How good is Sanga?

[Dan]

How hard is it to differentiate 27 and 40 ffs. "whatever, something close to that".. ok

Umm, he averaged ~45 in the period I'm talking about in the post (age 16-20).

 

[weldone]

If he has included adapting to different formats, I don't have a problem with that. I still rate Lara as the best test match batsman I have seen by a close but clear Margin over Sachin, Sanga and Ponting etc.. But if you include all formats and how well players adapted to each and how close they were to their best when playing in all formats (which I do not agree with, as an aside) I feel Sachin, Sanga are clearly the best. I believe Ponting should surely be in the discussion too but Lara lost his head in ODIs since the late 90s and got too funky with his batting position as a captain to actually be consistently close to his best in that format... In terms of ODIs, Lara is one of the biggest underachievers in terms of ability to actual output...

Isn't Ponting generally considered a better ODI batsman than Sanga?

 

[Prince EWS]

Isn't Ponting generally considered a better ODI batsman than Sanga?

Yeah Sanga's been a bit of a late bloomer in ODIs; he was still averaging under 30 after 100 games.

It's pretty amazing in a way that you can be averaging under 30 after a hundred games and still end up averaging over 40; it's a great illustration of how many ODIs Sri Lanka get through.

 

[weldone]

Or the batsmen in his national team sucked less than Sachin's when they were 18...

And you know that's not the case.

 

[OverratedSanity]

In ODIs, it's just not a contest.

 

[honestbharani]

And you know that's not the case.

I am not so sure.. We had the usual Ranji dadas but in terms of potential and in terms of being able to play away from home etc., I think the selectors were right in giving Sachin the go immediately as it was obvious he will go on to be something special... I still add though that had it been that we had a line up similar to what we had in the mid noughties there is no way they would have handed a debut to a 16 year old...

 

[weldone]

@OS

The question is wheher Viv is justified in saying that Tendulkar and Sanga are the 2 best players of modern times in terms of adapting well in different formats.

I think he's not. Ponting is definitely better than Sanga in that aspect, and Lara is arguably better in my opinion.

 

[Flem274*]

Sachin is far =from being my favourite of the greats I've seen but it's very hard to build a case for almost anyone in history being better than him. I'm probably not as fussed by longevity as some since to me it's also about what you do and the moments you create, but Sachin was playing test cricket several years before I was born and up until his last test he had been playing test cricket my entire life.

And I'm almost 24. Sachin is ridiculous. In an absolute skill level sense maybe you could put various players ahead of him (much like you can argue Ryan Harris, Shane Bond or Shoiab Akhtar were "better" bowlers than the ATG of your choice due to what they could send down) but what Tendulkar has achieved is almost unbeatable because he was a great player for the length of a normal career and a good player before it and beyond it.

 

[Dan]

Chennai 2013 against Australia, I think was not so great.. MCG 2011 I will give you. As you pointed out, he did take on Steyn just months before the 2011 WC and showed how good he was back then. Mine is a general point about him playing on circa 2012 and 2013 when he was so clearly past it... I am not sure why it deserves any particular kudos when most were home series and we did have batsmen good enough to cut it at least in those conditions... As I said, I am not sure why it should be praised blindly..

As I was saying, this is a very easy judgment to make in hindsight -- "oh by 2011/12 Sachin was in decline and probably should have retired". Well, yes, I think we can say that he was, but at the time Sachin/Indian selectors were probably both convinced that more runs for Sachin were just around the corner, and that it was just a rough patch. When it became an extended rough patch indicating terminal decline, Tendulkar/Selectors obviously realised it was all coming to an end and let Sachin leave on his own terms.

I highly, highly doubt Sachin was sitting in the dressing room in mid-2012 thinking to himself "I can't make Test runs any more, but I'll keep going anyway".

 

[Spikey]

He was thinking, by the way, "Yes but what's his record when you exclude Zimbabwe and Bangladesh"

 

[Teja.]

It's disingenuous to a ridiculous degree to compare raw averages for Tendulkar's 90s and Sanga's 06-2015. While both have the highest averages in the decades,

Number of batsmen who averaged 50+ and scored 1000+ runs when Tendulkar averaged 58: 6

Number of batsmen who averaged 50+ and scored 1000+ runs when Sangakkara averaged 63.75: 17

If someone wants to convince me that bowling standards were higher and Sanga's all-round record was superior in 06-15 than Tendulkar's 90s on the basis of a subjective argument, all power to them but saying Sanga averaged 4-5 runs more in his peak and using that prima facie number as the basis of an argument is lazy stats at it's worst.

 

[harsh.ag]

Sachin was playing test cricket several years before I was born and up until his last test he had been playing test cricket my entire life.

And I'm almost 24.

He was playing for two years before you were born.

 

[honestbharani]

As I was saying, this is a very easy judgment to make in hindsight -- "oh by 2011/12 Sachin was in decline and probably should have retired". Well, yes, I think we can say that he was, but at the time Sachin/Indian selectors were probably both convinced that more runs for Sachin were just around the corner, and that it was just a rough patch. When it became an extended rough patch indicating terminal decline, Tendulkar/Selectors obviously realised it was all coming to an end and let Sachin leave on his own terms.

I highly, highly doubt Sachin was sitting in the dressing room in mid-2012 thinking to himself "I can't make Test runs any more, but I'll keep going anyway".

Agree with that.. and I take that point back.. I don't think Sachin hung around only because he was helping a team through transitional phase for sure, but I also have to admit it was wrong on my part to just assume he only played on to chase records..


I was being overly harsh there............ and hence wrong.


He probably kept playing on simply because he was still enjoying it.. Not something to give him brownie points for, IMO and surely not something to throw brickbats at him for either...

 

[Flem274*]

He was playing for two years before you were born.

CW terminology pedants have been out in force today.

 

[Jarquis]

Absolutely...but then if Tendulkar was better at a younger age, and Sanga was better at an older age, and in the end Sanga's record is appreciably better...how do we get to "Tendulkar is better"?

Is it just the argument that Tendulkar had such a long career, and that you can take the middle chunk of his career where he had a similar record to Sanga, and the rest (several years of decent contributions at the beginning and end) is the cream on top which puts him above Sanga- arguably well above, given his career overall was 7-8 years longer than pretty much anyone's?

I understand the argument but it just doesn't do a lot for me. So he played really old, and he played really young, and during those times he wasn't nearly as good as he was during his prime years. That would probably apply to pretty much anyone else ever, Sanga included. I get the longevity argument, but "longevity while being inferior to your prime by about the amount you would expect someone out of their prime to be" seems to me a weird thing to lavish praise on someone for.

I guess if you stay around past your best (or before your best) and your record deteriorates because of it, I'm not going to disregard your excellence at peak, but nor am I going to give you credit for getting worse. And maybe if I'm comparing you to someone who also had a really long career and yet never deteriorated, I might lean towards that guy, because IMO sub-par performances have to count for something. Not diminishing from earlier performances, but they just have to be acknowledged in their own right.

Yeah, I think I'm on board with this because there's no way what PEWS said about somebody continuing on and averaging 7 should 'enhance their legacy'. It's not the fault of the players or a representation of their ability if one board refuses to drop one player when he's clearly past his best so he can continue scoring Test runs but another drops their aging legend when he starts to decline. If anything the former player would benefit by playing in a weaker team/for a weaker board.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah, I think I'm on board with this because there's no way what PEWS said about somebody continuing on and averaging 7 should 'enhance their legacy'.

Haha nah I'm not that crazy. I just don't think it should decrease it. If you're averaging 7 then you might as well not be playing but it doesn't nullify what you've already done.

 

[weldone]

Yeah, I think I'm on board with this because there's no way what PEWS said about somebody continuing on and averaging 7 should 'enhance their legacy'. It's not the fault of the players or a representation of their ability if one board refuses to drop one player when he's clearly past his best so he can continue scoring Test runs but another drops their aging legend when he starts to decline. If anything the former player would benefit by playing in a weaker team/for a weaker board.

Player A and player B start to play for the same team at the same time.

Both play for 10 years averaging 55. Player B retires after that.

Player A plays for another 5 years and averages 45 in those 5 years. (or say 54, since I've heard it often that longevity doesn't matter after a certain point)

You're saying you'll rate B higher, right?

 

[vic_orthdox]

Who's the better player?
Who's the more valuable player?

IMO there's a difference.

 

[weldone]

Who's the better player?
Who's the more valuable player?

IMO there's a difference.

We're talking about better. Andy Flower, Heath Streak and Shakib Al Hasan are probably more valuable to their sides than Ricky Ponting or Michael Holding.

And Sangakkara is more valuable to the Sri Lanka batting order than Tendulkar has ever been to Indian batting since 1996.

 

[Jarquis]

Player A and player B start to play for the same team at the same time.

Both play for 10 years averaging 55. Player B retires after that.

Player A plays for another 5 years and averages 45 in those 5 years. (or say 54, since I've heard it often that longevity doesn't matter after a certain point)

You're saying you'll rate B higher, right?

Well that's not what I said at all really.

Let's say there are two parallel universes one which is this one and the other where Tendulkar retired after the WI series and shaved the last 2 years and 16 Tests off his career (Retiring with 15183 @ 56.02 51/63) then I'm not sure I'd rate the former any higher at all, especially when it's apparent that there wasn't exactly a lack of alternatives.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't subscribe to the view that simply being picked and playing a match that somebody else didn't automatically makes you better - because there's so much more to it than that.