How good is Sanga?

[thierry henry]

What does that mean though? How can not playing when you're 20 and not helping your team be worth more than playing when you're 20 and averaging 40 and helping your team (cos no one else in that country is going to average 40)?

Its a team game.

Well, for one, because I'm not sure that comparing players at exact ages or after a set number of years in their career is that valuable. That's what seems artificial to me. I guess when you've played as many games over as many years as either Sanga or Tendulkar, I start to shy away from giving one or the other extra points for merely being in the team at a certain age or for a certain number of years. We're dealing with two long careers and two very big sample sizes.

What I can't ignore is being in the team and playing (for a relatively sustained period of time) at a level far below what the other bloke (or yourself in your prime) managed.

I guess I can see both arguments really. Give a bloke points for sheer weight of runs and years of contributions? Sure. But if you're taking all those extra runs into account, you also have to take into account that one bloke has shown an "ability" to be relatively ordinary at test cricket for a period of time, and the other hasn't.

 

[Jono]

By this measure though, Steve Waugh wasn't a good cricketer, nor was Ricky Ponting, nor was Damien Martyn, nor was Justin Langer, nor was Matty Hayden, nor was Martin Crowe.

That is an incredible interpretation from PEWS' post.

 

[Jono]

But if you're taking all those extra runs into account, you also have to take into account that one bloke has shown an "ability" to be relatively ordinary at test cricket for a period of time, and the other hasn't.

Well the other showed he wasn't good enough to be selected for a period of time, and help his team play.

 

[Prince EWS]

By this measure though, Steve Waugh wasn't a good cricketer, nor was Ricky Ponting, nor was Damien Martyn, nor was Justin Langer, nor was Matty Hayden, nor was Martin Crowe. You've got to take into account that being a great international cricketer generally means being able to adapt, adjust and find a way to perform.

No it doesn't. It just means they would've had more value if they were better for longer. Incidentally this is true for every cricketer in history and will be true until the day someone manages to play at the same standard for an infinite length of time past and future (a cool but unlikely quest).

 

[Blocky]

Well the other showed he wasn't good enough to be selected for a period of time, and help his team play.

Flawed argument really, we might as well say Shahid Afridi is the greatest of all time for being 16 when he broke the ODI World Record - or Hasan Raza being 14 and playing test cricket...

 

[OverratedSanity]

Flawed argument really, we might as well say Shahid Afridi is the greatest of all time for being 16 when he broke the ODI World Record - or Hasan Raza being 14 and playing test cricket...

Difference being, Tendulkar was actually a test standard batsman at 16.

 

[Jono]

Flawed argument really, we might as well say Shahid Afridi is the greatest of all time for being 16 when he broke the ODI World Record - or Hasan Raza being 14 and playing test cricket...

Ignoring the fact they didn't have great records that equal their other contemporaries but just played longer. So no, we might as well not say that.

 

[Blocky]

No it doesn't. It just means they would've had more value if they were better for longer. Incidentally this is true for every cricketer in history and will be true until the day someone manages to play at the same standard for an infinite length of time past and future (a cool but unlikely quest).

Comes back to what I said earlier though, I think once you're talking about 100+ tests then the longevity debate goes out the window. You could reverse that argument and say that the struggles that Ponting and Tendulkar had in a similar age band to Sangakarra indicate that they weren't anywhere near as skillful with the bat and relied on their natural reflexes more than skill and technique.

You could also point to a case like Michael Hussey who simply couldn't break into the team despite being more than good enough and proving it when he finally did at 30. Or Mark Richardson, etc.

I don't think it should come into consideration when comparing players, I think ultimately you take their overall records, their performance home and away and how they performed against the top bowlers of their day, alongside how they performed against other batsmen in their peer group. I do get what you're saying, that judging a player when they're obviously past their used by date isn't a good indicator - it's like comparing 1980 Mohammad Ali vs 1969 Mohammad Ali....

But.. in the case of Tendulkar, you take his best 100 tests and compare them against Sanga's best 100 tests and Sanga wins.

You take their entire career and Sanga wins
You take the best five year period of their careers and Sanga wins
You take the best decade of their careers and Sanga wins.

I have more faith in the "Tendulkar averaged over 40 in every country he played, Sanga didn't" argument, truth be told.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I agree with this. However I just can't ever agree that not playing should be considered better than being less than your best either.

I am definitely not a 'judge by peaks' guy. But I find sometimes that other people in my camp 'your entire career counts' make no attempt to reconcile the fact that some careers are longer than others.

I actually think the only way you can really argue Sanga > Tendulkar is by making a peak argument. All the evidence suggests Tendulkar was a much better cricketer when he was 18 than Sanga was when he was 18, so somehow making that count against Tendulkar just because Sanga wasn't good enough to be selected and have his Tests stats affected makes the least sense out of any of these positions.

Again, what's your opinion on Chappell? Phenomenal record, and he's as good a batsman as Tendulkar, some would say better. But his career was basically half the length of Sachin's. Is that a big enough difference to make Tendulkar automatically better?

 

[thierry henry]

I agree with this. However I just can't ever agree that not playing should be considered better than being less than your best either.

I am definitely not a 'judge by peaks' guy. But I find sometimes that other people in my camp 'your entire career counts' make no attempt to reconcile the fact that some careers are longer than others.

I actually think the only way you can really argue Sanga > Tendulkar is by making a peak argument. All the evidence suggests Tendulkar was a much better cricketer when he was 18 than Sanga was when he was 18, so somehow making that count against Tendulkar just because Sanga wasn't good enough to be selected and have his Tests stats affected makes the least sense out of any of these positions.

I'm making it count against Tendulkar because he played test cricket, he was there on the stage to be judged, and he didn't perform (accepting that for the purposes of this argument "not performing" means averaging 40 or whatever). The idea is to not make allowances for age in any way. It's simply judging someone on their overall output in the test cricket that they actually did play.

Sanga doesn't get judged for what he was doing at 18 because he wasn't playing test cricket, and as you said yourself, you can't rate someone on games they never played.

Now, I reiterate, I fully understand your argument and I would be hesitant to rate someone so highly if they had only a short career which was right in their peak. But with Sanga and Tendulkar, you've got two guys who had really long careers, started young and finished old. Sanga 2015 has pretty much been crazy awesome over his whole long career. Tendulkar's bare statistics look a little worse because he had more significant lows than Sanga. Damn right I am going to at least raise that when directly comparing the two. I am not going to say "but actually, Tendulkar performing worse than Sanga ever did is in Tendulkar's favour because Tendulkar played at ages when Sanga didn't".

I guess in a nutshell, where two guys have played as long as these two, it makes more sense to me to factor in a significant form slump(enough to substantially alter career stats) as a negative, then to factor in a failure to play before age 22 or after age 37 as a negative and effectively penalise someone for games they didn't play.

....but I can totally see how this is the sort of argument that can be seen from two different angles that both make sense in their own way...

 

[thierry henry]

Well the other showed he wasn't good enough to be selected for a period of time, and help his team play.

Well no, he simply showed nothing. He didn't play. It's neither positive nor negative.

 

[Cabinet96]

Comes back to what I said earlier though, I think once you're talking about 100+ tests then the longevity debate goes out the window.

I think this is the crux of the difference between PEWSian theory and traditional theory.

 

[SteveNZ]

Some good heat in here, I like it.

I'm with Thierry and others, I'm not concerned with longevity when you're talking about a guy who's played 129 Tests to the other guy's 150 odd. If we're talking Ryan Harris/Shane Bond v someone with much longer service, weight of wickets at a slightly higher average, then that becomes more relevant.

Sachin averaging 40 as a teenager is insane, and always will be. But I'm comparing his full career v Sanga, and an average of 59 with over 12,000 runs gets it done for me when you consider his conversion rate is identical, and his big daddy doubles + triple place him right at the top - totally in my opinion.

I'd be more likely to take on board an Indian opinion if there was a single one that held the view that Sanga is No.1, because cricket aficionados from other countries seem pretty divided. But bias dictates Sachin is the man, no matter who we're throwing up.

 

[Cabinet96]

Some good heat in here, I like it.

I'm with Thierry and others, I'm not concerned with longevity when you're talking about a guy who's played 129 Tests to the other guy's 150 odd. If we're talking Ryan Harris/Shane Bond v someone with much longer service, weight of wickets at a slightly higher average, then that becomes more relevant.

Sachin averaging 40 as a teenager is insane, and always will be. But I'm comparing his full career v Sanga, and an average of 59 with over 12,000 runs gets it done for me when you consider his conversion rate is identical, and his big daddy doubles + triple place him right at the top - totally in my opinion.

I'd be more likely to take on board an Indian opinion if there was a single one that held the view that Sanga is No.1, because cricket aficionados from other countries seem pretty divided. But bias dictates Sachin is the man, no matter who we're throwing up.

Taking the first couple of paragraphs out of the argument, the point is that over a period of Sanga's career, Tendulkar's record is just as good. It's only because he played younger and older (or after his peak, shall we say) that his overall record is poorer. You shouldn't rate him lower because he played in those periods, even if you're not going to rate him higher for it.

 

[Jono]

I'd be more likely to take on board an Indian opinion if there was a single one that held the view that Sanga is No.1, because cricket aficionados from other countries seem pretty divided. But bias dictates Sachin is the man, no matter who we're throwing up.

You've been disrespectful of Indian fans in another thread but this is beyond that. If you want to judge 1 bill peeps as the same, and treat Twitter trolls exactly the same as OverratedSanity, ***** etc. and myself than I won't debate.

Ugh.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Viriya is Sri Lankan isn't he?

But yeah the idea that Sachin doesn't get fair criticism from Indian fans is such rubbish.

 

[Prince EWS]

Again, what's your opinion on Chappell? Phenomenal record, and he's as good a batsman as Tendulkar, some would say better. But his career was basically half the length of Sachin's. Is that a big enough difference to make Tendulkar automatically better?

Yes, basically. Even if we assume (and it's a big assumption) that 18-22 year old Chappell was actually as good as 18-22 year old Tendulkar but simply wasn't selected because Australia's selection policy was less inclined to do that sort of thing, any coach who'd take the option of having Chappell until he was 36 (at which point he'd have a sook about not seeing the ball like a beach ball like he used to and then retire) over Tendulkar until he was 40 would have to be mad as a cut snake, particularly given what Tendulkar managed aged 36-38. Throw in the uncertainty over how early Chappell would have handled Test cricket in the first place and it's a non-contest even if you think Chappell was marginally better when they were 22-36.

 

[Jono]

Viriya is Sri Lankan isn't he?

But yeah the idea that Sachin doesn't get fair criticism from Indian fans is such rubbish.

He's Indian now. Welcome to the club viriya

 

[thierry henry]

Taking the first couple of paragraphs out of the argument, the point is that over a period of Sanga's career, Tendulkar's record is just as good. It's only because he played younger and older (or after his peak, shall we say) that his overall record is poorer. You shouldn't rate him lower because he played in those periods, even if you're not going to rate him higher for it.

But why not? Him sucking more than Sanga ever did for a period of time is (arguably) a perfectly good reason to rate him lower.

The concept of "Sanga didn't play during those times" is just weird and artificial to me and assumes that all players should start and stop at the same ages or that they age at the same rate. I'm much more interested in "player A had an extended slump that player B never did" than "player A had a really really long career and player B had a long career".

Maybe each argument is equally valid but I dunno, that's just how I feel yo.

 

[Prince EWS]

I'm making it count against Tendulkar because he played test cricket, he was there on the stage to be judged, and he didn't perform (accepting that for the purposes of this argument "not performing" means averaging 40 or whatever). The idea is to not make allowances for age in any way. It's simply judging someone on their overall output in the test cricket that they actually did play.

Sanga doesn't get judged for what he was doing at 18 because he wasn't playing test cricket, and as you said yourself, you can't rate someone on games they never played.

Now, I reiterate, I fully understand your argument and I would be hesitant to rate someone so highly if they had only a short career which was right in their peak. But with Sanga and Tendulkar, you've got two guys who had really long careers, started young and finished old. Sanga 2015 has pretty much been crazy awesome over his whole long career. Tendulkar's bare statistics look a little worse because he had more significant lows than Sanga. Damn right I am going to at least raise that when directly comparing the two. I am not going to say "but actually, Tendulkar performing worse than Sanga ever did is in Tendulkar's favour because Tendulkar played at ages when Sanga didn't".

I guess in a nutshell, where two guys have played as long as these two, it makes more sense to me to factor in a significant form slump(enough to substantially alter career stats) as a negative, then to factor in a failure to play before age 22 or after age 37 as a negative and effectively penalise someone for games they didn't play.

....but I can totally see how this is the sort of argument that can be seen from two different angles that both make sense in their own way...

So the best way to achieve a high thierry henry rating would be to make sure you weren't good enough to play Test cricket until you were amazing at it, then retire as soon as you showed signs of decline. This is really in complete conflict with what would actually be useful to a team.