The thing is though, say a player averages 30 in tough conditions, and averages 50 in easy conditions, he's not as good a player who averages 30 in tough conditions and averages 100 in easy conditions, yet he has a better ratio of runs scored in demanding situations to non demanding situations.
Instead of 30 50 , 30 100 you can make it 40 50, 30 100. Even then player 2 is rated higher, but there is a case to be made for player1.
Most definetly. But my worry with Sanga is that there is actually people out there who would rate him higher if he didn't cash in on easy situations as much, but had the same record in England, Australia, South Africa etc..
Most would rate him below Pieterson then though.
Who?
Exactly!!! Sangakkara minus Bang and Zim 8633 runs @ 53 with 26 tons (that's excellent no doubt even accounting for the fact that 9 of those 26 tons have come against one team, namely, Pakistan. Not to say Pak are poor or should be removed, but if you look at the Pak-Sl matches over the last few years, most of them have been 700 vs 600 type games with YK, Thilan and the like all filling their boots. He has had extraordinary success against one team that hugely papers over his ''decent-okayish'' record against the other teams. His stats outside Asia : 2488 runs @ 44.4 with 6 tons (including 1 in Zimbabwe. For the record, FTBs Jayawardene and Sehwag have 6 and 5 tons each outside the SC, and in Sehwag's case he doesn't have 1 in Zim. Sanga's overall away average is a healthy 47.3, 3832 runs and 10 tons, but again success against one team Pak impacts his record a great deal. He is a fair batsman, but not THAT good. Comfortably below Kallis, Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting and Dravid. Sanga has cashed in on easy occasions far too often (that in itself is not a bad thing) and failed in testing conditions far too often.....as for the WK stats rubbish, that was when he was at his peak. Anyway, nothing in my mind highlights the biggest difference between Sanga and KP as much as this : KP last 3 tons (atg innings in SL vs SL, pwned Steyn, Morkel and co in England with the number 1 spot on the line and smashed India in Mumbai on a rank turner. Sanga's last 3 tons have been against Bangladesh at home....and for those suggesting KP is worse than Sanga against spin haven't seen him against Murali and Warne. Sanga struggles against even mediocre spinners.
Nothing quite sums up your clueless post as this lamentable line. Please watch Sanga against Ajmal and the other very good Pakistan spinners in the UAE not long ago at around the same time as the same bowlers were making KP look about as good as Ian Bell - i.e. utterly clueless - against quality spin. Sanga was absolutely imperious....I won't bother to recount the numbers as it would only increase your embarrassment. It suffices to say that if your case that KP is better than Sanga (LOL!) is built on their respective performances against quality spin bowling, then I think you need to go to Specsavers. Sanga is now in the exalted company of Lara, Tendulkar, Ponting and Kallis - the greatest of the modern era. KP? I suppose I'd take him if Amla, Clarke, de Villiers, and a couple of others happened to be unavailable.....
Incidentally Sanga is known to rate his great contemporaries in that order. One wonders how many names he would have to tick off before getting to Pietersen? My best guess is about 13-17, which is pretty good going, when one considers the number of truly outstanding batsmen who have featured in Test cricket during the past 25 years.
What is lamentable is you've picked one line from a long post that you could nitpick on. So Sanga played well against Ajmal, so what? What did he do against India in India? What did he do to Warne? How did KP go against Warne and Murali, the two greatest spinners of all time? Forget Warne and Murali, when did Sanga play an innings against quality spin in TESTING conditions of the like KP played just recently against SL in SL and India in India? The bottom line is he's played way too much of his cricket at home and away from home, apart from one decent opposition (Pak and that too could be attributed to pitches as flat as Simon Taufel's head and where FTBs like Sehwag and Younis Khan have great records) he's been poor from home. You know that, I know that, everyone does. Okay, maybe poor is too harsh, but he's certainly been okayish-decent at best. You can pick the odd innings here and there for any loony. But even accounting for mitigating factors, Sangakkara hasn't exactly covered himself in glory away from home apart from against Pakistan. He's a good bat but in the Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, Sehwag tier of batsman, even if he's a front runner in that category. In fact, you'd be surprised to note that Sehwag's stats until his recent slump were very similar's to Sanga (except that Sehwag had a much better SR and didn't beat up BD as much). That is very much it. You can post whatever you wish to in Shakespearesque language and beat around the bush all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is Sanga is not as good as somer think...and the figures SUGGEST (suggest being the operative word, notice I don't try to shove opinions down throats) the same. Now (not) waiting for another post that mentions something about Hobart or Ajmal or how he somehow is peerless. If I didn't know better I'd think you were Ian Bell or KP deliberately trying to talk yourself down in the hope of procuring more support. CWB stands for CWB Worships Bell?
These formulas are all well and good when the two are closely matched - If I wanted a guy to play top quality spin in testing conditions it would be Clarke; but if I wanted a guy to blunt the best new ball attack going on a green top it would Amla, or whatever - but just look at their respective averages for goodness' sake. They are not in the same post code! I am an England fan and have watched virtually every Test innings KP has played; I've seen nothing to suggest that he is anywhere near as good as Sanga in really testing conditions, let alone better. What Sanga has been doing consistently for half his Test career since laying down the gloves is on a par with what Pietersen has managed only for brief golden periods during his rather fitful Test career. The difference isn't some invented dichotomy between a player who is ultimately the better of the two, but who doesn't do as good a job of filling his boots when the going is easy as you and some others like to pretend, but one of a fundamental qualitative difference between someone who has figured out what he can and cannot do and how to make runs for his team under all sorts of conditions, and another who flickers brightly at times, but too often looks surprisingly inept against good but hardly great bowling, or simply gives his wicket away to pretty much any kind of bowler for no good reason. Will you still be using the elegant parallelism if/when the delta between their averages - Sanga is averaging 57, remember - reaches 10 runs? That is not my being anti-KP; it could easily happen.
Not close for me. KP is no Sanga but he's better than AB imo. Both are excellent, but it's one of those things where despite them both being very good players it's pretty easy to tell who is better.
