How good is Sanga?

[simonlee48]

Like I said his first peak was late 90s.. if you do 1990-95 it's not as good. Lara does better:
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

He was better to watch in the late 90s, but was as effective if not more in the 2000s (barring the lean patches). I value results over how it looks myself.

The second best average and the second best numbers of tons looks great to me specially when less than 5 batsmen averaged 50+.

Being a peak decade doesn't mean that he is going to be above Lara in all periods in that decade. He was phenomenal in entire 90s. You could argue about his exact peak but surely he was far below in 2000s and that's the period Sanga played. First time I am hearing anyone saying that SRT's best decade was not 90s. Also, if being lower than Lara, who was in same class, in some period makes it not so good then think about being lower than gazillions of names in 2000s. Surely it makes it really bad, right? Some perspective is needed here.

Anyway,since you have not seen his entire career, I don't want to argue much on this. We have different perspectives here.

 

[viriya]

We already saw that Pakistan has been the easiest opposition to score against in their home in the last 10 years. Their flat pitches contributed a lot to that in my opinion. Credit to him for scoring runs against Pakistan because Pakistan is not really Zim or BD.

Overall Pak has not been much different from any top 8 bowling attack bar Aus. It is clear from the below - it doesn't make sense to discount Pak performances:
Team records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Let's say they were subpar opposition for the sake of argument - how come other batsmen were not cashing in the same way Sanga was?
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Maximas]

Amazing how Mahela averages only 35 against Pakistan when Sanga averages 80

 

[simonlee48]

it doesn't make sense to discount Pak performances:

how come other batsmen were not cashing in the same way Sanga was?

No one should discount performance against Pakistan. They are not Zim or BD. But they have been pretty easy to score against in their home where they play 50% of their games. Pakistan is not really bad but they have been only second to BD at home due to super flat tracks. Sanga has played 60%(11 tests) of his total games against Pakistan in their home.

Some more batsmen have cashed in big time when playing Pakistan in their home in this period. Sanga is not alone here. See below.

AB averages 89 - 700+ runs
Sehwag averages 91 - 700+ runs
Kallis - averages 71 - 850+ runs
Dravid averages 78 - 550+ runs

Three of them played 6 tests and Kallis played 8. If they had played 12-14 tests then you can imagine them scoring around 2K runs. Sanga got to play 11 tests at Pakistan's home and then 3 more at his favorite ground SSC. That's 14 tests. Guys like AB or Sehwag would have scored as much, if not more, had they gotten similar opportunities.

 

[harsh.ag]

Nope his best decade was entire 90s by some margin when you are talking about his test career. I forgot exactly when he had some injury but he changed his batting style and started playing less strokes in 2000s.

 

[viriya]

No one should discount performance against Pakistan. They are not Zim or BD. But they have been pretty easy to score against in their home where they play 50% of their games. Pakistan is not really bad but they have been only second to BD at home due to super flat tracks. Sanga has played 60%(11 tests) of his total games against Pakistan in their home.

Some more batsmen have cashed in big time when playing Pakistan in their home in this period. Sanga is not alone here. See below.

AB averages 89 - 700+ runs
Sehwag averages 91 - 700+ runs
Kallis - averages 71 - 850+ runs
Dravid averages 78 - 550+ runs

Three of them played 6 tests and Kallis played 8. If they had played 12-14 tests then you can imagine them scoring around 2K runs. Sanga got to play 11 tests at Pakistan's home and then 3 more at his favorite ground SSC. That's 14 tests. Guys like AB or Sehwag would have scored as much, if not more, had they gotten similar opportunities.

This is all just speculation. First off, playing 60% of the tests at Pak's "home" is nothing extraordinary - it's basically half the games as expected. Then you bring up SSC as if runs there don't count (even when the opposition doesn't do well and SL wins as is usually the case). This is the definition of nit-picking.

None of the above batsmen did as well overall vs Pak and to extrapolate what they did in 6 tests is quite a stretch. Mahela, another great batsmen didn't do remotely as well as Sanga vs Pak and they played at the same locations - what's the explanation for the huge disparity there?

This kind of nit-picking can be done for any batsman.. I don't really see the point of it. If Sanga had averaged 60 instead of 80 vs Pak you wouldn't even think to explain it away like this. Truth is vs non Ban/Zim opposition, no one has a 80+ average vs a top 8 team in the 2000s except for Sanga vs Pak. It's quite amazing considering how long he has sustained it.

 

[ohnoitsyou]

The guy who uses statistics as the sole basis for any and every opinion complaining about nit-picking...

 

[simonlee48]

Amazing how Mahela averages only 35 against Pakistan when Sanga averages 80

While they are not in same class but it's puzzling. If you look at 10+ tests in same period then Mathews, Samaraweera averaged 50+ against Pakistan. Even Jayasuriya was touching 50. Only one guy has done worse than Mahela in this period who played in 1-6,

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[Jassy]

It is not so much that he uses statistics as the sole argument for everything. It is that he comes to silly conclusions by abusing stats and then there is a generous sprinkling of blatant lies too. Trust me, I could show match scorecards of 700 plays 600 types of these Pakistan SL matches. That Mahela averages less is neither here nor there. He absolutely gunned it vs India in India and Sanga is pretty ordinary there...why is that. Sehwag's record vs Pak is even better than Sanga's. Pretty sure Samaraweera has racked up a few too. And the SSC is a disgrace, even the SL fans say it. That Abd didnt score there or SL win is beside the point.

 

[simonlee48]

This kind of nit-picking can be done for any batsman.. I don't really see the point of it. If Sanga had averaged 60 instead of 80 vs Pak you wouldn't even think to explain it away like this. Truth is vs non Ban/Zim opposition, no one has a 80+ average vs a top 8 team in the 2000s except for Sanga vs Pak. It's quite amazing considering how long he has sustained it.

I wasn't nitpicking here. You asked me to give reasons and that's what I was doing. About the bold. We don't need to look at against all top 8 oppositions. We can find one against the same team Sanga is averaging so high. Sehwag against Pakistan averages 91 in 9 tests.

I think many guys will have better average against one team. YK against India average 85+ in 9 tests. Amla against NZ averages 80+ in 9 tests. I won't bother to look more. Let's not start creating stats now. You were earlier comparing runs/tons in wins and now you are making up stats.

I am not going to argue anymore in this thread. It's getting bit too much now.

 

[Jassy]

I wasn't nitpicking here. You asked me to give reasons and that's what I was doing. About the bold. We don't need to look at against all top 8 oppositions. We can find one against the same team Sanga is averaging so high. Sehwag against Pakistan averages 91 in 9 tests.

I think many guys will have better average against one team. YK against India average 85+ in 9 tests. Amla against NZ averages 80+ in 9 tests. I won't bother to look more. Let's not start creating stats now. You were earlier comparing runs/tons in wins and now you are making up stats.

I am not going to argue anymore in this thread. It's getting bit too much now.

And he clearly didn't watch his own team's matches because if he did he would know Michael Hussey averages 110+ vs Sri Lanka with 5 tons and close to a 1000 runs. It's getting annoying now. As I said, with reasonable people like Maximas you could have a discussion all day but with these blokes who make up stats and post blatant lies to try and make absolutely ridiculous arguments it's better not to say anything. With one bloke arguing ''oh he would have averaged 63 if he had never kept'' (when Sanga himself is on record saying he got into the team because of keeping) and with another bloke posting utter nonsense it is best to call it a day on this thread. In another thread...someone dared to say that Warne spun the ball more than anyone else and the duo were at it again!

 

[OverratedSanity]

This kind of nit-picking can be done for any batsman.. I don't really see the point of it. If Sanga had averaged 60 instead of 80 vs Pak you wouldn't even think to explain it away like this. Truth is vs non Ban/Zim opposition, no one has a 80+ average vs a top 8 team in the 2000s except for Sanga vs Pak. It's quite amazing considering how long he has sustained it.

What?! At least don't resort to lying FFS. Sehwag averages 90 against Pakistan, Kallis is 70+ vs West Indies and India, Younis has a ridiculous record vs us, Hussey vs SL , Ponting averaged 87 vs us at home with 7 tons. There are lots of players who've dominated a team throughout their career. Sanga v pakistan is hardly something unique.

 

[BackFootPunch]

It seems viriya made the cut off mark for his Statsguru search 10 matches played against a particular opposition. If that's the criteria then, yeah, Sanga is the only one (he averages 80.19, btw).

If the cut off is 9 matches then Sehwag, Younis Khan and Amla all go ahead of Sanga. And if it's 8 matches then we add Hussey and MoYo to the top of the list.

I reckon anything over about 6/7 matches should be fine for a cut off mark - making it 10 seems to cut out a whole lot of guys who played 3 series against a team and maintained a great average but never got a chance to play them as much as Sangakkara has played Pakistan.

Being able to keep up his average against one team for 19 matches is pretty damn impressive but I don't think it's fair to say it's miles better than what others have done.

 

[Jassy]

Dear me, now he has an escape route and he will claim he did just that when I'm pretty sure he was randomly throwing numbers around....but then again from a bloke who says Tendulkar's record is not COMPLETE(!!!), Johnson>Garner and Garner not ATG and crap like that, you can expect such stuff. His ''80'' criteria was made because Sanga averages 80.19. Make it 85 and Sanga disappears from the list. If Sanga's average goes below 80 after the upcoming series, no doubt the new criterion will become 77 or 78 or whatever...but then Abd will be in as well with 79.something vs West Indies over 10 tests. Guess the criterion will cease being important then. Younis Khan and Sehwag have well over a 1000 runs against India/Pak and that is a fair enough sample size. Hussy just falls short of 1000 and Amla probably falls a little short as well.

FTR Sanga's record against Pakistan is great, that is not in contention; but for one it is not unique and for another a fair few have made hay in Pak/UAE post 2000 though. Samaraweera averages about 90 as well in Pak...

 

[CWB304]

There is something slightly counterintuitive about any effort to diminish Sanga on account of his record vs Pakistan. This opposition has throughout his career had one of the strongest Test bowling attacks. So for me Sanga's excellent performances against this opposition just highlights his all round strengths against challenging bowling attacks which have pretty much always featured a range of high-class seam, reverse swing and spin options that have given other elite batsmen fits.

 

[smash84]

There is something slightly counterintuitive about any effort to diminish Sanga on account of his record vs Pakistan. This opposition has throughout his career had one of the strongest Test bowling attacks. So for me Sanga's excellent performances against this opposition just highlights his all round strengths against challenging bowling attacks which have pretty much always featured a range of high-class seam, reverse swing and spin options that have given other elite batsmen fits.

Well, this statement is not quite accurate I think. After the retirement of the 2 Ws until the emergence of Amir/Asif/Junaid/Ajmal the Pakistan attack was quite pedestrian. Shoaib was injured most of the time and we had the likes of Sami leading our attack.

Having said that Sangakkara has plundered some of our very good attacks during the last 10 years as well, so yeah, your statement does have some merit. Incidentally it was that **** period that Sehwag made merry against us IIRC (cbf looking it up)

 

[CWB304]

Interesting post, thanks. It would be nice to see a statistical breakdown of how he has done against the more challenging PAK attacks in the earlier and later periods as against the more pedestrian ones in the middle. I'll try and explore this @ cricinfo....

 

[Jassy]

No-one one has tried to "diminish Sanga'' on account of his record vs Pakistan. People would know that if they stopped being pompous and randomly called out people for trolling when they are the ones to troll.

For starters yes record against Pakistan should not be discounted nor is it being. Simonlee posting stats about Pakistan being one of the worst attacks statistically post 2000 though does have merit. Their pitches have been utterly substandard and horrible. Let us not labour under the delusion that somehow Pakistan had Wasim, Waqar and Imran at their peaks reverse swinging it all over the place with Saqlain Mustaq spinning thunderbolts.On the contrary, Pakistan's bowling has been strictly been okay since 2000(aside from an all too brief Asif and now Ajmal...and maybe Akhtar for a bit). If you look at the number of batsmen who have filled their boots vs Pakistan in Pak/UAE you will see that. Add the notorious SSC ground as your home into the equation and it becomes even more ridiculous.

Some of the Pak-SL matches in this period..

2nd Test: Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Lahore, Mar 1-5, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
3rd Test: Sri Lanka v Pakistan at Colombo (SSC), Jul 20-24, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
1st Test: Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi, Oct 18-22, 2011 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
2nd Test: Sri Lanka v Pakistan at Colombo (SSC), Jun 30-Jul 4, 2012 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo


I find it rather ironic that Sanga's record vs Pakistan highlights his prowess vs ''high class seam'' but when he was averaging 30 in England and in the 30s in SA that was brushed away as not being conclusive proof of anything. Even now apparently scores in matches where Taufeeq Umar, Shoaib Malik and Samaraweera have filled their boots are apparently more conclusive of his ability to play pace than an average of 40 vs Australia and England.

That doesn't mean Sanga's record vs them means nothing, it does. Whatever Pakistan's record(and even as a team they have been mediocre at best since 2000 barely winning anything of note) and whatever the pitches, they are still a top 8 side and performances against them should definitely be counted. Pointing out that they kind of paper over the cracks so to speak in terms of his overall record vs the top 8 sides isn't stretching it though. He's got 18/36 tons vs Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Pakistan (not discounting Pak here, let me reiterate) and he's got one ton vs Australia who have been one of the top sides if not the top side for a large chunk of his career. Such stuff does have merit and even if not conclusive in itself it is a nudge in the right direction.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Some of the Pak-SL matches in this period..

2nd Test: Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Lahore, Mar 1-5, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
3rd Test: Sri Lanka v Pakistan at Colombo (SSC), Jul 20-24, 2009 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
1st Test: Pakistan v Sri Lanka at Abu Dhabi, Oct 18-22, 2011 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
2nd Test: Sri Lanka v Pakistan at Colombo (SSC), Jun 30-Jul 4, 2012 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

I don't know if you listed those knocks as a positive or a negative against Sanga but those are clearly some high quality knocks. Especially the Abu Dhabi double. When he came in, Sri Lanka were 0/1 and 314 runs behind Pakistan in the second innings with two full days to go. That's as good a match saving innings as you can get. Especially against Junaid and Ajmal on day 4 and 5.

Edit: Admittedly he was dropped 3 times though

 

[Jassy]

I don't know if you listed those knocks as a positive or a negative against Sanga but those are clearly some high quality knocks. Especially the Abu Dhabi double. When he came in, Sri Lanka were 0/1 and 314 runs behind Pakistan in the second innings with two full days to go. That's as good a match saving innings as you can get. Especially against Junaid and Ajmal on day 4 and 5.

Yes agree there, he's clearly done really well vs Pakistan. A lot of the Pak-SL matches have been high scoring draws though in recent years and the lack of real quality in Pakistan's attack post 2000 has meant a number of batsmen have done well against them. I will repeat though - I'm not trying to say that his record vs Pak should be held against him or whatever. More that they paper over the holes in his record when you quote say, his away average or something like that. In any case, Pakistan post 2000 have definitely not been a great bowling attack - not the litmus test for prowess vs pace bowling anyway. Australia, SA, England have clearly been better IMO.

EDIT: Yeah dropped catches, doesn't count IMO In all seriousness, was a great innings despite the dropped catches and the edge of Junaid that was not given (I think it was that match).