What is your ALL TIME WORLD XI TEAM for tests?

[ohnoitsyou]

Look I don't think I need lessons on understanding or logic from a bloke who argued that because Sobers had much better wicket taking skill than Ishant Sharma, he should be a part of the world 11 and thought he was making a great point before he was called out on it. yes, hubris is the word.

Your opinion on Bradman is fair enough. Even I don't think he'd have averaged 99 in this era, but low 70s (which is what you think) is still comfortably better than anyone else and I don't see how that makes Sobers closer to him than to Ponting.

The point is you don't become a ''run making machine'' all over the world without being a complete batsman. The post you quoted was in response to something totally asinine like Sobers was the best of his era, Ponting third best, which automatically makes the former better.

Saying the pitches were more bowler friendly in Sobers' time is a gross exaggeration. The WI pitches then were total pancakes. Saying they were not is revising history. Compare the bowling attacks faced by the two btw.

It is patently preposterous to suggest Sobers was closer to Bradman than to Ponting. Even if you take Bradman's ''real'' average as early 70s, that falls flat. Ponting had identical stats after 160 innings...after 122 tests he averaged 58+ with 36 hundreds. Not a complete batsman eh.

Ananth Narayans articles are all hogwash. Tendulkar came up as the best bat after Bradman in one of his earlier pieces and yet the posters parroting it now don't even have Tendulkar in their first 11s. The ICC peak ranking has Mohammad Yousuf ahead of a number of greats, do we take that also seriously now!

On NO objective measure can you say Bradman and Sobers are closer to each Sobers and Ponting(batting only). Period.

Edit : funnily enough, even in this article(a cherry picking exercise), Sobers is not closer to the Don than he is to Ponting

You once again miss the point.

As others have pointed out Ponting did have a glaring weakness, which was exposed as he aged. Similarly to Viv, who is very rarely labelled a complete batsmen. And ftr Ponting's my second favourite batsmen i have ever watched after Gilchrist, so its not that i don't rate Ponting when i label him an incomplete batsmen because i hold him the highest esteem.

Some of the WI pitches were pancakes, others were minefields. Sobers also averaged over 50 in england, with mighty fine performances against english quicks better than any of the modern era barring Anderson.

There is no objectivity in atg discussions, only appropriated parodies of it.

That said if i was to attempt to make an objective reasoning i would break batsmen down into neat little tiers. Sobers is a second tier batsmen while Ponting would be slightly behind in fourth. I've always thought that theres an exponential relationship between ability and run output. When your talking guys like Ponting, Tendulkar, Sobers, Hobbs, Bradman there is such a minimal difference in ability for large differences in run output.

 

[Red]

Yep. I thought it was fairly well established?

I don't think it would in any significant way.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yep. I thought it was fairly well established?

Yeah but then Tendulkar hated playing against dibbly dobbly medium pacers so how would he have gone in the 30s and 40s?

 

[ohnoitsyou]

I don't think it would in any significant way.

As kyear pointed out, Bradman had the perfect conditions to capitalise on. Australia was such a great place to bat in if you were Australian.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

Yeah but then Tendulkar hated playing against dibbly dobbly medium pacers so how would he have gone in the 30s and 40s?

I refuse to rate Hobbs any less because he was never had to play against genuine fast bowling, so i refuse to rate Tendulkar any less because he never had to be be successful against dibbly dobers in order to be a great batsman

 

[OverratedSanity]

I refuse to rate Hobbs any less because he was never had to play against genuine fast bowling, so i refuse to rate Tendulkar any less because he never had to be be successful against dibbly dobers in order to be a great batsman

Which was precisely my point... Then why do you rate Bradman less because you think he wouldn't have been as successful in modern times? He never had to face them either, neither did any of his peers like Headley and Hammond

 

[ohnoitsyou]

Which was precisely my point... Then why do you rate Bradman less because you think he wouldn't have been as successful in modern times? He never had to face them either, neither did any of his peers like Headley and Hammond

I'm not saying he would be less successful at all. Just that being as successful as he was would mandate a lower average in other eras, which makes other people rate him higher than i do.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

A World XI of people named Ricky Ponting.

Couldn't find anyone good enough so improvised a bit. All these players have a connection to Sobers or Ponting.

Richards B
Hutton
Bradman
Richards V
Lara
Botham
Gilchrist
Miller
Hadlee
Lillee
Murali

 

[Fuller Pilch]

As kyear pointed out, Bradman had the perfect conditions to capitalise on. Australia was such a great place to bat in if you were Australian.

This isn't borne out his stats though. Bradman 'only' averaged 78 in Ashes tests in Aus (in a big way due to Bodyline) and 74 against WI but almost 103 in Ashes tests in Eng. The overall record at home gets up to 98 with the games against India and South Africa. If it hadn't been for Bodyline, we might be talking about an average of 105+, instead of 99.94. Also a shame the Don didn't face Jack Cowie in a test (he missed the 1946 slaughter).

 

[Jassy]

Yeah, Ponting's "glaring weakness got exposed" after he had played more and scored more than virtually everyone else in history. Jesus, what an absurd statement!

Saying Sobers succeeded against good English quicks is neither here nor there because no-one could possibly argue he was not a very great batsman or that he was not capable of scoring runs against decent attacks. Since England have been singled out for some reason, I am sure the English attack faced by Ponting in Ashes 05 compares favourably to any English attack Sobers had to face. I really do not want to get into bowlers and all that but trust me, it is far from one way traffic. In fact, if one were to make the a list of best 10 fast bowlers and spinners faced by Ponting and the corresponding list for Sobers, Ponting's list would be more impressive.

You could also do it team wise - who faced stronger Pakistani attacks?(total no contest this btw and even Sobers' most diehard fans know it). Who faced stronger Kiwi attacks? How good were the Indian attacks Sobers faced in the late 50s and early 60s compared to the ones Ponting has faced? I think those are the only common teams. Of course Ponting also excelled against excellent SA and SL attacks, but it isn't Sobers' fault of course that he couldn't face them. You could also compare records and try to make an objective call on whose record is more "complete" (since that term is thrown around a lot).

I really don't want to do both Sobers and Ponting a disservice by starting a silly statsguru debate which serves no real purpose. They're both ATG batsmen, let's leave it at that.

 

[Red]

I personally rate Sobers as probably the 2nd greatest batsman of all time, but it should be remembered Ponting batted at #3, and Sobers often batted down at #6

 

[watson]

Best ever ICC Rating XI
01. Len Hutton
02. Jack Hobbs
03. Don Bradman
04. Peter May
05. Garry Sobers
06. Ricky Ponting
07. Adam Gilchrist
08. Imran Khan
09. George Lohmann
10. Sydney Barnes
11. Muttiah Muralitharan

Note: Sobers is the highest rating batting-allrounder, otherwise Clyde Walcott should be included.

Reliance ICC Player Rankings

 

[hendrix]

Peter May the only name that really looks out of place there.

 

[Coronis]

Why on earth would you bat Ponting at 6? Put him at 4 and bump May and Sobers down a spot.

 

[Red]

Best ever ICC Rating XI
01. Len Hutton
02. Jack Hobbs
03. Don Bradman
04. Peter May
05. Garry Sobers
06. Ricky Ponting
07. Adam Gilchrist
08. Imran Khan
09. George Lohmann
10. Sydney Barnes
11. Muttiah Muralitharan

Note: Sobers is the highest rating batting-allrounder, otherwise Clyde Walcott should be included.

Reliance ICC Player Rankings

Nice team, interesting to note Tony Lock is the sixth highest ICC ranked bowler of all time.

 

[watson]

Why on earth would you bat Ponting at 6? Put him at 4 and bump May and Sobers down a spot.

45 innings, 2000 runs, average of 50. Obviously didn't mind batting down the order.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Nice team, interesting to note Tony Lock is the sixth highest ICC ranked bowler of all time.

Bullied the 1958 NZ team (perhaps NZ's weakest ever - even with Sutcliffe and Reid) - 34 wickets at 7.5

 

[smash84]

Kyear2, why do you have to pull down people selectively?

 

[harsh.ag]

Kyear2, why do you have to pull down people selectively?

Honestly, I think he is actually just pulling people up selectively based on his tastes and opinions, which is fine and something we all do. But then he is asked by the other posters why he is pulling these people up, and in his attempts to justify, he ends up pulling others down, when he could just say "because that's my taste".

 

[kyear2]

I personally rate Sobers as probably the 2nd greatest batsman of all time, but it should be remembered Ponting batted at #3, and Sobers often batted down at #6

That is true, but he also did extremely well batting at 3 and 4. I used to hold that against him, but when one considers the huge work loads he had to bear it was understandable.