Who would you rather have come in at No. 6 for your team with 15 overs to go?

[kiwiviktor81]

Yes, if you assume context holds the key to everything and Bevan is super-adaptable, you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.
But, by the very same token, if you assume context does not matter at all and Bevan is super-unadaptable, you leave yourself open to a degree of speculation that renders all discussion essentially meaningless.

We simply cannot know what Michael Bevan would do if he found himself batting at #5 for the Blackcaps in 2015. Speculating either way is pointless.

I agree with your reasoning, but not your conclusion. All we know about Bevan was what he demonstrated on the field. At no point did he demonstrate that he could have adapted to the high strike rate game.

 

[Cabinet96]

But you forget, he was playing the game inefficeintly and so was almost everyone else bar Dev, Viv, Cairns, et al. All you have is when the game was played wrong, Bevan was better than almost everyone on the mean (with almost everyone playing the game wrong), then you massively assume that if he played the game correctly he would still be ahead of the mean. It is fallacious. You have no information as to him playing the game efficiently.

You have at best, his ability to win matches, when the game was played incorrectly by most people. Its worthless information.

So would an ATG team simply be full of players playing the game now, with the odd exception like Viv? Are all the best scientists ever all around today, since they know more than anyone before them ever has? Etc, etc.

 

[Prince EWS]

I agree with your reasoning, but aren't you leaving yourself open to thinking that a player who averaged 105 at U-17 level is better than Bradman because of skill relativism?

No, because skill relativism only applies to changes over time and not to changes over the actual level (it is important to remember that 'level' is different to 'standard') of cricket played.

To me the U17 player should still be rated against the best players around during his time, and by that measure he's playing a dire level of cricket not worth rating. He'd still be well below the mean.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

So would an ATG team simply be full of players playing the game now, with the odd exception like Viv? Are all the best scientists ever all around today, since they know more than anyone before them ever has? Etc, etc.

Your point does not hold. Scientists are measured on break through's and their individual contribution to the accumulated knowledge at their point in time of man kind. The ones who were celebrated for something later proven to be inaccurate, end up not being so celebrated any more - because they were wrong.

We have scoop shots, reverse shots, switch hits - why do you think the batsman cannot be better today than the odd exception like Viv?

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Put it this way. Let's say something freakish happens to the game and bowlers massively improve. Starc averages 15, Boult 18, that sort of thing. In such a scenario, the relative value of Bevan would increase immensely compared to Maxwell. Guys like Andrew Jones would be awesome again.

I think much of the misunderstanding here comes from the failure to realise that, the higher the level of ODI cricket, the more important strike rate is, as the chance of a team being bowled out becomes lower. An ATG setting is the highest standard of all.

At club cricket level Bevan would be God. He'd be as good as Bradman. But at international ATG level he's just too slow.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

To me the U17 player should still be rated against the best players around during his time, and by that measure he's playing a dire level of cricket not worth rating. He'd still be well below the mean.

But how can you judge that he'd be well below the mean unless you introduce an element of absolutism into your reasoning?

 

[Cabinet96]

Your point does not hold. Scientists are measured on break through's and their individual contribution to the accumulated knowledge at their point in time of man kind.

And cricketers are judged by their ability to win cricket matches; not how their statistics match up with those playing in different circumstances many years down the line.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

But you forget, he was playing the game inefficeintly and so was almost everyone else bar Dev, Viv, Cairns, et al. All you have is when the game was played wrong, Bevan was better than almost everyone on the mean (with almost everyone playing the game wrong), then you massively assume that if he played the game correctly he would still be ahead of the mean. It is fallacious. You have no information as to him playing the game efficiently.

You have at best, his ability to win matches, when the game was played incorrectly by most people. Its worthless information.

So would an ATG team simply be full of players playing the game now, with the odd exception like Viv? Are all the best scientists ever all around today, since they know more than anyone before them ever has? Etc, etc.

Your point does not hold. Scientists are measured on break through's and their individual contribution to the accumulated knowledge at their point in time of man kind. The ones who were celebrated for something later proven to be inaccurate, end up not being as celebrated as they were before for their flawed theory - because they were wrong. But they may have made other discoveries or discovered vital information essential to the correct hypothesis.

We have scoop shots, reverse shots, switch hits - why do you think the batsman cannot be better today than the odd exception like Viv?

And cricketers are judged by their ability to win cricket matches; not how their statistics match up with those playing in different circumstances many years down the line.

You're going round in circles.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Your point does not hold. Scientists are measured on break through's and their individual contribution to the accumulated knowledge at their point in time of man kind. The ones who were celebrated for something later proven to be inaccurate, end up not being so celebrated any more - because they were wrong.

Hahahahaha.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I'll just say what I always say in era comparison debates. If you think players from a previous era were flat out inferior in every way or played the game "incorrectly", just don't participate in all time debates. Don't you think it makes the entire thing pointless if you think only the current guys are playing the game properly?

 

[Dan]

I agree with your reasoning, but not your conclusion. All we know about Bevan was what he demonstrated on the field. At no point did he demonstrate that he could have adapted to the high strike rate game.

Yeah, all we know about Bevan was what he demonstrated on the field. And that was not playing 2015-style ODIs. He at no point demonstrated he could adapt, but at no point did he demonstrate he couldn't adapt either. He simply was never in a position where he needed to regularly adapt to that style of play. Sure, there doubtless were one-off occasions -- off the top of my head he made something like 185* off 140 in a competitive Asia vs RoW game -- but there's no consistent body of work by which to judge his 2015 ODI skills.

"He didn't do it in 1996". Sure, but he was winning games in 1996, which is certainly more important than appeasing forum posters 20 years later by batting in a style that better equates to 2015 batsmanship.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

I agree with your reasoning, but not your conclusion. All we know about Bevan was what he demonstrated on the field. At no point did he demonstrate that he could have adapted to the high strike rate game.

There are plenty of occasions where Bevan adapted to hitting and striking big

 

[Prince EWS]

But how can you judge that he'd be well below the mean unless you introduce an element of absolutism into your reasoning?

There are ways to statistically compare different levels of cricket as players cross over levels (I've done so to compile player ratings where domestic cricket is a factor).. but even aside from that, discounting lower levels of cricket would be subjective but not necessarily absolutist. I wouldn't be doing it because I cared what his absolute skill level was; I'd still be doing it because I cared what his skill level relative to his contemporaries was. So it'd be subjective relativism. "Relative to contemporaries" is probably a better way to explain it than "relative to peers" for this reason, really.

It's this reason why I tend to be uneasy about questions that ask me who 'the best batsman of all time' was though, as oppose to the 'the best Test batsman' of all time. Things other than Test cricket are still batting, so you have to be a bit subjective in weighting each level (even each format, really) of cricket.

 

[Dan]

You're going round in circles.

You believe that information is worthless; the rest of us don't.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

I'll just say what I always say in era comparison debates. If you think players from a previous era were flat out inferior in every way or played the game "incorrectly", just don't participate in all time debates. Don't you think it makes the entire thing pointless if you think only the current guys are playing the game properly?

Well Viv, Lance and Kapil knew they were onto something.

 

[CaptainGrumpy]

You believe that information is worthless; the rest of us don't.

Thats because you are then going to make a massive assumption with that information and pretend that you have basis for knowing how many runs he would score at a higher SR. You're guessing. You do not have statistics to support your view. You have this notion that all players at any time are equal. But this is not students sitting a Higher School Certificate exam in Shakespeare or Maths and assuming that every years intake of students in the exam will more or less be of the same ability for scaling purposes.

The game is being played more efficiently now than its was before. The participants are playing it differently. Its not the rules of cricket changing that caused the biggest change (or the exam itself or the marker) that can be scaled out by use of a mean relative assumption. Its the batting philosophy itself that has changed for the better. The game is being played more efficiently now. But it could have been played that way before, as demonstrated by Kapil and Viv.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Don't you think it makes the entire thing pointless if you think only the current guys are playing the game properly?

No, because not all old players played the game in an manner that would be unsuited to today's game. The ODI game left Bevan behind, it didn't leave behind Richards, Cairns, Dev, Pollock, Greatbatch et al.

Moreover, the thing about ATG debates is that none of us really have the foggiest idea what we're talking about when we rate really old players like Hobbs, Hammond, Bradman et al. They could have been total amateurs compared to today's level, we don't know. We never saw them, we never played against them, we never did a video analysis of them. They might as well be mythological figures. It's like asking if Superman was better than Batman. It's a bit silly really.

At least when I talk about Bevan and Maxwell I can compare two players who I both saw a lot of.

 

[Cabinet96]

Put it this way. Let's say something freakish happens to the game and bowlers massively improve. Starc averages 15, Boult 18, that sort of thing. In such a scenario, the relative value of Bevan would increase immensely compared to Maxwell. Guys like Andrew Jones would be awesome again.

OK, so lets create a hypothetical here. Say ODI cricket continues on it's current trajectory for another decade, where Maxwell then has a full career basically producing what he has been so far. It's 2025 and you're firmly in the Maxwell > Bevan camp for all your reasons stated. Fine. Say then, after that, the next 20 years we see a massive decline in scoring rates. for a wide variety of reasons, loads of gun bowlers arrive and there also more bowler friendly pitches occasionally. Average totals go down, sides very rarely get over 300 and there are loads of sub 200 scores. Does that mean that Bevan now becomes better than Maxwell when it comes to picking an ATG side? If I follow your logic, I assume you think he would as the value of his type of player increases. But I find that really weird, why would the evolving of the game in the future change how good two players in the past/present were relative to each other?

 

[Prince EWS]

Moreover, the thing about ATG debates is that none of us really have the foggiest idea what we're talking about when we rate really old players like Hobbs, Hammond, Bradman et al. They could have been total amateurs compared to today's level, we don't know.

That's why skill relativism is cool; the answer to this question (which is really very hard if not impossible to know) becomes entirely irrelevant.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

It's cool how the efficiency of playing cricket is measured purely from the batting perspective.