Who is the best bowler ever to average over 30 in Test cricket?

[BackFootPunch]

I thought the hypothetical was interesting.. I rate both Flintoff and Lee along the same line, maybe put Lee a little in front but not by much.
I never said Laxman was ordinary - just not as good as he would've been if he had done at least as well vs non-Aus opposition.

That bit in bold really stands out to me as an odd statement. I find my reasons for that kinda hard to articulate but here goes.

What makes a player good isn't their stats - it's their actual ability. So you can't say Laxman would have been better if he'd scored runs against weaker opposition but, on the other hand, you could say he'd have been better if he'd been better against a certain type of bowling or fixed a specific weakness. It's not his output that makes him good or not, it's his skills. A guy who can dominate that Australian attack is very ****ing good and his lesser performance against other teams doesn't make him less good - it just means he didn't perform against all teams all the time (something you could hold against him when ranking him, sure, but don't call him less good because of it). He's still the same batsman regardless of who he does or does not score runs against, and given than he scored a lot of runs against very good bowlers, it's fair to say he was a very good batsman.

A batsman's stats are a product of whether he is good or not but aren't representative of their level on the not good/good/great/ATG spectrum. Laxman's goodness is not defined by his career aggregate and average. Nor is Tendulkar's, Bradman's or any other player. The runs or wickets come because of their ability, and usually demonstrate the extent of said ability, but there's a whole lot more to deciding whether someone is good or not than just looking at numbers.

Not sure that's quite as clear as I'd hoped but oh well.

 

[Flem274*]

I was with you until the last big paragraph. I'm going to need to read that several times.

You mean your stats are the result of being the level you are, not the cause and to get a good gauge of how a batsman handles various challenges you need to watch him?

 

[BackFootPunch]

I was with you until the last big paragraph. I'm going to need to read that several times.

You mean your stats are the result of being the level you are, not the cause and to get a good gauge of how a batsman handles various challenges you need to watch him?

Yeah pretty much, just the usual 'stats don't tell the whole story' thing.

I reckon someone like Laxman is almost the perfect example of why stats can't be solely relied upon. He was clearly so, so good but doesn't have the output of some others so to know just how good he is you need to watch him. I'm not saying he was a perfect batsman by any means but to say the difference between he and, for example, Dravid in terms of actual ability is as simple as 7 runs in average is plain wrong imo. Dravid was better - but not by that much, and definitely not only because of his higher average.

 

[viriya]

Skill is nothing if it doesn't result in what matters at the end of the day which is runs/wickets. I'm just looking at the result and you're looking at what is required for the result. Whether Laxman had a weakness vs a certain type of bowling is something I wouldn't know since I haven't followed his career closely, but based on his Eng record I would guess he's not that great vs the swinging Duke ball.

Bradman is considered the greatest because of his ability to make huge runs consistently - you couldn't necessarily see that he would average 100 just by looking at him bat. He would make less mistakes than other batsmen though and just keep going (this is of course not from first hand knowledge but reading about how his technique wasn't what made him what he was - mostly his hand-eye co-ordination and inhuman concentration/patience).

Runs/wickets don't tell you the whole story, it's just the most important part of it.

 

[viriya]

Yeah pretty much, just the usual 'stats don't tell the whole story' thing.

I reckon someone like Laxman is almost the perfect example of why stats can't be solely relied upon. He was clearly so, so good but doesn't have the output of some others so to know just how good he is you need to watch him. I'm not saying he was a perfect batsman by any means but to say the difference between he and, for example, Dravid in terms of actual ability is as simple as 7 runs in average is plain wrong imo. Dravid was better - but not by that much, and definitely not only because of his higher average.

How good a batsman is isn't just about how good/solid they look, it's also about their patience, ability to ride tough periods etc etc.. Never said Dravid was 7 runs better - just that he's generally considered better, and part of the reason is better numbers overall.

Obviously "stats don't the whole story", but that's not a reason to just throw it out of the window. It does tell you some of the story.

 

[BackFootPunch]

Skill is nothing if it doesn't result in what matters at the end of the day which is runs/wickets. I'm just looking at the result and you're looking at what is required for the result. Whether Laxman had a weakness vs a certain type of bowling is something I wouldn't know since I haven't followed his career closely, but based on his Eng record I would guess he's not that great vs the swinging Duke ball.

Bradman is considered the greatest because of his ability to make huge runs consistently - you couldn't necessarily see that he would average 100 just by looking at him bat. He would make less mistakes than other batsmen though and just keep going (this is of course not from first hand knowledge but reading about how his technique wasn't what made him what he was - mostly his hand-eye co-ordination and inhuman concentration/patience).

Runs/wickets don't tell you the whole story, it's just the most important part of it.

Yes but what can you really see about his batting ability if all you look at is numbers? You'll know he can make big scores, has a good conversion rate, scored pretty quickly etc. As you noted above, to get a proper picture of his batting skill you had to read about him. His numbers don't say anything about his incredible hand-eye or the particular way he dominated bowlers.

Same with Laxman. Look at his numbers and you see a decent record, a good number of tons, a great career against Australia and lower numbers against others. Nothing there about his other skills - the rearguard efforts, the wristy flicks, the absolute elegance.

I think we just approach the game differently. You say all that matters is the end product of the skills - the runs and wickets - I think the way a player gets to that end product is what cricket is really about. The game would be so incredibly dull if players didn't bring different skills to the game and didn't get to their individual output in their own way. I completely disagree that the end result is all that matters.

 

[harsh.ag]

Yeah BCF! Love that this thread was won i) By the Imran Khan gem and ii) BCF talking about batting skills (though I understand his point extends to bowlers as well)

 

[OverratedSanity]

Nah. He was far from great against SA and Pakistan.

Pretty sure he has a good record against Pakistan. And vs SA even if he does have a slightly mediocre average I'm willing to forgive that because he played 3-4 truly great knocks which either saved or won the match for us. It's similar to Dravid vs Australia or Sanga vs SA . One can overlook a below par 35-40 average if there are several vital knocks in there.

Laxman had his faults, biggest of them being his inability to convert a fifty into really big scores consistently Admittedly a pretty big problem in test cricket. But I'm fairly confident I've never seen any other batsman play the role of dig-your-team-out-of-a-massive-hole as well as Laxman. It's truly freaky how many times he did it. Shame that many people only mention the 281 when there are literally dozens of other crisis knocks. I'd take that ability any day over tonning up against Bangladesh. I'm not saying Laxman is as good as dravid or Sanga but there's no doubt in my mind that Laxman's average doesn't do justice to his quality and value as a batsman.

 

[harsh.ag]

I don't care about his stats. The only Indian batsman I used to get up to watch bat after Sachin (weirdly Sehwag never made that happen for me). Insanely beautiful. Would be immense to have him at number 5 for India right now..

 

[CricAddict]

I don't care about his stats. The only Indian batsman I used to get up to watch bat after Sachin (weirdly Sehwag never made that happen for me). Insanely beautiful. Would be immense to have him at number 5 for India right now..

To me, Dravid, Sehwag, Ganguly were all much more watch-worthy than Laxman..

 

[Daemon]

It was Sehwag Tendulkar Laxman Dravid for me. Never saw much of Ganguly.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

I'm impressed that a discussion on bowlers averaging more than 30 has ended with a discussion about the merits of VVS Laxman

 

[Adders]

I'm impressed that a discussion on bowlers averaging more than 30 has ended with a discussion about the merits of VVS Laxman

Well VVS has a bowling average of 63 so I don't see why he shouldn't be in the discussion,

 

[hendrix]

best bowler with an average over 60.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Well VVS has a bowling average of 63 so I don't see why he shouldn't be in the discussion,

Good point!

Next up, "Atherton's legspin - what could he have done to be up there with Warne andf Kumble"

 

[Adders]

best bowler with an average over 60.

A couple of top shelf wickets too in Mohammad Sami and Adam Sanford..........should keep viriya happy too that he is beating up on minnow batsmen

 

[smash84]

 

[sambha]

I would have to say morne morkel since his averages and strike rate don't reflect his capabilities.
With steyn and philander he is sorta forced to do the holding job.

But I bet if he were in any other test team in the world.....he would show his wicket taking capabilities and average below 30 with a healthy strike rate around 50

 

[the big bambino]

Funny arguments around here. Apparently some guys are held back bcos they are in weak sides and lack the support that would make them better. Morkel is held back bcos he's in a fine side and would be better if he played for SL on their wickets apparently.

 

[cnerd123]

Ishant Sharma obv.