The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[andmark]

5 bowlers, Steyn over Lillee/Marshall/McGrath/Wasim and no Sobers.

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Yeah, my thinking was (and I should probably say that I'm too young to even Wasim live and so I've only seen all of these guys on YouTube bar Steyn and McGrath) that Steyn's accuracy is better than the first three and it just looks like most bowls could be a wicket. This is going to be controversial, but I've never been comfortable putting in any of the 1990s Pakistani swing bowlers considering the ball tampering controversy and allegations (even Abdul Qadir has said " the ball has always been made up [tampered with] by Pakistani fast bowlers"- source: Abdul Qadir (cricketer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). Considering Sobers, I frankly don't know enough about them and wish I did, but must do some research.

 

[kyear2]

01. Sir Jack Hobbs: The original Master and one of Wisden's cricketers of the century.
02. Sir Leonard Hutton: Faced and was successful against more great bowlers that possibly any opening batsman in history.
03. Sir Donald Bradman: 99.94. Best batsman ever. Period.
04. Sir I.V.A. Richards: Most destructive batsman to have played the game. The Master Blaster.
05. Sachin Tendulkar: His records may never be broken. His technique and straight drive were close to perfect.
06. Sir Garfield Sobers: " The Greatest Cricketer the World has Ever seen." Batted and fielded like a master, most versatile bowler ever.
07. Adam Gilchrist: Revolutionized the position. Batted like Viv and kept like a master to Warne and McGrath.
08. Malcolm Marshall: Had all the tools and knew when and where to use them. Dominant and brilliant everywhere and against everyone.
09. Shane Warne: Mastered the most difficult art in the game. One of Wisden's 5 Greatest Cricketers of the Century.
10. Dale Steyn: Modern master. WPM and SR sets him apart.
11. Glenn McGrath: Accurate, persistent and penetrative. He was his best against the best. Like Tendulkar set records that no though were even attainable.

 

[Pratters]

Why is Marshall considered greater than all the other West Indian bowlers he played with like Holding, Roberts etc and his contemporaries from other countries?

 

[kyear2]

No holes in his resume and no weaknesses.
Ambrose's SR and WPM suffers in comparison. Roberts and Holding lacked his comparative longevity and overall impact. Lillee didn't prove him self in the Subcontinent or the Caribbean and his numbers were still not as impressive. Imran has a large disparity between his home and away numbers and away from home he was not as impact full. Hadlee is more difficult. His numbers were not as good, but they were not far off. He didn't impact the game as much as Marshall or have the aggression and he is never mentioned by his peer's or journalists as the best of the era or even the equal of Marshall or Lillee.

 

[smash84]

No holes in his resume and no weaknesses.
Ambrose's SR and WPM suffers in comparison. Roberts and Holding lacked his comparative longevity and overall impact. Lillee didn't prove him self in the Subcontinent or the Caribbean and his numbers were still not as impressive. Imran has a large disparity between his home and away numbers and away from home he was not as impact full. Hadlee is more difficult. His numbers were not as good, but they were not far off. He didn't impact the game as much as Marshall or have the aggression and he is never mentioned by his peer's or journalists as the best of the era or even the equal of Marshall or Lillee.

he talked about being greater than his compatriots. Not internationally

FTR Lillee > Marshall by most "experts" of the game. Also among their peers Lillee was rated higher than Marshall

 

[Pratters]

The strike rate of Malcolm Marshall is Bradmanesque in many ways but isn't highlighted as such at all.

Strike rates of various bowlers in the era:

Marshall -- 46.7
Hadlee ---- 50.0
Garner ---- 50.8
Holding --- 50.9
Lillee ------- 52.0
Roberts --- 55.0

- Now, in an era where runs were scored at a slower rate than the 90s and 2000s, where many a game was a draw, having a strike rate of 46.7 is unreal, staggering, astonishing - whatever adjectives you want to add. It is 10% lower than the other 'great' bowlers of the time. No one who took a significant number of wickets is a more run scoring era in the 90s managed it except Waqar Younis. You would expect bowlers to beat a strike rate achieved in the 70s and 80s in the 90s when runs were scored quicker by some points. Only in the 2000s, when the runs are scored in an ever faster pace, are bowlers matching it a bit more or beating it by a few points like Steyn by having a 41.7. Some one should have had a 41.7 in the 90s or a 38 in the 2000s if you equate it to the increase in the runs scored.

- Another aspect is that as you go higher up, the level required to maintain it is more. So having a strike rate of 10% higher and maintaining it seems far tougher than can be statistically understood. That he managed 376 wickets at this rate is amazing.

 

[kyear2]

he talked about being greater than his compatriots. Not internationally

FTR Lillee > Marshall by most "experts" of the game. Also among their peers Lillee was rated higher than Marshall

Would have agreed with you a couple of years ago
For some reason there seems to have been a reverse and outside of Australia, Marshall seems o be the higher regarded of the two.

To be honest, there is no real objective reason to rate Lillee over Maco.

 

[smash84]

The strike rate of Malcolm Marshall is Bradmanesque in many ways but isn't highlighted as such at all.

Strike rates of various bowlers in the era:

Marshall -- 46.7
Hadlee ---- 50.0
Garner ---- 50.8
Holding --- 50.9
Lillee ------- 52.0
Roberts --- 55.0

- Now, in an era where runs were scored at a slower rate than the 90s and 2000s, where many a game was a draw, having a strike rate of 46.7 is unreal, staggering, astonishing - whatever adjectives you want to add. It is 10% lower than the other 'great' bowlers of the time. No one who took a significant number of wickets is a more run scoring era in the 90s managed it except Waqar Younis. You would expect bowlers to beat a strike rate achieved in the 70s and 80s in the 90s when runs were scored quicker by some points. Only in the 2000s, when the runs are scored in an ever faster pace, are bowlers matching it a bit more or beating it by a few points like Steyn by having a 41.7. Some one should have had a 41.7 in the 90s or a 38 in the 2000s if you equate it to the increase in the runs scored.

- Another aspect is that as you go higher up, the level required to maintain it is more. So having a strike rate of 10% higher and maintaining it seems far tougher than can be statistically understood. That he managed 376 wickets at this rate is amazing.

Well, over the course of a test match striking 3 deliveries quicker than somebody else of similar quality doesn't really make you significantly better.

 

[smash84]

For some reason there seems to have been a reverse and outside of Australia, Marshall seems o be the higher regarded of the two.
.

I would venture that in England Lillee would probably be regarded as the better bowler by most.

Secondly, even in their playing days Marshall wasn't regarded as a significantly better bowler than the other WI. Michael Holding tends to get forgotten now (thanks to the stats brigade) but until the mid 1980s Holding was seen as the better WI quick.

 

[Pratters]

Well, over the course of a test match striking 3 deliveries quicker than somebody else of similar quality doesn't really make you significantly better.

The importance of strike rates in tests cannot be overstated. Two bowlers bow at random. If a bowler has a strike rate of 50, say and an economy of 3.0, he takes a wicket every 50 balls. Another has a strike rate of 60 and an economy of 2.5, say. Both will average 25. However, the opposition team can score runs off the other bowler bowling in tandem with our strike bowler. The strike bowler is thus less effective directly as per how how his strike rate is.

A difference of 5 seems small but makes a big difference when comparing atg players like Am rose with Marshall. People could see off Ambrose as his economy was lower a lot of Times compared to a Marshall.

 

[Prince EWS]

Works the opposite way for the lesser bowlers in your side though. Theoretically you'd want your third and fourth bowlers to have worse strike rates (assuming constant averages obv) and better economy rates to limit the affect their bowling had as the game progressed. So if you had bowlers averaging 25, 30, 35 and 40 then the worse the strike rates of the latter two, the less you'd bowl the opposition out for.

Cricket doesn't really exist in consistent absolutes like that though; bowlers are human, inconsistent and work off each other.

 

[kyear2]

I would venture that in England Lillee would probably be regarded as the better bowler by most.

Secondly, even in their playing days Marshall wasn't regarded as a significantly better bowler than the other WI. Michael Holding tends to get forgotten now (thanks to the stats brigade) but until the mid 1980s Holding was seen as the better WI quick.

Yes Holding was seen as the better bowler because Marshall didn't become the best in the World until '83.

I personally rank Holding very high and on par with Lillee.

 

[Pratters]

Works the opposite way for the lesser bowlers in your side though. Theoretically you'd want your third and fourth bowlers to have worse strike rates (assuming constant averages obv) and better economy rates to limit the affect their bowling had as the game progressed. So if you had bowlers averaging 25, 30, 35 and 40 then the worse the strike rates of the latter two, the less you'd bowl the opposition out for.

Cricket doesn't really exist in consistent absolutes like that though; bowlers are human, inconsistent and work off each other.

Which is why you need stock bowlers in your attack when you cannot have four strike bowlers of absolute greatness. For instance England had Giles. SA had Kallis. Sri Lanka had a Jayasuriya.

 

[watson]

The importance of strike rates in tests cannot be overstated. Two bowlers bow at random. If a bowler has a strike rate of 50, say and an economy of 3.0, he takes a wicket every 50 balls. Another has a strike rate of 60 and an economy of 2.5, say. Both will average 25. However, the opposition team can score runs off the other bowler bowling in tandem with our strike bowler. The strike bowler is thus less effective directly as per how how his strike rate is.

A difference of 5 seems small but makes a big difference when comparing atg players like Am rose with Marshall. People could see off Ambrose as his economy was lower a lot of Times compared to a Marshall.

'Test matches are won by whoever scores the most runs while taking 20 wickets'.

If you just take that simple definition then runs conceded per wicket taken is the most important factor. That is, if the batsman score more runs than the opposition and the bowlers take 20 wickets during the 5 days then what does it matter what the ER or the SR are? It's not as if the team gets bonus points for keeping the keeping the opposing run rate down.

The bowlers SR is important because Test matches have a finite time and time is an important consideration, but ultimately only runs and wickets matter.

 

[Pratters]

Yes I agree Watson. Bowlers bowl in tandem though. So longer you take to take a wicket, your impact is lower as in that time opposition makes runs off the other bowler.

 

[smash84]

'Test matches are won by whoever scores the most runs while taking 20 wickets'.

If you just take that simple definition then runs conceded per wicket taken is the most important factor. That is, if the batsman score more runs than the opposition and the bowlers take 20 wickets during the 5 days then what does it matter what the ER or the SR are? It's not as if the team gets bonus points for keeping the keeping the opposing run rate down.

The bowlers SR is important because Test matches have a finite time and time is an important consideration, but ultimately only runs and wickets matter.

yeah.

My point was that ATG bowlers have very little between them. Marshall strikes an over quicker than Ambrose but over the course of 5 days that is quite immaterial

 

[Pratters]

In his book 'Warne' Gideon Haigh has studied how Warne worked with other bowlers like McGrath and MacGill, how Australia performed when MacGill and Warne bowled in tandem say. MacGill actually averages better than Warne in tests they played together. That cricket is a team game with two players playing in tandem for a team, a bowling attack bowling as an attack, is often lost as it is not understood too much by absolute traditional stats too much.

 

[smash84]

Yes I agree Watson. Bowlers bowl in tandem though. So longer you take to take a wicket, your impact is lower as in that time opposition makes runs off the other bowler.

yes, but my point is that taking 6 more deliveries per wicket will most likely be immaterial on the outcome of the match. Taking an extreme case, a bowler with an average of 60 might take a wicket every 11 deliveries but he isn't very useful to the team since 10 of his deliveries disappear for 6 on each of them.

 

[Pratters]

I would much rather face Ambrose who has a chance of getting me every 9 overs compared to a Marshall who has a chance of getting me ever 7 and a half overs. A spell is usually 5 to 7 overs. So Marshall is likely to get a wicket each spell while Ambrose would be say 4 wickets in 5 spells. Given the intervals between spells, such a gap is like oxygen on moon. More chance for batsmen to get set. I cannot see how it isnt a degree of difference when Strike Rate is lower all the other things remaining the same except the anomoly in case of extremely dire bowlers who have poor economy rates.

 

[smash84]

I would much rather face Ambrose who has a chance of getting me every 9 overs compared to a Marshall who has a chance of getting me ever 7 and a half overs. A spell is usually 5 to 7 overs. So Marshall is likely to get a wicket each spell while Ambrose would be say 4 wickets in 5 spells. Given the intervals between spells, such a gap is like oxygen on moon. More chance for batsmen to get set. I cannot see how it isnt a degree of difference when Strike Rate is lower all the other things remaining the same except the anomoly in case of extremely dire bowlers who have poor economy rates.

How is Marshall likely to take a wicket in every 5 to 7 over spell if his SR is 7.5 overs per wicket Yes, I am being pedantic .

Tbf If Marshall can bowl an 8 over spell every time then Sir Curtly Ambrose can bowl a 9 over spell every time.