Adharcric will remind me, with names like Ambrose, Gilchrist, McGrath, Kallis, Dravid etc it's hard to fit everyone in.

 

[bagapath]

damn difficult question.

went for

sachin
lara
warne
akram
gilchrist

could have gone for two of kallis, ambrose, murali and mcgrath in place of last two on a different day. but tendulkar, lara and warne are certainties

 

[silentstriker]

Not having good batsmen also makes it far easier for your opposition to beat the pants off you.

Case in Point: India's record away in the 90s. Zero tests won outside the subcontinent despite having Tendulkar, and Dravid for the latter part.

Why?


Bowling wins matches.

 

[silentstriker]

If I had to pick three batsmen though, it'd be Sachin, Lara and S. Waugh.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Case in Point: India's record away in the 90s. Zero tests won outside the subcontinent despite having Tendulkar, and Dravid for the latter part.

Why?


Bowling wins matches.

If they didn't have Tendulkar, Dravid, they would have lost a lot more too. Batsmen are important.

 

[silentstriker]

If they didn't have Tendulkar, Dravid, they would have lost a lot more too. Batsmen are important.

I didn't say they weren't. I know that fast bowlers need someone to hold a bat. I just said bowlers are more important.

 

[silentstriker]

And Tendulkar and Dravid are probably two of the top seven-eight batsmen in the past two decades, I'd say. If I had any two out of McGrath, Ambrose, Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Walsh, Pollock, Bishop or something, I bet I'd win more than zero games just on those guys.


That's the point I'm trying to make.


And yea, you can toss in fatty and chucky too.

 

[G.I.Joe]

I didn't say they weren't. I know that fast bowlers need someone to hold a bat. I just said bowlers are more important.

So important that you'd place 5 quicks among the 5 greats of the modern era? You under-rate batsmen so much, its bordering on the trollish. Pakistan losing to Australia 3-0 in '99 is a prime example. You even have Kumble confessing that a major reason for his success overseas in the 2000's is that he now had a good cushion of runs to bowl with compared to the 90's.