Kallis Vs Sobers

[The Sean]

Jaques Kallis has the best statistics of any cricketer of his generation, and yet if you did a poll around the cricket world amongst players, fans and the media to name the 5 best cricketers of the current era, I'm not sure that he would make it. I suspect the result, in no particular order, would be Warne, Tendulkar, Lara, Murali and Gilchrist, with Mcgrath and Ponting there or thereabouts. Which basically reinforces my point that you cant judge the greatness of a cricketer simply on numbers. The thing about comparing Kallis to his contemporaries who we have all seen play, is that we can easily explain why we rate the other champions in front of him. It might be the sheer genius of Lara, the technical mastery of Tendulkar, or Warne's ability to rise to the occasion and get the job done in big games when it really mattered. Either way it is easily explainable because we have actually seen them perform.

The problem with comparing Kallis to a legend like Sobers from a previous era, is that because most of us didn't actually see him play, all we have to judge him on are his statistics which never tell you the whole story. It is like looking at a 3D object as a 2D image. You might see some of the picture, but never the full picture. What is completely apparent, however, is that everybody who has seen Sobers play is completely in awe of the man, and is in no doubt that he is the greatest all rounder the world has ever seen, and daylight to the next guy.

There was obviously a genius, a freakish brilliance, and a match-winning quality about Sobers, that those of us that didn't see him play, will never fully appreciate. From everything you read about the man, he was a batting genius like Lara, a brilliant game changing fielder like Viv Richards or Ricky Ponting, and he had the champion's ability to rise to the occasion and perform great feats in big matches when it really mattered. Maybe his bowling average is a little high, but it is entirely possible that he had a champion's capacity of taking the big wickets at the big moments and had the ability to change the course of a cricket match with moments of brilliance, which is why his bowling is rated higher than his numbers would suggest. But, again, unless you actually saw the matches unfold and saw Sobers impose his will on the contest, you will never fully appreciate all of these attributes. When you combine all of these factors, you are talking about a sportsman whose greatness and impact on the game goes far beyond his mere statistics, which is why he is so revered throughout the cricket world.

Best 5th post ever? Welcome to the boards.

EWS and Uppercut already gunning for you, BTW.

 

[Blaze 18]

Jaques Kallis has the best statistics of any cricketer of his generation, and yet if you did a poll around the cricket world amongst players, fans and the media to name the 5 best cricketers of the current era, I'm not sure that he would make it. I suspect the result, in no particular order, would be Warne, Tendulkar, Lara, Murali and Gilchrist, with Mcgrath and Ponting there or thereabouts. Which basically reinforces my point that you cant judge the greatness of a cricketer simply on numbers. The thing about comparing Kallis to his contemporaries who we have all seen play, is that we can easily explain why we rate the other champions in front of him. It might be the sheer genius of Lara, the technical mastery of Tendulkar, or Warne's ability to rise to the occasion and get the job done in big games when it really mattered. Either way it is easily explainable because we have actually seen them perform.

The problem with comparing Kallis to a legend like Sobers from a previous era, is that because most of us didn't actually see him play, all we have to judge him on are his statistics which never tell you the whole story. It is like looking at a 3D object as a 2D image. You might see some of the picture, but never the full picture. What is completely apparent, however, is that everybody who has seen Sobers play is completely in awe of the man, and is in no doubt that he is the greatest all rounder the world has ever seen, and daylight to the next guy.

There was obviously a genius, a freakish brilliance, and a match-winning quality about Sobers, that those of us that didn't see him play, will never fully appreciate. From everything you read about the man, he was a batting genius like Lara, a brilliant game changing fielder like Viv Richards or Ricky Ponting, and he had the champion's ability to rise to the occasion and perform great feats in big matches when it really mattered. Maybe his bowling average is a little high, but it is entirely possible that he had a champion's capacity of taking the big wickets at the big moments and had the ability to change the course of a cricket match with moments of brilliance, which is why his bowling is rated higher than his numbers would suggest. But, again, unless you actually saw the matches unfold and saw Sobers impose his will on the contest, you will never fully appreciate all of these attributes. When you combine all of these factors, you are talking about a sportsman whose greatness and impact on the game goes far beyond his mere statistics, which is why he is so revered throughout the cricket world.

Slog sweep, this is a brilliant post. I posted something similar a couple of pages ago, but I could not express myself as succintly as you have done.

Because there is not much that has not been said already over the forty eight pages and seven hundred and thirty odd posts, and neither side will change their viewpoints in any case.


Like I have mentioned a number of times already on other threads, statistics can and will never tell the whole story. They can be used to favour virtually any argument. If you go through the last page you will see one dude making a seemingly convincing argument using numbers that Zimbabwe of Jacques Kallis' era are comparable to Pakistan and India of Gary Sobers' era. Then, you have another dude who again makes a point using numbers about how Sir Donald Bradman may also be called a minnow-basher. I don't agree with either of those points, but you can see how easy it is to use numbers to suit whatever or whoever you are arguing for.

Let us take another example, this match :

5th Match, Group C: India v South Africa at Gros Islet, May 2, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

If someone looks at the scorecard twenty years down the line, they may be led to believe that Jacques Kallis played a brilliant innings and the rest of the team screwed up; but was it the case ? At no point during South Africa's chase did they have a realistic possiblity of overhauling the target set by India. Jacques Kallis' strike rate and number of runs scored will not tell you that.

Numebrs will tell you that Steve Waugh and VVS Laxman are ordinary in clutch situations; is it true ? Numbers will tell you that Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brian Lara had careers that more or less mirrored each other, but no-one in their right mind would mention the former in the same breath as the latter. Again, like I mentioned, an all-time great should have, in addition to all other criteria, that unquantifiable X-factor - something that cannot be expressed numerically, something that separates the all-time greats like Sir Gary Sobers, Brian Lara, Shane Warne, Malcom Marshall, Glenn McGrath, Muttiah Muralitharan, Imran Khan, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Richard Hadlee, Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram, Curtly Ambrose, Alan Donald et al from the excellent players like Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jason Gillespie, Inzamam-ul-Haq et al.

Of course, all of the above is just my opinion

 

[bagapath]

before it is too late, let me add that i have spent a lot of time pulling down kallis for his uninspiring batting (from the spectator's perspective). but i do believe that we may not see another cricket in our lifetimes who will score 10000 + runs and take 250 wickets + in both tests and ODIs. and kallis is a terrific fielder as well. he must certainly rank with the very best - like grace, sobers, botham, miller and kapil - as someone who had shown mastery over all disciplines of cricket at various times over a long career. i left out imran deliberately because he was not a great fielder. all the others, and kallis defintely, knew how to bat, bowl and field as well as anyone in the world. that is something very very few can boast of.

 

[vcs]

Kallis may not be as good as Sobers, but he is still ridiculously good. Averages 70+ this year with 5 hundreds, nearly 1000 runs in the calendar year. Nobody's talking about it, though.

 

[honestbharani]

Kallis may not be as good as Sobers, but he is still ridiculously good. Averages 70+ this year with 5 hundreds, nearly 1000 runs in the calendar year. Nobody's talking about it, though.

That is because people are busy pulling over stats guru pages to show that 3 entire generation of cricketers, cricket journalists and cricket spectators were, basically, stupid..

 

[Teja.]

Jaques Kallis has the best statistics of any cricketer of his generation, and yet if you did a poll around the cricket world amongst players, fans and the media to name the 5 best cricketers of the current era, I'm not sure that he would make it. I suspect the result, in no particular order, would be Warne, Tendulkar, Lara, Murali and Gilchrist, with Mcgrath and Ponting there or thereabouts. Which basically reinforces my point that you cant judge the greatness of a cricketer simply on numbers. The thing about comparing Kallis to his contemporaries who we have all seen play, is that we can easily explain why we rate the other champions in front of him. It might be the sheer genius of Lara, the technical mastery of Tendulkar, or Warne's ability to rise to the occasion and get the job done in big games when it really mattered. Either way it is easily explainable because we have actually seen them perform.

The problem with comparing Kallis to a legend like Sobers from a previous era, is that because most of us didn't actually see him play, all we have to judge him on are his statistics which never tell you the whole story. It is like looking at a 3D object as a 2D image. You might see some of the picture, but never the full picture. What is completely apparent, however, is that everybody who has seen Sobers play is completely in awe of the man, and is in no doubt that he is the greatest all rounder the world has ever seen, and daylight to the next guy.

There was obviously a genius, a freakish brilliance, and a match-winning quality about Sobers, that those of us that didn't see him play, will never fully appreciate. From everything you read about the man, he was a batting genius like Lara, a brilliant game changing fielder like Viv Richards or Ricky Ponting, and he had the champion's ability to rise to the occasion and perform great feats in big matches when it really mattered. Maybe his bowling average is a little high, but it is entirely possible that he had a champion's capacity of taking the big wickets at the big moments and had the ability to change the course of a cricket match with moments of brilliance, which is why his bowling is rated higher than his numbers would suggest. But, again, unless you actually saw the matches unfold and saw Sobers impose his will on the contest, you will never fully appreciate all of these attributes. When you combine all of these factors, you are talking about a sportsman whose greatness and impact on the game goes far beyond his mere statistics, which is why he is so revered throughout the cricket world.

Though you have expressed yourself quite nicely, I must say I disagree with most of what is in this post. Tendulkar might be more technically masterful than Kallis or Ambrose might be more of a rise up to the occasion bowler than say, Pollock, but the fact remains that Kallis and Pollock are much better overall cricketers in terms of effectiveness than the other two. That is what should decide which cricketer is the 'greater' one, IMHO.

Also, Rating players on statistics is a much better way of judging players from 50 years ago then rating him based on how much he dazzled you the 4 times you saw him play in your stadium which comes to about 2% of his career.

 

[vcs]

Though you have expressed yourself quite nicely, I must say I disagree with most of what is in this post. Tendulkar might be more technically masterful than Kallis or Ambrose might be more of a rise up to the occasion bowler than say, Pollock, but the fact remains that Kallis and Pollock are much better overall cricketers in terms of effectiveness than the other two. That is what should decide which cricketer is the 'greater' one, IMHO.

Also, Rating players on statistics is a much better way of judging players from 50 years ago then rating him based on how much he dazzled you the 4 times you saw him play in your stadium which comes to about 2% of his career.

Kallis is not at all bad when it comes to technical perfection, TBF.

I cannot agree about rating players on statistics alone.. the last decade itself throws up so many 50+ averaging batsmen. Would you consider a Samaraweera or Yousuf better than Richards or Gavaskar?

 

[Prince EWS]

Kallis is not at all bad when it comes to technical perfection, TBF.

I cannot agree about rating players on statistics alone.. the last decade itself throws up so many 50+ averaging batsmen. Would you consider a Samaraweera or Yousuf better than Richards or Gavaskar?

There's a massive difference between rating players based on statistics and rating players on raw Test averages. That's something a lot of people don't seem to understand for reasons I've never fathomed.

Statistics will show that Samaraweera and Yousuf played in a much easier era for batting than Richards and Gavaskar. Statistics will show that Samaraweera and Yousuf scored a vast majority of their runs at home and in very high high scoring games abroad. Statistics will show that Richards played on past his prime.

A good analysis will take all these things into account including the context of each innings, the state of each match etc etc. Statistics can do a lot more interesting things than just divide your total runs by your total times dismissed.

 

[vcs]

There's a massive difference between rating players based on statistics and rating players on raw Test averages. That's something a lot of people don't seem to understand for reasons I've never fathomed.

Statistics will show that Samaraweera and Yousuf played in a much easier era for batting than Richards and Gavaskar. Statistics will show that Samaraweera and Yousuf scored a vast majority of their runs at home and in very high high scoring games abroad. Statistics will show that Richards played on past his prime.

A good analysis will take all these things into account including the context of each innings, the state of each match etc etc. Statistics can do a lot more interesting things than just divide your total runs by your total times dismissed.

True. Going by statistics alone, how would you rate Kallis in respect to his peers and other ATG batsmen, with everything taken into consideration? Personally, I'd put him at around the same tier as Dravid, probably a bit above.

 

[Himannv]

So much Samaraweera hate on here. The guy is not that bad a batsman as people make him out to be.

 

[Prince EWS]

So much Samaraweera hate on here. The guy is not that bad a batsman as people make him out to be.

Samaraweera is ****ing gun. I started a thread about him just before his recall.
My point was that most people will agree that Viv Richards was a better batsman, and the statistics do back that up regardless of their Test averages.

 

[vcs]

Samaraweera is ****ing gun. I started a thread about him just before his recall.
My point was that most people will agree that Viv Richards was a better batsman, and the statistics do back that up regardless of their Test averages.

Agree, he's just become a flag-bearer of the inflated averages in this decade. He's still quality and a ****ing legend for coming back from what happened in Pakistan.

 

[ankitj]

Agree with PEWS. To judge on the basis of what we see is to flatter ourselves that we understand all the nuances of the game Nor would I take ex-cricketers' testimony in rating a cricketer because their impressions can be clouded by biases too (who did well in the games they played etc).

There are right and wrong ways of looking at stats, but ultimately stats are the only objective facts at our disposal. There are cricketers that have looked amazing to my eye, but I don't rate them very highly because they don't have great stats even if I don't fully appreciate why not.

As for Kallis, not having a double hundred and taking less than 2 wickets in a match would go against him when it comes to assessing his ability to impact a game.

 

[weldone]

There are cricketers that have looked amazing to my eye, but I don't rate them very highly because they don't have great stats even if I don't fully appreciate why not.

And Wasim Akram mustn't be one of them...

 

[Jarquis]

As for Kallis, not having a double hundred and taking less than 2 wickets in a match would go against him when it comes to assessing his ability to impact a game.

Meh, disagree about the double hundred. To maintain a similar average without scoring the same number of huge innings suggests he's more consistent so has impacted on more games.

 

[Prince EWS]

Meh, disagree about the double hundred. To maintain a similar average without scoring the same number of huge innings suggests he's more consistent so has impacted on more games.

Agreed. I've had hugely long debate about it in a few threads - probably this thread at times - so I cbf expanding on that, so I'll just stay with agreed.

Low wickets per match is definitely a valid criticism of him though. He's obviously a good bowler but your utility as a good bowler diminishes if you don't bowl as often as your competitors.

 

[weldone]

Not having a double hundred isn't a weak point, however it's not a strong point either.

For two batsmen having equal average (and playing against similar attacks, similar conditions etc etc), consistency should never be a yardstick. If it was, then Steve Waugh should have been considered a much much better batsman than Lara.

Scoring a 100 and a zilch should be considered as important as scoring a 50 and a 50 (of course, depending on conditions one might be more useful than the other - but I'm talking about averages here). While the first one shows that you have the capacity to score big, the second one shows that you are consistent.

 

[Prince EWS]

Not having a double hundred isn't a weak point, however it's not a strong point either.

For two batsmen having equal average (and playing against similar attacks, similar conditions etc etc), consistency should never be a yardstick. If it was, then Steve Waugh should have been considered a much much better batsman than Lara.

Scoring a 100 and a zilch should be considered as important as scoring a 50 and a 50 (of course, depending on conditions one might be more useful than the other - but I'm talking about averages here). While the first one shows that you have the capacity to score big, the second one shows that you are consistent.

 

[Jarquis]

Yeah, I never said it was a plus point. Just that I disagreed "that it should count against him"

 

[ankitj]

And Wasim Akram mustn't be one of them...

Haha. He is actually a classic example