How good is Sanga?

[Spark]

It's not how much whiskey I've had that's important, but how long I've been drinking it.

cribb wins the thread

 

[honestbharani]

Why? India were in trouble, I remember correctly. In either case, if its not that great, Raina, and Rohit should ****ing play a knock like that.

Wasn't Raina's debut 100 in pretty difficult conditions too? Or am I just not remembering it right?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Wasn't Raina's debut 100 in pretty difficult conditions too? Or am I just not remembering it right?

Lol no. SSC. India scored 700

Still a good knock, but Raina's best knock by far, imo, was here: 1st Test: West Indies v India at Kingston, Jun 20-23, 2011 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Excellent knock on a very difficult pitch.

 

[honestbharani]

yeah and Rohit's debut 100 came wen we were in some strife too... All comparable to Sachin's effort in Chennai IMO...

 

[Spark]

I remember he played a really, really good lone hand at Lord's second innings.

Pity about the rest of the series. Trying to review a LBW a particular highlight.

 

[OverratedSanity]

yeah and Rohit's debut 100 came wen we were in some strife too... All comparable to Sachin's effort in Chennai IMO...

The problem is, both those Raina knocks came when Sachin was the best batsman in the world anyway. Raina did ****all after that, so your point isn't really valid at all.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I remember he played a really, really good lone hand at Lord's second innings.

Pity about the rest of the series. Trying to review an LBW a particular highlight.

Eh matchw as done for all intents and purposes. 0 pressure knock.

 

[Spark]

If I had to choose a guy to play for me out of the modern greats at the beginning of their career, it'd be Tendulkar. I think that's a separate question as to whether he was the best player.

Could you expand on this? Because I'm increasingly using this as my definition as to who is a better player.

Eh matchw as done for all intents and purposes. 0 pressure knock.

Perhaps, but he was still facing some seriously high-quality fast bowling at the time.

 

[Cabinet96]

Raina did get away with a seriously plumb LBW in that Lords knock, even though it was good.

 

[Spark]

Raina did get away with a seriously plumb LBW in that Lords knock, even though it was good.

Haha yeah that was one of about a dozen wickets Broad should have had on top of all the ones he actually took. **** he was ridicuous in that series.

 

[Cabinet96]

Yeah, I remember actually counting it up and realising he probably should've got 12 wickets that game if it weren't for drops and poor umpiring decisions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I honestly think it's probably the best series I've ever seen from a fast bowler... probably eclipsed only by Mitch in the Ashes, maybe.

Felt like he was producing 3-4 wicket taking balls every over.

 

[mohammad16]

Sanga and Lara's record as they both have played almost the same amount of games, Sanga will obviously add to his tally:

Lara
Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 4s 6s
Lara 131 232 11953 400* 52.88 60.51 34 48 1559 88
Sanga 129 223 11995 319 58.22 54.11 37 51 1454 47

Very similar stats but the key figure that stands out here is Lara's superior strike rate, against better bowlers and relatively more bowling friendly conditions.

There is no comparison really, especially considering their respective records against the best bowling attacks of their time.

 

[weldone]

Sanga and Lara's record as they both have played almost the same amount of games, Sanga will obviously add to his tally:

Lara
Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 4s 6s
Lara 131 232 11953 400* 52.88 60.51 34 48 1559 88
Sanga 129 223 11995 319 58.22 54.11 37 51 1454 47

Very similar stats but the key figure that stands out here is Lara's superior strike rate, against better bowlers and relatively more bowling friendly conditions.

There is no comparison really, especially considering their respective records against the best bowling attacks of their time.

Ya Lara stands far better till now.

 

[honestbharani]

The problem is, both those Raina knocks came when Sachin was the best batsman in the world anyway. Raina did ****all after that, so your point isn't really valid at all.

Why does the timing matter? Jono simply asked if Raina or Rohit had played comparable knocks to Sachin's in Chennai and the answer is yes... FWIW, I think Raina would have bossed Australia at home too in that 2013 series..

 

[viriya]

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

My bad.

 

[viriya]

When it comes to Tendulkar, his performances when he was 38-40 should neither tarnish nor enhance his legacy -- he was crap and might and might as well have not been playing -- and his performances as a teenager should enhance it -- they weren't to the standard of the meat of his career, but most players aren't selected at that age and it was a positive that he could contribute. The beginning part, unlike the very end, was a genuine positive.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Tendulkar's poor final 2 years tarnishes his great feats for the 15 years before that. But when you are evaluating a player's whole career, every single test is given importance regardless of whether the player was in decline or in his peak. So in career terms, his last 2 years do affect his evaluation.

In Sanga's case, he hasn't had that period of decline with age (as of yet). That shouldn't give him extra credit because most batsmen do, just be evaluated the same way all his other tests have been.

Now that's different from trying to figure out who was the "better" player (since that's personal opinion) - I'm talking about how one should evaluate who had the better career. Not saying Sanga is clearly ahead of Sachin there, just that you can't ignore parts of a career for no good reason.

 

[Coronis]

Sanga and Lara's record as they both have played almost the same amount of games, Sanga will obviously add to his tally:

Lara
Inns NO Runs HS Ave SR 100 50 4s 6s
Lara 131 232 11953 400* 52.88 60.51 34 48 1559 88
Sanga 129 223 11995 319 58.22 54.11 37 51 1454 47

Very similar stats but the key figure that stands out here is Lara's superior strike rate, against better bowlers and relatively more bowling friendly conditions.

There is no comparison really, especially considering their respective records against the best bowling attacks of their time.

Is 6 more runs per hundred balls that big a difference? e.g a 120 taking the same amount of time as a 108.

 

[Riggins]

North, Hodge and Katich really all should have played more - Stuart Law before that.

It's amazing how talented that era of Australian cricket was, two world class leggies, a relatively decent offie (who could also bowl medium), an endless stream of hardened domestic champions just waiting for the chance to come in and perform for their side. Guys like Slater and Mark Waugh being dropped, etc.

I've always wondered how different Stuart Law's career might have been had he batted at 5 and Poontang at 6 in their debut match.

 

[thierry henry]

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.

I can see I am fighting a hopelessly losing battle in the like-war against "PEWSian CW orthodoxy" , but....

actually yes, that would work (assuming the player's cunning ploy didn't become public knowledge, in which case I would surely hold it against him) if the player had a long career. If he had a relatively short career I would adjust my rating accordingly. It would work because in reality we can't make assumptions about whether the player "wasn't good enough to play test cricket until he was amazing at it" or whether the player was just actually really amazing at test cricket. We can't make assumptions about whether a player was about to decline horribly as soon as he retired, or whether he just retired at what seemed a suitable time (because you can't and are not obliged to play test cricket your whole life).

Your (evidently very popular) opinion at once eschews assumptions, but then seemingly relies on assumptions to rate the Tendulkar-type over the Sanga-type. You have to assume that the player who has big slumps in his career has slumped because he has heroically played on for the good of his team, and you have to assume that the player who doesn't slump avoided the slumps due to quirks of selection or a canny retirement, and not just because he is amazing- and yet typically the only evidence that actually exists is "that guy was amazing". "The bastard avoided an inevitable form slump by retiring at the youthful age of 37" is pure speculation.