Sanga is under rated?

[vcs]

sanga is a superb player, no doubt. but we are talking about his place among the modern greats. so "almost" is not good enough. you cant equate this knock with the dravid performances i have listed above. the "almost" is the difference between sanga's real rating and greatness. he is "almost" great but not yet. instead of patronising him, lets wait for him to up his game in eng, WI, SA, Ind and earn his stripes.

in the lara-tendulkar era, even ponting, dravid, kallis, sehwag and waugh dont deserve to occupy the first two positions. considering how great those batsmen are, sanga, gilly, hayden and inzi would be delighted to be in the top ten. lets leave it at that.

Come on, you can't seriously take away from that knock just because his team happened not to win (let's put the bad decision aside for a moment). If you started doing that, would you chalk Tendulkar's 100 in Centurion off because India lost by an innings? Sangakkara scored a 50 and a near-200 in the same match FFS, that's as good as what Dravid did in 2003.. too bad his team wasn't good enough to support him properly. I agree you can justifiably criticize his performance in the other four countries, but not Australia, NZ and Pakistan.

 

[smash84]

Come on, you can't seriously take away from that knock just because his team happened not to win (let's put the bad decision aside for a moment). If you started doing that, would you chalk Tendulkar's 100 in Centurion off because India lost by an innings? Sangakkara scored a 50 and a near-200 in the same match FFS, that's as good as what Dravid did in 2003.. too bad his team wasn't good enough to support him properly. I agree you can justifiably criticize his performance in the other four countries, but not Australia, NZ and Pakistan.

Agreed. i wouldn't disregard Sachin's 136 at Chennai even though India lost. For me it is one of the greatest test match knocks of all time.

 

[bagapath]

it was a superb knock. as superb as sachin's 136. but it doesnt cover the fact that other greats have scored match winning hundreds in so many different countries (sachin: england, pak, SL, wi, nz, for example) and that sanga has not. forget matchwinnign knocks; he has not scored a single hundred in three countries.

despite this huge gap in his CV, this hurry to call him the greatest batsman of the era is what is irking me. he is very good. but dont equate his "almost" performances with real great performances, like the dravid knocks, and push him up a level. he doesnt deserve it. he is yet to show that he is a real force to reckon with in four major test playing nations. that is a huge elephant in the room even a blind man can see.

 

[Migara]

sanga is a superb player, no doubt. but we are talking about his place among the modern greats. so "almost" is not good enough. you cant equate this knock with the dravid performances i have listed above. the "almost" is the difference between sanga's real rating and greatness. he is "almost" great but not yet. instead of patronising him, lets wait for him to up his game in eng, WI, SA, Ind and earn his stripes.

in the lara-tendulkar era, even ponting, dravid, kallis, sehwag and waugh dont deserve to occupy the first two positions. considering how great those batsmen are, sanga, gilly, hayden and inzi would be delighted to be in the top ten. lets leave it at that.

Sorry he don't deserve to be with Kallis, Ponting, Waugh, Dravid and Sanga.

 

[akilana]

Sorry he don't deserve to be with Kallis, Ponting, Waugh, Dravid and Sanga.

+1
What a lucky fellow

 

[bagapath]

sure, demote sehwag. i have no issues with that. but sanga doesnt deserve to be with ponting, kallis, waugh and dravid especially as long as he is a flop show in four major cricket playing countries.

 

[Migara]

Like Kallis' flop show against SL / ENG? or Lara's flop show in India? Or Dravid's flop show in SL? You are very funny.

 

[Prince EWS]

Like Kallis' flop show against SL / ENG? or Lara's flop show in India? Or Dravid's flop show in SL? You are very funny.

Not that I agree with bagapath here, but he said four; not two. There's obviously a difference there.

 

[smash84]

it was a superb knock. as superb as sachin's 136. but it doesnt cover the fact that other greats have scored match winning hundreds in so many different countries (sachin: england, pak, SL, wi, nz, for example) and that sanga has not. forget matchwinnign knocks; he has not scored a single hundred in three countries.

despite this huge gap in his CV, this hurry to call him the greatest batsman of the era is what is irking me. he is very good. but dont equate his "almost" performances with real great performances, like the dravid knocks, and push him up a level. he doesnt deserve it. he is yet to show that he is a real force to reckon with in four major test playing nations. that is a huge elephant in the room even a blind man can see.

It might be irking you ppl calling him the greatest of this era but don't you think that you are going in the other extreme by calling some of his performances **** which, while not great, don't deserve to be called ****.........

 

[bagapath]

Like Kallis' flop show against SL / ENG? or Lara's flop show in India? Or Dravid's flop show in SL? You are very funny.

that is three players failing in four countries. i am talking about one player flopping in four.

 

[vcs]

Sorry he don't deserve to be with Kallis, Ponting, Waugh, Dravid and Sanga.

He is not far behind Dravid and Sanga at all. As I mentioned in another thread, even if his record in SA/England/NZ is not good enough, he more than makes up for it elsewhere and those two aren't exactly flawless either. And then there's the X-factor that he brings that cannot be measured with stats alone. He is very close to Dravid and Sanga.

Ponting, Kallis, Waugh are ahead of those three in my book.

 

[smash84]

He is not far behind Dravid and Sanga at all. As I mentioned in another thread, even if his record in SA/England/NZ is not good enough, he more than makes up for it elsewhere and those two aren't exactly flawless either. And then there's the X-factor that he brings that cannot be measured with stats alone. He is very close to Dravid and Sanga.

Ponting, Kallis, Waugh are ahead of those three in my book.

There is merit in what you say.

 

[bagapath]

It might be irking you ppl calling him the greatest of this era but don't you think that you are going in the other extreme by calling some of his performances **** which, while not great, don't deserve to be called ****.........

sanga is awesome otherwise. but he is defiinitely **** in those places.

if i say warne is crap against india and murali is **** all in australia i am speaking the truth. had they failed in so many places as sanga then their overall career record wont matter and they wont be called ATGs.

not everyone is a tendulkar or a marshall i know. even mcgrath and lara have holes in the resumes. but they did brilliantly in 80% of the places they played in. but sanga has failed in 50% of the major test playing nations. let him dig himself out of that hole before we go gaga over his average.

 

[vcs]

There is merit in what you say.

Yeah some short memories here. People are forgetting all the good he did just because he got owned by Steyn in the last series. I mean, if you break down his record and compare with Sanga's..

Australia - equal, both outstanding
Pakistan - equal, both brilliant
NZ - Sanga wins out easily
India - Sehwag wins out easily
SL - both are brilliant

The rest aren't worth comparing really as neither is very good and can claim any significant advantage.

Incidentally, both are very close to the 2nd spot behind Bradman to the number of innings they needed to get to 7000 runs in Test cricket.

 

[smash84]

Yeah some short memories here. People are forgetting all the good he did just because he got owned by Steyn in the last series. I mean, if you break down his record and compare with Sanga's..

Australia - equal, both outstanding
Pakistan - equal, both brilliant
NZ - Sanga wins out easily
India - Sehwag wins out easily
SL - both are brilliant

The rest aren't worth comparing really as neither is very good and can claim any significant advantage.

Incidentally, both are very close to the 2nd spot behind Bradman to the number of innings they needed to get to 7000 runs in Test cricket.

Did Bradman make 7000 runs????

 

[vcs]

Did Bradman make 7000 runs????

Actually, no. I think he ended on 6996. Yet another reason to have hit that boundary before getting out to Hollies. They just showed a table for the number of innings different players had taken to get to 7000 when Sehwag got there in the SL tour last year. Sanga was ahead of him IIRC, and Bradman needed only 80 innings for 6996 of course.

 

[Prince EWS]

sanga is awesome otherwise. but he is defiinitely **** in those places.

if i say warne is crap against india and murali is **** all in australia i am speaking the truth. had they failed in so many places as sanga then their overall career record wont matter and they wont be called ATGs.

not everyone is a tendulkar or a marshall i know. even mcgrath and lara have holes in the resumes. but they did brilliantly in 80% of the places they played in. but sanga has failed in 50% of the major test playing nations. let him dig himself out of that hole before we go gaga over his average.

I don't think it's fair to treat Sangakkara the wicket keeper and Sangakkara the specialist batsman as the same player. Given he averages 40 with the gloves and 76 without the gloves, I do think it's safe to say that the burden of them was holding him back. To improve by such a ridiculous margin sooo suddenly is just far too much of a coincidence, for mine.

Since getting rid of the gloves, here are his averages in each country:

Zimbabwe - 141
New Zealand - 134
Australia - 97
Sri Lanka - 85
Pakistan - 60
India - 48
South Africa - 48
West Indies - 43
Bangladesh - 42

Where's the hole there? He's yet to play in England as a specialist batsman, but I think that's his next series, and I expect him to go well there. He's performed literally everywhere else - he averages 40+ in every country. As a specialist batsman he actually has one of the most complete records in world cricket.

 

[bagapath]

Looks good. But we are talking about ATG status here. Could you pl give a breakdown of his 100s in each country?

 

[vic_orthdox]

Yeah, but in all honesty, 143 to win with 2 wickets in hand isn't actually that close, regardless of how well 1 man is batting. Especially when the 2 wickets are hardly known for their Jimmy/Monty/Onions blocking tendencies.

Was listening to the game at the time, and it was ridiculous. He was just scoring boundaries at will with the field back, it was amazing. As TC said, it felt like 50 runs in our pocket the way he was batting.

 

[Migara]

Not that I agree with bagapath here, but he said four; not two. There's obviously a difference there.

Bagapath's four is a fallacy. If Sanga's 39.2 against SAF is **** and bad, so is Tendulkar's 40 against ZIM and 40.2 against PAK. So that makes the best batsman's record has two holes compared to four of Sanga's. Lara, Dravid and Kallis all have at least two such places. And in addition Dravid and Kallis don't have any noteworthy match winning performance in SL and in case of Kallis in ENG. The whole theory of his is filled of inconsistencies.

ATM I rate Kallis and Dravid over Sanga when whole career is concerned, and Kallis > Sanga > Dravid as test players. The only reason for that is the weight of runs that Kallis and Dravid has, but not petty reasons like he has not scored a match winning hundred etc. rubbish.