i agree. ponting will have to get the nod if ever he is compared with tugga simply because he was a slightly more exciting batsman to watch. even today he pulled a short one to the boundary in his inimitable style so coolly that it gave me goosebumps. but steve waugh's better record outside australia should make this battle a very close one.
Ah, I think I understand the pulse of CW then!
...yes, and how about playing in a more bowler-friendly era in general?
I dont see your point at all. IIRC Tendulkar's average was on the verge of 60 back in 2001-2 after a decade of playing against great attacks of the 90s (inb4 tendulkar's averages against donald-ambrose-wasim-waqarThere's a difference between Ricky and other greats in his era - he didn't plump his average with minnows so his average is still (even with this long trough) great. Remove Tendulkar's matches against B/Z and he averages 53. Back in 07, Tendulkar's average hit 51 (without minnows) and Ponting was closing on 60. Not only did people not say that Tendulkar was inferior (I remember the arguments), but no one was saying he had dropped to Miandad's level.
). All players have peaks and troughs, but Tendulkar has managed to have to come out of his slump and has had a magnificent second peak in the last 3-4 years. If Ponting comes out of his slump and gets his old form back like SRT did, then the comparisons can start again. Until then, ill consider SRT the greater batsman by a not so tiny distance. You're being inconsistent there. If you remove Zimbabwe, you need to remove WI post 2003 as well.
The point is pretty easy to see: when Tendulkar got to such a low average people even then still held him as the greatest batsman of his era. They did not relegate him to the Miandad class. I don't mean to disrespect Miandad but I wouldn't put him in the class that belongs to Lara, Tendulkar, Richards, Chappell and Ponting. Ponting, even with this trough and his record as it is, has a formidable record matched by only a handful of batsmen.I dont see your point at all. IIRC Tendulkar's average was on the verge of 60 back in 2001-2 after a decade of playing against great attacks of the 90s (inb4 tendulkar's averages against donald-ambrose-wasim-waqar
And back in 2007, plenty of people had seriously started considering Ponting to be greater than Sachin, too bad he couldnt continue his amazing run
No, I'm not; nor does it change my point (see the above) if I did.
Ponting by 07 had been a Test player for some 12 years and had played 100+ Tests. He already had a long career.
At that point he clearly had overtaken Tendulkar. Unfortunately for him, Tendulkar got back to scoring 100s and he stopped.true. he should have retired then. unfortunately people pumped him up unnecessarily - like saying he could overtake tendulkar if he played long enough. poor guy believed the hype, got greedy, played for too long and has lost the race badly in the long run. javed is an all time great too. ponting would happily settle for that status in history. not everyone can be a richards, tendulkar, lara or hutton you see!
Remove WI post 2003 in addition to Zim and Bang as consistency would demand and his average goes down to below 50.
I hope you saw my "wink" at the end of my post.
Very well put indeed
The part in bold is the reason that I don't rate Ricky as highly as I used to.
Yes, but still not as nearly as long a career as Waugh and not nearly as good quality of opposition bowlers...
Clarke got better post-McWarne, much better. Just saying. Hussey did fine for two years post-McWarne.
Yeah I think it was a coincidence. If his form was so influenced by psychological factors, then surely dropping the captaincy would have made a huge difference. But it hasn't...if anything he has looked worse after dropping the captaincy. Now that I think about it anyway, I don't think McWarne's retirement did directly coincide with his slump anyway. He was still looking pretty good up to the 2009 Ashes.
