Best After The Don

[Coronis]

I'm just surprised someone voted for Gavaskar.

 

[complan]

From all accounts, Bradman seemed to be a very highly-driven individual whose only motive in life was --- to score more runs :-) That quality, IMO, would have helped him a lot in conquering any other obstacle that may have come against him in the modern era. If anything, the extra money and benefits and additional technological help/body armour would have spurred him on even further. For the record, I am not a Bradman fanboy.

I don't think his average would have been this high though. I can't prove it but that's what I think.

Here's an interesting article on why his average was so out of this world.
Blogs: What made Bradman click? | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I'm just surprised someone voted for Gavaskar.

A multi-account troll that's since been banned. (The voter, not Gavaskar).

 

[fredfertang]

In fact no less than the multi account troll, allegedly

 

[Satyanash89]

A multi-account troll that's since been banned. (The voter, not Gavaskar).

Knowing Gavaskar, I wouldn't be surprised if they were one and the same

 

[kyear2]

Kallis has more votes than Hobbs, Hutton, Pollock, Chappell, Ponting and Lara and for the most part combination of any two combined.

WOW

 

[abmk]

Ok. here is what you have done.

1) You isolated old era Eng's weaker opponents.
2) I then isolated the modern era's weaker opponents.
3) You then looked at those weaker opponents OVERALL figures. Not their ave against the better modern attacks in isolation.
4) That is changing the goal posts and not consistent with your initial argument. Which is less than scrupulous imho.

I have also mentioned I'll be looking at Eng's attack from 98-2009; a time when they won 2 ashes against great opponents.Yet you deride that attack as weak? Come on man...

oh , I didn't say England's attack from 98-2009 was weak ....I was being sarcastic there .....

the only problem with your "isolation" aspect is that the Indian/SL/NZ ( & england ) attacks, the relatively weaker bowling attacks are still significantly better than the batting of WI, NZ and India in 27-39 .... the only comparable one is Zimbabwe ...

My argument was consistent and has always been :

Aus, WI, Pak and SA attacks in the 90s were clearly better than that of the England attack from 27-39 ......

the top 2 of each : mcgrath/warne, ambrose/walsh, wasim/waqar, donald/pollock are clearly better than anyone England had in that time-frame including larwood/verity ....

their support cast including

fleming, gillespie,reiffel, kasprowicz
bishop, rose , benjamin, patterson
saqlain , mushtaq ahmed
de villiers, mcmillan, klusener

etc were also pretty good

of course , the records of the modern teams vs the better attacks will go down more because Aus/WI/Pak/SA attacks were that good

and like I showed, even with filtering against those attacks, except for zimbabwe , all the other teams come up with better averages than that of NZ, WI and India from 27-39 ......

oh and I'm still waiting for the answer ....who else did WI batting have apart from headley in that period : 27-40 ?

 

[Pothas]

Kallis has more votes than Hobbs, Hutton, Pollock, Chappell, Ponting and Lara and for the most part combination of any two combined.

WOW

Ridiculous quite frankly.

 

[abmk]

It amuses me to read these silly arugments trying to convince anyone that Bradman is not just the best but the best by a mile.

It's more of pity that most are SRT supporters, I think you have enough trouble trying to convince anyone who knows their cricket that he is even No2

first of all, bradman is the best batsman by some distance and would be in any era ..

what is amusing is that the when people post that bradman would average somewhat lesser in any other era, bradman apologists , the big bambino, in this case , brings up comparisons of the England attack from 27-39 to that of the attacks of WI from 75--2000, Pak in the 90s, SA in the 90s and 2000s and Aus from 90s till 2007ish .....

 

[abmk]

Wasn't "burn out" supposedly a factor in his missing the first Test of the Bodyline series?

was it ?

I thought it had majorly to do with contract problems - he was being paid to write a column for an Australian paper and the Aussie board didn't want him to do so while he was playing for Aus .........

 

[Prince EWS]

I reckon there should be a rule whereby if you plan on making a post longer than four sentences, it should have to formatted to ensure it's not eyesore or be ignored on principle.

 

[fredfertang]

was it ?

I thought it had majorly to do with contract problems - he was being paid to write a column for an Australian paper and the Aussie board didn't want him to do so while he was playing for Aus .........

There was a contract but I think that was a bit of a red herring - the paper were happy to release him from it - after all how many copies would they have sold if word got about that they were the cause of his not playing in the Tests?

 

[centurymaker]

One argument that I think is a reasonably valid one is the 'burn-out' argument. Modern day batsman have the problem of maintaining enthusiasm, fitness, and form during their hectic scedule of Tests and ODI matches. Not only that, but their hectic schedule is conducted on many continents and on a variety of pitches and conditions.

One of the main reasons for Bradman's success was his bloody-minded tenacity. This was reasonably easy to maintain during the 1930s when the pace of life, and cricket, was less demanding.

However, it is reasonable to assume that the pace of modern living and the demands of modern international cricket would place a significant strain even on the fitness, technique, and psychology of such a committed batsman as Bradman.

For reasons of 'burn-out' I don't think that Bradman could maintain an average of 99 if he played his quota of Tests during the 1970s, 80s, 90s or 2000s.

This is exactly what I was arguing earlier. "If Bradman had played 3 times as many matches in the same period + ODIs, he wouldn't have avg'd as high etc" But people ridiculed it, typical!

 

[Red]

Bradman thread argument cycle

- Bradman is the greatest- 99.94
- Yeh, but he never really faced really good bowlers did he?
- Yes. Larwood, Tate, Voce, Bedser, etc were all good bowlers
- But not as good as Marshall, Holding, Garner and Roberts
- Well, they might have been
- Bradman played on uncovered wickets and didn't have a good bat or helmet
- Didn't he struggle against Bodyline though?
- Yes, and if you teleport Bradman to the 1980s, he'd fail against the WIs pace quartet
- But Bradman still topped the Bodyline averages and Larwood was quick
- Bradman inflated his average against minnows
- But don't modern players have even more opportunity to do that?
- By some random calculation, I have worked out that in the modern era, Bradman would only average 64.78. But if it was modern bowlers on uncovered wickets in the 1890s that Bradman had to face, his average would drop to 51.23
- So this shows that he is a worse batsman than Tendulkar, right?

and so on....

 

[centurymaker]

I'm not sure. But if it was then surely he would fair even worse if having to play on 3 continents (Tests and ODIs) in the same year like Chappell, Waugh, or Clarke.

If you look at Bradman's list of matches then it is apparent that he had it relatively easy. Unlike Bill Lawry or Ian Chappell he wasn't coping with Bedi, barren pitches, and riots in India one day, then Mike Procter at Newlands the next. Whoever dreamt up that itinery must have been a sadist.

All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

However, having said all that, the effect of modern scheduling wouldn't have sent his average crashing. We are looking at a minor/moderate readjustment only.

I even said that. Thanks.

 

[L Trumper]

I even said that. Thanks.

But why? It makes no sense to adjust his average to modern age. Besides what is modern? Is it 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, 20s ....? 50 years from now on are we going to adjust Sachin and Lara's average to 35 because they didn't play against 15 teams but only 10?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

The problem with the Don is he's seen as almost a mythological figure because there's so little footage around from the era.

 

[akilana]

This is exactly what I was arguing earlier. "If Bradman had played 3 times as many matches in the same period + ODIs, he wouldn't have avg'd as high etc" But people ridiculed it, typical!

Sachin, Kallis, Ponting etc played all of the formats and it didn't do them any harm average wise.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Sachin, Kallis, Ponting etc played all of the formats and it didn't do them any harm average wise.

Do what? They're all 40 odd behind Bradman. How do you know what they'd have done if they had limited Tests only?

 

[sledger]

They'd all look even worse if you discount their scores against joke opposition.