Sanga retiring, where does he place?

[AldoRaine18]

It is not like Sachin and Lara were very successful against great bowlers of the 90s. Lara failed against Akram and Co and was terrible against SA. He was very good against Australia but plenty of times Australia had the better of him.
Sachin averaged something in 40s against Australian attacks led by McGrath and his overall record against Donald, Akram, Waqar was very average. He did well against the rubbish attacks of the 90s though. Waugh probably did better against better bowling attacks than Lara and Sachin.

Talk about pulling stuff out of your arse. India and Pakistan did not play against each other for 10 years between 89 and 99, the precise period when Waqar and Wasim were at their best. What 'overall' record are you looking at here, exactly?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Tendulkar's record against WWs being mediocre is a complete myth. He played against them just twice. 89 was his first ever series as a 16 year old, and he did a respectable job, and even saved a test from a dicey position. 2nd was way later in 99 in which he scored probably his best hundred. Waqar was a shell of his old self, but Wasim was still pretty great. And they never even got him out anyway,not even once. it was Saqlain doing the damage. It's why avg vs player stats are useless without context.

 

[mr_mister]

Blanket statements like "overrated here" make no sense. I've seen people here say he's better than Tendulkar, in that case, yes he's overrated. At the same time I see mr_mister say Dravid couldn't play innings Waugh could, which I don't agree with at all, so there he's being underrated. He's in the Kallis-Waugh class but just like them, he's not as good as Tendulkar and Lara.

Well I disagree with your disagreement therefore Dravid is being overrated there. Shall we continue

 

[Contra]

Forget about fast bowlers for a minute, what about Tendulkar and Lara taking on the two greatest spinners to have played the game? I feel in today's time we have reasonable quality of fast bowlers all around the world, but the lack of quality in today's spinners and those that Tendulkar/Lara/whoever else that played at the time is massive. And given that Sanga is better against pace than he is against spin, I really do wonder if he had to face Warne/Murali at their peaks... not just Sanga actually, pretty much most players these days can't play spin for ****.

 

[akilana]

Talk about pulling stuff out of your arse. India and Pakistan did not play against each other for 10 years between 89 and 99, the precise period when Waqar and Wasim were at their best. What 'overall' record are you looking at here, exactly?

So he didnt play them enough. I heard he was pretty good against the 90s bowlers so I was just disagreeing with that statement. If he didnt play them enough then it supports my argument.

 

[AldoRaine18]

So he didnt play them enough. I heard he was pretty good against the 90s bowlers so I was just disagreeing with that statement. If he didnt play them enough then it supports my argument.

No it doesn't. Not if your argument is that he didn't do well against those bowlers. You cannot be good or poor against someone you played two series ten years apart, with the first being when you turned 16!

 

[viriya]

Forget about fast bowlers for a minute, what about Tendulkar and Lara taking on the two greatest spinners to have played the game? I feel in today's time we have reasonable quality of fast bowlers all around the world, but the lack of quality in today's spinners and those that Tendulkar/Lara/whoever else that played at the time is massive. And given that Sanga is better against pace than he is against spin, I really do wonder if he had to face Warne/Murali at their peaks... not just Sanga actually, pretty much most players these days can't play spin for ****.

Sanga completely dominated the best spinner of his time (even if he turned out to be a thrower), and if you had followed SL domestic cricket you would know that he had the better of Murali as well.

 

[G.I.Joe]

Sanga completely dominated the best spinner of his time (even if he turned out to be a thrower),

and if you had followed SL domestic cricket you would know that he had the better of Murali as well.

Holy redundancy. Why make the same point twice in the same sentence?

 

[OverratedSanity]

Aw you beat me to it

 

[G.I.Joe]

Pictured: viriya's blood pressure reading

 

[viriya]

I think Sanga is generally underrated because he just didn't make a great first impression. He just got better and better with age and people are more likely to rate batsmen who were great early and tapered off with age. IMO if you look at overall careers (not just the numbers but the actual performances etc), it's impossible to rate him below Tendulkar or Lara.

Also, his high average wasn't a result of steady accumulation like Kallis and Dravid - in fact his overall Test SR is slightly above Tendulkar's (54.22 vs 54.04). He did benefit from facing minnows, but so did others. His performances outside the subcontinent show that he wasn't just a home bully or a minnow basher clearly.

 

[Contra]

Sanga completely dominated the best spinner of his time (even if he turned out to be a thrower), and if you had followed SL domestic cricket you would know that he had the better of Murali as well.

Nah you missed my point, I'm talking the overall quality of spinners has IMO decreased in comparison to the overall quality of pace from the time when Tendulkar/Lara played most of their games to when Sanga played. Ajmal is not in the Warne/Murali/Saqlain league of spinners, also I rate Swann higher than Ajmal personally.

 

[viriya]

Nah you missed my point, I'm talking the overall quality of spinners has IMO decreased in comparison to the overall quality of pace from the time when Tendulkar/Lara played most of their games to when Sanga played. Ajmal is not in the Warne/Murali/Saqlain league of spinners, also I rate Swann higher than Ajmal personally.

Saqlain in same league of Murali and Warne in Tests? No way. If anything Ajmal, Swann and Saqlain are in a similar class, and imo Ajmal was the most dominant of those three.

 

[Furball]

I rate Kallis the highest out of the next lot down of modern batsmen, so I had to think about Sanga v Kallis. For me, if I could decide he was better than Kallis then he was also better than Dravid, Ponting, Waugh, Younis etc automatically.

I think he's closer to Kallis than he is to Lara, but I do think he's just eclipsed Kallis. The career career ratings programme I made on top of my standardised average calculations actually disagrees there and puts Kallis slightly ahead but I do think it's Sanga, just.

Am I missing something here? Surely Sangakkara is much better than Kallis?

 

[Howe_zat]

Kinda refuse to accept the premise that Lara and Tendulkar were dead even and you have to fit everyone else around them

Like I wouldn't argue it but there's no reason why 'Tendulkar > Sanga > Lara' is unnacceptable

 

[indiaholic]

I think Sanga is generally underrated because he just didn't make a great first impression. He just got better and better with age and people are more likely to rate batsmen who were great early and tapered off with age. IMO if you look at overall careers (not just the numbers but the actual performances etc), it's impossible to rate him below Tendulkar or Lara.

Also, his high average wasn't a result of steady accumulation like Kallis and Dravid - in fact his overall Test SR is slightly above Tendulkar's (54.22 vs 54.04). He did benefit from facing minnows, but so did others. His performances outside the subcontinent show that he wasn't just a home bully or a minnow basher clearly.

I think Sanga is over rated because he has a decent vocabulary.

 

[Contra]

Saqlain in same league of Murali and Warne in Tests? No way. If anything Ajmal, Swann and Saqlain are in a similar class, and imo Ajmal was the most dominant of those three.

Well I was thinking more along the lines of when Saqlain played Tendulkar in that 99 series where Saqlain was probably the best in the world, so yeah not in terms of over a whole career, but Saqlain for a brief period was as good as Warne/Murali. In any case this isn't specific to Sanga as such, I just don't rate the current quality of spin as highly as the one in mid 90's to early 2000's.

 

[Furball]

Kinda refuse to accept the premise that Lara and Tendulkar were dead even and you have to fit everyone else around them

Like I wouldn't argue it but there's no reason why 'Tendulkar > Sanga > Lara' is unnacceptable

Aside from Lara being > Tendulkar...

 

[viriya]

I think Lara > Sangakkara = Tendulkar but the differences are not significant.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

It is not like Sachin and Lara were very successful against great bowlers of the 90s. Lara failed against Akram and Co and was terrible against SA. He was very good against Australia but plenty of times Australia had the better of him.
Sachin averaged something in 40s against Australian attacks led by McGrath and his overall record against Donald, Akram, Waqar was very average. He did well against the rubbish attacks of the 90s though. Waugh probably did better against better bowling attacks than Lara and Sachin.

Steve Waugh did better against the attacks of the 1990s because he was battle-hardened. He did dreadfully against the attacks of the 80s until the 1989 tour of England.