WHY do they say this?

[four_or_six]

Chill out guys.

 

[sledger]

But we're having such a nice time.

 

[Blaze 18]

Cheers Blaze - I did suggest earlier in the thread that most India fans were of sound mind on this one

Yeah you did mate. I just wanted to clarify because some of the pro-Tendulkar arguments in this thread are a little silly. I don't want anyone to get a wrong impression.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Fair cop, RTQ. Still, I'd take issue that Yuvraj has barely played for India. Yuvraj has played plenty of Test cricket for the world to have worked out that he's really not very good at it.

But obviously not enough games for England to work out how to take his wicket and stop him from scoring a match winning 85* in what was the fourth highest successful 4th innings run chase of all time on wicket that was turning square on day 5 in Chennai 2008. And also not enough games for England to figure out how to contain him during that series and prevent him from averaging 70 on his come back series into test cricket after two years in the cold- despite Flintoff, Pietersen, Collingwood and Harmision specifically targeting him. Bradman however had played enough for England to figure out how to reduce his 99 average to 56 when the targeted him in the body line series.

So be careful and make sure you have a grasp of all the facts before you dismiss someone entirely.

That's me told. I will now go and add extra water-carrying practices to all of my teams' training schedules for the new season.

 

[Turbinator]

With all this babble shabble about Bradman vs Tendulkar, I think we are all forgetting one very important man who can give both a run for their money...

 

[Cevno]

I'm all for letting everyone express their opinions, but is Bradman vs Tendulkar really worth discussing? I assure you guys that most of the Indian fans rate Bradman much higher than Tendulkar (even if internet forums seem to suggest otherwise).

Don Bradman>>>>>>>>>Brian Lara>>Sachin Tendulkar>>>>every batsman post Viv Richards (IMO).

Not sure about "most" indian fans ,tbh.

 

[honestbharani]

Not sure about "most" indian fans ,tbh.

depends on how seriously they follow cricket and more importantly, cricket history, tbh..

 

[dhillon28]

I hope someone like Got Spin, Ikki or archie can be arsed to give this piece of crap of a post the proper treatment coz I cbf but here are some brief points:

Average is not a raw indicator of who is better but when the nearest competitor in 150 years averages 30-40 per cent less than you do, then that is much more indicative than number of runs. To try and compare it to a bowler with a handful of wickets is nothing more than illogical.

And although we may not have seen much footage of Bradman, there are millions of words written about him, primary evidence exists. People seem happy to accept Hitler existed and was evil so why would you question every contemporary of Bradman who speaks of his immense skill?

Alright Archibald, chill out- this ain't the Crimean War we're fighting here. Millions of words exist? Oh yeah sure- because cricket is really a game that you can follow properly in words isn't it. As for ur Primary evidence....ur use of it means that you only have secondary evidence in support of Bradman whereas my support for Tendulkar is based on primary evidence of having watched him with my own eyes.

You say Bradman, was at least 30-40% better than any other contemporary across 150 years of test cricket. Sorry I don't compare his achievements during the bilateral series that was known as world cricket in the 1930s with what has been achieved since 1970s onwards. Bradman never had to play high class spin bowling which has been the undoing of the great Punter. He never faced the brute force of Ambrose and Walsh, the reverse swing of Wasim, Waqar and Imran and the guile of Murali and Warne. So sorry dont buy this performance against one type of bowling attack.

Performance against one team on a limited number of venues should always been taken with a huge pinch of salt! e.g. Thilan Samaraweera averages 130 against India over 6 games played in Sri Lanka. Jonathon Trott averages 86 vs Australia in all Ashes test matches home and away i.e. the exact same competition in which Bradman acquired his legendary 99 average . The case of Trott and Samaraweera shows the limitations of labelling a player as great, based on their performance against just one form of opposition in a limited number of venues.

Comparison with Hitler......lols- concluding that someone is evil is a very broad, generic and non comparative statement to make. Its cricket equivalent would be that Bradman was a good player for example. Hence ppl are generally happy accepting both statements with the degree of evidence that exists to support it. But something very specific like Bradman is better than Tendulkar- thats comparative and it much more difficult to prove, esp when there is so much in favor of Sachin being the best of all time.

 

[Furball]

I mean if you want to say that you cannot compare across eras, then fine, but then you have to be consistent with that.

The 'you can't compare across eras' argument is bull**** though.

Since the 1920s, 'great' batsmen have all averaged more or less the same (53-57), and have all scored centuries roughly every 6.5-7.5 innings. Go and look at the table I posted a few pages back of all batsmen who have scored at least 2,000 runs and averaged at least 50. Great batsmen, from whatever era, share remarkably similar statistical achievements.

The one outlier is Bradman.

 

[Furball]

Alright Archibald, chill out- this ain't the Crimean War we're fighting here. Millions of words exist? Oh yeah sure- because cricket is really a game that you can follow properly in words isn't it. As for ur Primary evidence....ur use of it means that you only have secondary evidence in support of Bradman whereas my support for Tendulkar is based on primary evidence of having watched him with my own eyes.

You say Bradman, was at least 30-40% better than any other contemporary across 150 years of test cricket. Sorry I don't compare his achievements during the bilateral series that was known as world cricket in the 1930s with what has been achieved since 1970s onwards. Bradman never had to play high class spin bowling which has been the undoing of the great Punter. He never faced the brute force of Ambrose and Walsh, the reverse swing of Wasim, Waqar and Imran and the guile of Murali and Warne. So sorry dont buy this performance against one type of bowling attack.

Performance against one team on a limited number of venues should always been taken with a huge pinch of salt! e.g. Thilan Samaraweera averages 130 against India over 6 games played in Sri Lanka. Jonathon Trott averages 86 vs Australia in all Ashes test matches home and away i.e. the exact same competition in which Bradman acquired his legendary 99 average . The case of Trott and Samaraweera shows the limitations of labelling a player as great, based on their performance against just one form of opposition in a limited number of venues.

Comparison with Hitler......lols- concluding that someone is evil is a very broad, generic and non comparative statement to make. Its cricket equivalent would be that Bradman was a good player for example. Hence ppl are generally happy accepting both statements with the degree of evidence that exists to support it. But something very specific like Bradman is better than Tendulkar- thats comparative and it much more difficult to prove, esp when there is so much in favor of Sachin being the best of all time.

Never heard of Bodyline?

Your ignorance shines through, congratulations.

 

[marc71178]

Btw, don't look too much into Bradman's first class career. I live in Essex, England and I've spoken personally to a man who saw Bradman make 166 vs Essex in the 1940, and he told me that during that time that the bowlers were trundlers, the fielders were lethargic and the ground sizes were so small and very conducive to fast run accumulation.

Leaving aside the fact that Bradman never made 166 against Essex (and in fact only played them once in his career when he was 39 going on 40), I'd love to know what made the Australian administrators dig up all the stands and rebuild them so much further from the pitch so that the grounds are now as big now when they were apparently so small in that era.

Also, I'd like to know if the grounds were so small and conducive to fast run scoring how come nobody else scored so many runs at such an average?

 

[marc71178]

lol.. Yuvraj has played precisely ONE test after the Chennai game against England.. And Bradman averaged 56 (his lowest) in a series where the next best was?????????????

So let me get this right. Bradman's average in his worst series when he was specifically targetted by Bodyline was actually within 1 of SRT's career average (an average that includes all games including his 1738 @ 96.56 against the ZimBan combination - incidentally that minnow average is also lower than Bradman's career average)

 

[dhillon28]

If concluding Bradman >>> Sachin without having seen Bradman bat was flawed, it is even more flawed to conclude Sachin >> Bradman without having seen Bradman bat too..

Is it really? I thought the general accepted notion worldwide was that the standard of human physical performance has perpetually increased with time. E.g. if we take the standard of atheletics in the 1930s, the 100m world record was 10.4 secs whereas today it is 9.58. Therefore the fastest sprinter of the 1930s would lose by a whopping 10 metres to todays fastest rival. Tbh, this isnt a fair comparison as international atheletics was a far more developed, international and competitive sport than international cricket was then and so the standards of those days in athletics would be technically closer to those of today.

The only feasible way to draw a comparison would be to see how much ahead of competition each one was and Bradman was just way, way, way ahead there..

Not if the standard of competition was very high i.e. only one comparible opposition team, no professionals dedicating their lives to cricket, no video analysis, most of the players smoking cigarettes etc.

All this jack about professionalism is juz BS coz for argument's sake if another player makes 20K TEST runs in 200 games in the next two decades, would you consider him >>>> Sachin??? I mean, natural progression dictates that each sport gets more professional and tougher to play as you go on.. So this hypothetical player would have done it when he had to concentrate, and excel, in 3 formats of the game than just the two that Sachin had to... It is all so very hypothetical that it really is stupid.

Yes if a player comes along that can manage to outscore Sachin, and be one of the top 3 batsmen in the world over 20 years and play and perform under such intense scrutiny- I shall take my hat off to him and declare him better than SRT. Until that player arrives....its Sachin all the way.

Easiest way to compare across eras, for me, is to see how dominant they were in THEIR era and assume that they would show similar dominance in any era.. In that manner, Bradman is well ahead. End of.

this method may work for you, but it doesnt work for me because I dont have faith in the standard of cricket in that era. No one will accept that Preston North Ends team of invincibles is equal to the Arsenal team of invincibles, simply because the standard of sport in those days isn't comarible to todays.

 

[Burgey]

Is it really? I thought the general accepted notion worldwide was that the standard of human physical performance has perpetually increased with time. E.g. if we take the standard of atheletics in the 1930s, the 100m world record was 10.4 secs whereas today it is 9.58. Therefore the fastest sprinter of the 1930s would lose by a whopping 10 metres to todays fastest rival. Tbh, this isnt a fair comparison as international atheletics was a far more developed, international and competitive sport than international cricket was then and so the standards of those days in athletics would be technically closer to those of today.



Not if the standard of competition was very high i.e. only one comparible opposition team, no professionals dedicating their lives to cricket, no video analysis, most of the players smoking cigarettes etc.



Yes if a player comes along that can manage to outscore Sachin, and be one of the top 3 batsmen in the world over 20 years and play and perform under such intense scrutiny- I shall take my hat off to him and declare him better than SRT. Until that player arrives....its Sachin all the way.



this method may work for you, but it doesnt work for me because I dont have faith in the standard of cricket in that era. No one will accept that Preston North Ends team of invincibles is equal to the Arsenal team of invincibles, simply because the standard of sport in those days isn't comarible to todays.

Yeah spot on. Because if Stanley Matthews played today he won't adapt, develop, train hard and be a great player.

Pure tosh. Adaptability is one of the things which makes greats great.

 

[dhillon28]

And juz a correction, Bradman did play in most of the places you mentioned and with immense successs, I might add.. Reading up on history helps, seriously.

Thank you for enlightening my ignorant and historically uncultured soul, but the history books I read don't have any record of Bradman playing any test match cricket outside Australia and England. He only played one test match series each against India, South Africa and Windies respectively....all at home. I cant comment for the other teams, but the Indian team at that time was about ten levels below the standard of English first class cricket.

 

[Burgey]

By acknowledging that Sheffield Shield Cricket was more competitive than international cricket in those days. Mark Ramprakash's career stats are a reflection of the disparity that should exist between International and first class cricket, when a playing era is professional and competitive.

Btw, don't look too much into Bradman's first class career. I live in Essex, England and I've spoken personally to a man who saw Bradman make 166 vs Essex in the 1940, and he told me that during that time that the bowlers were trundlers, the fielders were lethargic and the ground sizes were so small and very conducive to fast run accumulation.

That's interesting mate, because in 1940 Don Bradman enlisted in the Australian Army and wasn't within a bull's roar of Essex, England or indeed the northern hemisphere. For its part, Esaex and the rest of England were a bit worried about seeing off the Hun.

Not as big a challenge as bowling to Sachin, I admit, but having about 120 divisions ofthe German Army wanting to knock on your front door every 25 years or so back then tended to occupy their minds a tad.

 

[dhillon28]

And we got the opposite from about a 100 of the people who have watched not just ONE innings but almost the entire career of Bradman.. I know whom I would trust.

yeah i'd trust the old man with no reason or motive to speak anything other than the truth as opposed to the 100 or so ppl that say Bradman was the best and have a vested interest in cricket and want to solidify ties within the cricket fraternity.

 

[marc71178]

yeah i'd trust the old man with no reason or motive to speak anything other than the truth as opposed to the 100 or so ppl that say Bradman was the best and have a vested interest in cricket and want to solidify ties within the cricket fraternity.

That must be sarcasm surely seeing as the "truth" has already been shown as being inaccurate.

 

[dhillon28]

lol.. Yuvraj has played precisely ONE test after the Chennai game against England.. And Bradman averaged 56 (his lowest) in a series where the next best was?????????????

no need to look at history books for this one, a basic knowledge of international cricket would suffice-Yuvraj has played just a little bit more than just ONE test after the Chennai game.

 

[dhillon28]

I'm all for letting everyone express their opinions, but is Bradman vs Tendulkar really worth discussing? I assure you guys that most of the Indian fans rate Bradman much higher than Tendulkar (even if internet forums seem to suggest otherwise).

Don Bradman>>>>>>>>>Brian Lara>>Sachin Tendulkar>>>>every batsman post Viv Richards (IMO).

dont speak on behalf of ppl of our nation in this way. they definitely dont think Bradman was better than Sachin. There are only two types of Indians who think that way. 1. ppl with hero mentality who want to show that they are bigger than their fellow indians by being able to be 'objective'..
2. those indians that are still stuck in their mentality of colonial subservience

I can assure you that 99% of indians that dont belong in either one of these two groups think SRT definitely better than Bradman.