I think if we're just looking at ability, then multiple problems arise when trying to compare players across eras. If you accept that, on the whole, the standard of cricket at the highest level has increased to some absolute degree (absolute meaning, good players from today transported back to the e.g. 1930’s would very likely excel and not vice versa), then using the ‘comparison with peers’ method to assess a players ability begs many questions.
Firstly, if the standard of cricket is poorer then, naturally, that means how much a certain player has dominated is not going to a particularly valid indication of their ability in the overall context of the game – e.g. (just an analogy, so it’s not meant to be perfect) does a players success in FC cricket accurately tell you how well they will fare in test cricket? No it doesn’t. It suggests they may be a good player at that level as well, but it is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Secondly, I think it is highly likely that many players (batsmen in this case) in the early eras of the game would have been doomed to failure because of major technical deficiencies – batting technique back then was no way near as refined as it is today (different batting conditions accounted for), and if you watch any footage of the game back then I think that should be pretty obvious. So how can you be sure that a player’s dominance from those eras wasn’t largely down to having a relatively refined basic technique – that was ahead of the time - which would later be adopted by almost every batsmen playing at the highest level? Would they necessarily be as dominant in a more level playing field, where the knowledge of what constitutes a good, basic technique was widely known and drilled in to players? Who knows.
Thirdly, even if you assume a player’s dominance could have been due to other, more general, qualities like good hand-eye, tenacity etc. (things you could argue would be directly transferable to another era), how do you know if, at a higher level, those qualities alone would be enough to ensure success? What if a player who dominated in one of those eras was like Phil Hughes (poor technique, but excellent natural ability) and was able to be so successful because of the poorer standards? The obvious analogy here is Phil Hughes’ high level of success in FC cricket not translating to test cricket (thus far, anyway). To be an ATG in this era imo, you have to have both excellent natural abilities and a very solid basic technique to go with it. But you can’t assume the former will inevitably lead to the latter – often it doesn’t.
Those are just some of the reasons why I think that if you accept the game has improved (and not just changed), you can’t make the assumption that players in the early eras necessarily would be as dominant (or even close to it) if they were raised in this era – the bottom line is nobody knows. It also means imo that XIs (and the term ATG, in reference solely to ability, and applied to players from early eras) are pretty much fanciful constructs that have no real meaning at all, other than just for a bit of fun.
