Best match saving innings you have seen

[bagapath]

i think the knock should be from the third or fourth innings of a test with the team facing a huge first innings deficit or in danger of being bowled out to a defeat. match setting, match turning innings should be kept out of this list. this should purely be about snatching a draw from the jaws of defeat.

that way, atherton's 185* must be the best of its kind in the last 20 years.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Give or take.

3 hours.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

He saved it, Harbhajan won it, and Australia lost it.

By that logic he neither saved it, nor won it. Because after Laxman's innings Australia were still in to win it.

The fact is that Laxman's innings have India a chance to win it, which Harbhajan ensured they did. It's a matchwinning innings.

 

[Goughy]

Not a candidate for the "Best" but watching Ian Botham propping and copping patiently for over four hours here was a bit surreal

Reading the match report for that game, it seems nothing changes for Pakistan.

"Gatting reached his ninth Test hundred, the fifth in his last fourteen matches and although giving chances of varying degrees of difficulty at 5, 23, 58, 60 and 107 "

 

[GIMH]

I don't see how an innings coming in a rain-affected match makes any difference, except for cases where the rain came before the batsmen had finished his job maybe (ie the rain came on the last day).

 

[bagapath]

Reading the match report for that game, it seems nothing changes for Pakistan.

"Gatting reached his ninth Test hundred, the fifth in his last fourteen matches and although giving chances of varying degrees of difficulty at 5, 23, 58, 60 and 107 "

which means gatting's knock is not actually an unbeaten 150. it should be considered as six separate innings at an FCA of 30, with the last knock an unbeaten 43.

 

[honestbharani]

I don't see how an innings coming in a rain-affected match makes any difference, except for cases where the rain came before the batsmen had finished his job maybe (ie the rain came on the last day).

AWTA... If it rained before the last day, both teams knew what had to be done in advance and there is no way something like that should diminish an innings in any form or manner.

 

[Richard]

Apparently Atherton's knock wasn't chanceless. Cheapens it for me, tbh.

Nah truth is it was. Anyone seriously contending that Kirsten would've caught that thing which flew straight off the face of the bat to short-leg without some freakish luck hasn't watched it or is just one of these people who insists that something which hits a fielder's body before it's bounced is a chance.

In reality Kirsten had no realistic chance of catching that and there was no point in the innings where Atherton seriously looked like getting out.

 

[Richard]

Much like Cardiff 09 then?

Ind33d. Thought you'd have learnt not to nationalistically bait me by now.

 

[Richard]

It was Atherton's brightest moment in otherwise an overrated and fairly mediocre career.

Not really. To be overrated one has generally to be rated very highly and Atherton at the present time is not really. He's thought of by more than not as what he was - a very good Test opening batsman for a decade. Some ignoramuses think he was less than that, meanwhile, which makes him underrated.

There was a time when people thought he could be more than that but these were overambitious expectations and everyone realises that he did not meet them and most realise that he was never going to.

 

[Richard]

Dean Jones against India at Chennai? Tied test?

By-and-large a match-saving innings has to be one in the second-innings. Dean Jones' was in the first.

 

[Goughy]

Not really. To be overrated one has generally to be rated very highly and Atherton at the present time is not really. He's thought of by more than not as what he was - a very good Test opening batsman for a decade. Some ignoramuses think he was less than that, meanwhile, which makes him underrated.

There was a time when people thought he could be more than that but these were overambitious expectations and everyone realises that he did not meet them and most realise that he was never going to.

Mark me down as an ignoramus then

 

[Sir Alex]

Not really. To be overrated one has generally to be rated very highly and Atherton at the present time is not really. He's thought of by more than not as what he was - a very good Test opening batsman for a decade. Some ignoramuses think he was less than that, meanwhile, which makes him underrated.

There was a time when people thought he could be more than that but these were overambitious expectations and everyone realises that he did not meet them and most realise that he was never going to.

With that average he played for more than 100 tests which means he was indeed overrated atleast by his selectors. Well, not that England was brimming with guys able to replace him anyway.

 

[Richard]

By that logic he neither saved it, nor won it. Because after Laxman's innings Australia were still in to win it.

The fact is that Laxman's innings have India a chance to win it, which Harbhajan ensured they did. It's a matchwinning innings.

No batsman's innings is a matchwinning one - only a bowling spell can be that. Without 20 wickets being taken by one side a match will almost always be drawn. Laxman's innings was certainly match-turning, but Harbhajan's spell was the match-winning one; likewise Australia's near-inexplicable capitulation was match-losing.

Obviously Laxman's knock can't be described as match-saving but it was certainly match-turning.

 

[Richard]

I don't see how an innings coming in a rain-affected match makes any difference, except for cases where the rain came before the batsmen had finished his job maybe (ie the rain came on the last day).

Makes a huge difference - one is a case of a batsman playing a lost-play-assisted match-saving innings, the other is a case of playing a match-saving innings.

Obviously both are credible but equally obviously when there's lost play involved a match-saving innings would not have been match-saving but for said lost play.

 

[Richard]

With that average he played for more than 100 tests which means he was indeed overrated atleast by his selectors. Well, not that England was brimming with guys able to replace him anyway.

Nonsense - for most of Atherton's career he averaged 41, which is very good considering the bowlers he opened the batting against. The reason there were no batsmen to replace him was because he was better than the vast majority of batsmen. Only seriously good and top-of-the-tree Test batsmen have ever been better than him.

 

[Richard]

Mark me down as an ignoramus then

So you consider he was not a Test-standard batsman then? Baffling. How on Earth can you reach that conclusion?

 

[Sir Alex]

Nonsense - for most of Atherton's career he averaged 41, which is very good considering the bowlers he opened the batting against. The reason there were no batsmen to replace him was because he was better than the vast majority of batsmen. Only seriously good and top-of-the-tree Test batsmen have ever been better than him.

Averaging 41 at his peak is strictly mediocre stuff. Quality of bowlers notwithstanding. He belongs to the league of Sadagoppan Ramesh, Sidhu, etc.

 

[Goughy]

So you consider he was not a Test-standard batsman then? Baffling. How on Earth can you reach that conclusion?

You used the description of "a very good Test opening batsman for a decade." and now if someone diagree you put the accusation that he was "not a Test-standard batsman" in to their mouhs.

Baffling. There is a some place between the two.

 

[Richard]

Averaging 41 at his peak is strictly mediocre stuff. Quality of bowlers notwithstanding. He belongs to the league of Sadagoppan Ramesh, Sidhu, etc.

If you consider 41 mediocre (and if you consider 90-odd Tests as a "peak", and refuse to accept that calibre of bowling makes a huge difference to how relatively good a batsman's average is) then all that remains to be said is you've different word meanings than I have.

For me 90-odd Tests (ie, the vast majority of Atherton's career, with only the first 2 and last 10 Tests knocked-off) is a plateau period (a peak would be more 1993-1996 where IIRR he averaged about 47 or so) and a mediocre average would be about 35.

Sidhu is a fair-ish comparison (Atherton was a bit better); to compare him to Ramesh is laughable as he was several million miles better.