The Greatest Cricketer Ever

[vcs]

I actually like the fact that people on this site, by and large, put Tendulkar's achievements in its proper perspective when they talk about him. Sure the recent paranoia regarding his fan-boys can get annoying, but that's life. cricinfo is also pretty fair across the board, as they would quickly lose credibility if they tried to play to the gallery and appease the Indian fanbase. It's just a ridiculously short-termist thing to do.

 

[hang on]

perhaps on a slight digression, regarding the debate between who was considered the best between lara, waugh and tendulkar:
if memory serves, i remember tendulkar and mcgrath being voted best batsmen and bowler, respectively, for many years on the trot by the australian cricketers' association (or something along those lines -- annual polls used to be conducted and perhaps even journalists and cricket writers participated, though i seem to recollect that it was only the players who actually voted) during the late 90s and early noughties. lara and waugh, among the batsmen were very much around at the time. as were ambrose and walsh and akram and warne and murali.

and, generally, the two garnered a rather large percentage of the votes....even 70% or so.

would really help if someone could corroborate the kinds of polls that i am referring to. don't mind being pulled up if i am pulling stuff out of my proverbial either! fogbanks of memory and all that....

regarding ponting in comparison to lara and tendulkar, i would confidentlt put him a notch lower (in a lower category). essentially, while i have tendulkar ahead of lara by a smidgeon, i have ponting appreciably behind both. personal bias, of course, but strongly influenced by ponting's relative failures in england and india. one team the old enemy. the other the new one who actually were the pakistan to australia's windies.

 

[Sanz]

The suggestion that Ponting and Tendulkar have gotten equal attention for their achievements is ludicrous IMO. Tendulkar has gotten far more attention all the way through his career even though Ponting has been neck and neck throughout it.

That's such an incorrect statement, Tendulkar hit Qadir for 4 6s as a 16 years old, Ponting can't hit sixes of Bhajji after 16 years of cricket. Tendulkar the batsman was baptised against the likes of Akram, Waqar and the great Imran Khan in Karachi and coming on to bat @ 13/3, Punter was baptised against Hathrusinghe, Vikarmsinghe and Vaas @ Perth, came to bat @ 422/3. You telling us Indian fans that Tendulkar has gotten ludicrous attention ? Really ? Tendulkar wasn't the one that walked into a team of Mark Taylor, Shane Warne, Mcgrath, Waugh Brothers. I would have valued and remembered Tendulkar as much if not more, even if he retired 10 years ago.

And don't even get me started on Ponting being Neck to Neck with Tendy.

 

[Burgey]

The main disagreement would be the Kallis/Pollock>everyone one.

Apart from that I feel Murali>Everyone as a pure bowler by a decent bit(7 wpm for a decade @ under 20) in this generation, Obv. Most experts feel Warne is better.

Donald as a test bowler pretty much equals McG and is even a slightly better bowler than Akram, for mine. Pollock is an actual ATG bowler too.While Akram, Ambrose and McG who I think are Donald's equals are almost always talked about in a discussion about the best pacer of the generation, Donald's name is never brought up.

Can't think of many things else but my point is that I arrive at my opinions in a much different way than the experts do, I try to isolate actual performance from skill-sets while it is apparent from reading most experts' opinions that it is not the case.



Edit CW and put 'Most people' and you have my opinion about why I DWTA with most expert opinions regarding cricketer comparisons. While the answer of who is better? might be the same in some cases, There is a crucial difference in how the answer is arrived at.

Anyway, Have an exam tomorrow and loads of studying to do, Will answer further posts tomorrow.

Murali's record here is every bit the chink in his armor that Warne's in India is.

McGrath, IMO, is better than both, and by quite a bit

 

[stephen]

Murali's record here is every bit the chink in his armor that Warne's in India is.

McGrath, IMO, is better than both, and by quite a bit

It's not exactly as though Murali has a great record in India either.

Murali and Warne are very difficult to split statistically when you take out Zimbabwe and Bangladesh from their records.

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

1 run bowling average difference, 691 vs 624 wickets, 1 ball strike rate difference doesn't add up to much.

The only clear statistical difference is that Murali has a higher WPM value, but even that is offset because Warne was competing with McGrath for wickets.

Murali was a freak. Warne was a freak. We're just blessed to see both players' careers coincide.

 

[hang on]

The only clear statistical difference is that Murali has a higher WPM value, but even that is offset because Warne was competing with McGrath for wickets

.


not saying that i disagree, but isn't there a school of thought that believes that it works the other way i.e. batsmen exercise more caution against the premier bowler and end up getting out to the others?

 

[bagapath]

Yeah yeah yeah. The grand majority of cricket fans are Indian and they want to hear everything good about their hero...and the media obliges. The guy deserves a lot of praise - I am not bitter about that - but it is disproportionate to the praise his rivals get, with regards to their similarly impressive performances. If you're denying that then there is not much to say to you.

you have a case for that point I have underlined. sure. there is not enough good writing on cricket and on different cricketers these days. mostly it is just plain jingoistic ****. but i dont see anyone in england or west indies writing about ponting either. or for that matter no aussie newspaper carries stories on pujara or AB devilliers. media outlets stick to to their national fan base most of the time. so they write about their heroes and about people who are hot. ponting is not an indian and he is not a great player anymore. so he is likely to be ignored. that is the way it goes. (of course, i hate the way they have made a big deal of his tv breaking story and we have discussed that in another thread)

the bigger problem with your earlier post was you claimed that sachin fans like to compare him with lara because lara is statistically inferior to sachin and sachin comes out better in those comparisons. so it is always the preferred argument instead of a possible comparison with ponting in which sachin is likely to come out the loser. this was one of the most warped arguments i have heard in quite some time. lara and sachin are both better than ponting. there is no conspiracy here.


in case you still have any doubts, let me tell you that ponting is better than sehwag and dravid who are all time great batsmen too. no west indian or indian or australia will have a problem in agreeing with this.

 

[smash84]

Ikki slugging it out again .........agree with the point being made that Ponting hasn't been all that great since McWarne retired and hence his reputation suffered.

Ikki as you mentioned that one of the thing that makes Lille great is that he did well as a lone wolf and did well as a partner in a good bowling attack. Applying the same thing to batting Ponting did great when he had great players around him but did poorly when he was the lone wolf.

 

[smash84]

Ikki slugging it out again .........agree with the point being made that Ponting hasn't been all that great since McWarne retired and hence his reputation suffered.

Ikki as you mentioned that one of the thing that makes Lille great is that he did well as a lone wolf and did well as a partner in a good bowling attack. Applying the same thing to batting Ponting did great when he had great players around him but did poorly when he was the lone wolf.

 

[Teja.]

@ Burgey

My rationale for rating Murali so highly is that when directly comparing McG of 95-05 with Murali of 98-08(picked Murali's best 11 year period as it's unfair on Murali to compare his longer career with a shorter one and the >40 average bowler Macca was in his first two years isn't anyway representative of the rest of his ATG career),

McG - 520 in 110 @ 20.63, 4.7 wpm
Murali - 631 in 90 @ 19.94, 7 wpm

While McG definitely has a more complete record and Murali being **** in Oz has to count against him, I'll still pick Murali for the reason that he took a significantly higher number of wickets a game than Macca while still averaging 20. I belong to the school of thought that it's a greater achievement and gets harder to maintain take wickets cheaply on average when you don't have much support. So while I think it's be more of an impossible split(It already is) if Murali actually took wickets at five runs more per wicket, At this stage, I'll take Murali.

The quality of Murali is something one cannot appreciate fully by seeing alone, IMHO. Because you obviously see he's ATG quality when he's bowling but you also see that in a few other bowlers(McG, for one) but his real effectiveness is in that he never stops bowling, I think it's remarkable how much better than anyone else for donkey's years he is at taking 10-fers. He has 22. That is just creepy. Obviously him not having someone seriously competing for wickets is a huge contributing factor but still it's amazing how often he was taking a majority of his team's wickets. Over his career he averages a five-fer every other game.

To put it extremely simply, I'd pick the bloke, for a career, who strikes every 50 balls and bowls 40 overs a match over a bloke who strikes every 50 balls and bowls 59 overs a match even though the first guy will be more consistent and get the best players out more often(which is the thing which makes it very close for me)

Obv, This entire post is based on my belief that the more you bowl per match, The less the chance of you maintaining a lower bowling average. If you disagree, that's fine.

 

[smash84]

To put it extremely simply, I'd pick the bloke, for a career, who strikes every 50 balls and bowls 40 overs a match over a bloke who strikes every 50 balls and bowls 59 overs a match even though the first guy will be more consistent and get the best players out more often(which is the thing which makes it very close for me)

but Murali bowls more overs per match so that means you will take McGrath? You seem to have suggested u wud prefer murali over macca.

 

[Maximus0723]

but Murali bowls more overs per match so that means you will take McGrath? You seem to have suggested u wud prefer murali over macca.

Yea he has got that reversed.

 

[Prince EWS]

but Murali bowls more overs per match so that means you will take McGrath? You seem to have suggested u wud prefer murali over macca.

I think he meant to type 60 instead of 40. Or 39 instead of 59.

 

[vcs]

LOL, his head is fried with all the history mugging up.

 

[smash84]

 

[Debris]

This thread has been a bit like poking an angry bear with a stick.

All the same old arguments have been rolled out.

 

[honestbharani]

LOL, his head is fried with all the history mugging up.

So what is he gonna write about? The Mughal empire sucked coz they didn't have to face W & W away from home?

 

[Ikki]

TBF, I preferred that Tendulkar got little less coverage, but it is harder to not give him coverage now a days, because now a days he is creating a new record almost every other inning whereas Ponting is in coverage for wrong reasons.

By that criteria, he is breaking a record with every new run. We get it, he is the leading run maker and century scorer. It does not need new coverage everytime he adds to those records. It's, frankly, getting tedious.

And, yes, Ponting is getting lovely coverage for damaging a part of a TV screen.

Ponting Averages 41.79 in England after 20 tests. And no, he is NOT consistent across the board, unless you do not consider BCCI a Cricket Board and India a cricket nation.

Ponting is 31 in Zinbabwe, 26.48 in India and 41.79 in England, Not as impressive and as consistent as you suggest.

Ponting has 1 inning in Zimbabwe...and you were saying 1 test in Pakistan is not enough. Those are double standards my friend. The guy claimed Ponting did poorly in the subcontinent. The only poor record he has there is in India.

Ponting averages 44 in England against England. You're right though, 42 overall because of the neutral tests.

Of God now we are going to call those UAE/Colmbo track as "Difficult" ? And what did he average on the Neutral tracks of England ?

The conditions in Sharjah were so harsh most players struggled to reach double figures. The heat killed most of the batsmen in that game.

But India is where he played a good number of away test matches, you can not take that out of his record and include his record in Pakistan (that too with assumptions that he was going to succeed)

No one is saying take it out of his record...it merely skews his overall away record. But on a country by country basis, where you assess how he did in different conditions; it is completely relevant to start looking at them separately. His India record will always skew that.

-------

As for the other posts. Yes, you can bring examples of Ponting getting praise in his peak and you can show Tendulkar being criticised but let's not exaggerate either. Ponting did not get the kind of praise Tendulkar or even Lara got and, at a time, he was playing at a level neither of those reached. I think the ICC called it the highest peak of everyone bar Bradman. There was also a study showing the highest average for the number of innings Bradman played (80) and Ponting had the highest average after Bradman for that as well.

I know a lot of Indian fans would like to believe that all the praise of Tendulkar is justified, all fans want to believe their heroes are as good as others claim they are but the attention Sachin gets is something else. I can understand how Indians would rate him less because he didn't perform as well in India but I am not sure that explains it. Warne failed worse (home and away) and many Indians still rate him highly - as an example, he was voted in the Readers Cricinfo XI and the grand majority of visitors to that site are Indian. I read the hype is justified because Tendulkar scored a few runs against Qadir? What about 80 odd face Ambrose/Walsh at the start of your career? Let's call a duck a duck FFS.

And Jono, stop being a ****. I am not saying there is a conspiracy of any sort.

Anyway, that's my take on it; not much to add really.

 

[abmk]

The conditions in Sharjah were so harsh most players struggled to reach double figures. The heat killed most of the batsmen in that game.

uh, which match are you referring to ? Ponting has played 2 tests in Sharjah,

When ponting scored 150, steve scored 103 and hayden 89

3rd Test: Australia v Pakistan at Sharjah, Oct 19-22, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

( he scored 44 in the other test hayden top scored with 119 )

2nd Test: Australia v Pakistan at Sharjah, Oct 11-12, 2002 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[bagapath]

Warne was the best legspinner and joiint best spinner in the world when batsmen and pacers were dominating the game. So his failure in india was ignored. Ponting is merely one of the 4 or 5 very fine batters of the era who almost got good enough to be compared with two all time greats better than him. So the chink in his armor is more pronounced.