It depends on the reasoning behind their opinion. A strong argument refers to previously-expressed strong arguments of those best placed to comment. But obviously an opinion on its own doesn't constitute any evidence in favour of a conclusion. The greatest and most celebrated writings in any area are invariably those which challenge a status quo, and the more widely-held and ingrained the challenged opinion is, the better.
Good point, thanks for elaborating and adding to what I said earlier.
It's important to make a distinction between who is the better cricketer and who adds better balance to the team.
Sober's fielding should be more than offset by Imran's captaincy I believe. Sobers wasn't such a great captain IIRC (some horrible declaration linked to him as well which cost WI the match from a very comfortable situation).
I disagree, I rate Sobers' bowling higher than Imran's batting. I know it is hard to measure but if it came to picking, I will always pick Sobers' the bowler over Imran the Batsman.
Had the match gone the other way the world would be calling sobers the greatest leader. He was an aggressive, positive, risk taking captain with a very good understanding of the game and his team mates. Though I don't consider captaincy as a factor here, there is no way sobers was tactically inferior to imran.
For Sobers there was a period in his career where he was a wonderful all-rounder and people respect that - pretty much forgetting the rest of his career where his stats are rubbish. Also, in his time wickets per match and average were probably looked at more than SR so his bowling gets a lot of leeway.
Did they do that though? I thought the reason the likes of Miller and Imran missed out is because they were only voted as all-rounders whereas Wasim was a viable option as a bowler - when the others weren't.
Miller and Botham are probably more complete.
Yes they did. Positive that Akram was only in the all-rounders section in the voting.
Nah, in their calculations Wasim is not considered an all-rounder, which he isn't.
Heh, I use the same logic to arrive the complete opposite conclusion of not really caring about what people thought at the time. I regularly disagree with the general consensus about modern cricketers so there's every chance I would've disagreed back then too.
As you like to say that we must evaluate on facts so it is meaningless that had the match gone other way. His one big tactic did backfire miserably and his losses as captain are more than his wins. It can mean that he was tactically inferior. Also Imran took his and his team's performance to another level when he became captain. Can't say that about Sobers especially given that the number of wins in his captaincy is less than the number of losees IIRC. So definitely Imran gets much more points for captaincy IMO.
Even today Ricky Ponting might be named the captain of the World XI. I am not sure he is regarded very highly as a captain these days.
That might have been more to do with the regard and esteem he was held in as a player. Although, that too is saying something in terms of how he was regarded by his contemporaries. But, for that matter, how successful was Imran as a captain? IIRC he won 14 test matches from 48 as captain - that is not an exceptional percentage, let alone a good one.
His reputation seems to be based on one WC
