The great 1980s all rounders

[TheJediBrah]

That is the whole point isn't it ? I don't think any one has a problem in thinking he would have averaged around 25 if he bowled enough to take 4 wickets per match.

It would make just as much sense to guess that his bowling average would actually be lower if he bowled more, because, say, he got more practice and form in-games and bowled more at the tail who the **** knows.

You can theorise that "he would have averaged around 25 if he bowled enough to take 4 wickets per match" but don't pretend that you have any legitimate basis in claiming so

Every country had biased umpires FFS, people trying to make out as if only Pakistan had them. Imran was the one who pushed for neutral umpiring.

Isn't the point that Pakistan were much worse than most? Or are you disputing that?

 

[Burgey]

ATG is as subjective a measure as anything else. Botham was pretty special and only a fool would debate that.

Indeed...

sunilz[/B];4264813]Sehwag, Warner, Ashwin, Jadeja,Laxman , Anderson all are special players . We don't consider them ATG . There should be no exception for Botham .

Every country had biased umpires FFS, people trying to make out as if only Pakistan had them. Imran was the one who pushed for neutral umpiring.

Yeah, after he retired

 

[thierry henry]

I was just trolling btw, although it was based on a stat...I think percentage of tests won as opposed to wins vs losses?....NZ were 2nd best in the 80s

 

[h_hurricane]

It would make just as much sense to guess that his bowling average would actually be lower if he bowled more, because, say, he got more practice and form in-games and bowled more at the tail who the **** knows.

You can theorise that "he would have averaged around 25 if he bowled enough to take 4 wickets per match" but don't pretend that you have any legitimate basis in claiming so

Well, I didn't pretend to have any legitimate basis on these theories. I clearly mentioned "I think".One question to you, if we take Miller's average of under 23 on a face value, why is he not in discussion to be among the very best bowlers ever. By the way, I do rate Miller as a near ATG on bowling alone.

On a side note, Dennis Lillee's 5 wickets per match record should absolutely be considered while discussing the best quick bowlers of all time. It is worth more than 4 wickets per match at the same average, at least for me.

 

[vcs]

It would make just as much sense to guess that his bowling average would actually be lower if he bowled more, because, say, he got more practice and form in-games and bowled more at the tail who the **** knows.

You can theorise that "he would have averaged around 25 if he bowled enough to take 4 wickets per match" but don't pretend that you have any legitimate basis in claiming so



Isn't the point that Pakistan were much worse than most? Or are you disputing that?

I wasn't around and neither were you so who knows. There's no reason to believe Pakistan were much worse given that a Pakistani wanted neutral umpires to be put into place. Michael Holding's book says Australian and NZ umpires were terrible BTW.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

I wasn't around and neither were you so who knows. There's no reason to believe Pakistan were much worse given that a Pakistani wanted neutral umpires to be put into place. Michael Holding's book says Australian and NZ umpires were terrible BTW.

Sour grapes. Holding and Croft both should've received sizeable bans for their onfield behaviour in NZ. It was worse than the underarm.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Well, I didn't pretend to have any legitimate basis on these theories. I clearly mentioned "I think".One question to you, if we take Miller's average of under 23 on a face value, why is he not in discussion to be among the very best bowlers ever. By the way, I do rate Miller as a near ATG on bowling alone.

Don't know, he probably should be tbh.

On a side note, Dennis Lillee's 5 wickets per match record should absolutely be considered while discussing the best quick bowlers of all time. It is worth more than 4 wickets per match at the same average, at least for me.

not for me. Wickets per match is influenced waaaay more by factors that have nothing to do with bowling ability than by actual bowling ability

I wasn't around and neither were you so who knows. There's no reason to believe Pakistan were much worse given that a Pakistani wanted neutral umpires to be put into place. Michael Holding's book says Australian and NZ umpires were terrible BTW.

No we weren't but it's a pretty commonly held opinion that Pakistan were worse than most so I was just going off that. Just wondering if you had reason to disagree. Also I wouldn't put any stock in anything Michael Holding says.

 

[the big bambino]

That is the whole point isn't it ? I don't think any one has a problem in thinking he would have averaged around 25 if he bowled enough to take 4 wickets per match.

I was thinking between 23 and 24

Then again brah has a point that it may have been lower

 

[Bolo]

I put a lot of stock in what holding says about on field play. He is a great analyst of what teams are doing wrong. His off field analysis... not so much.

And wpm do count for a lot, even if heavily influenced by other factors. Compare steyn to philander. Similar agerages playing in the same team. The fact that philander is a fair weather bully and steyn is a weapon is refected in their wpm.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I can accept the "would have a lower bowling average in a stronger team" theory a lot more than the "would have a higher bowling average if bowled more" theory.

If Jacques Kallis bowled a lot more I doubt he would average much more than he did. Similar with Shane Watson (injuries aside).

 

[harsh.ag]

I can accept the "would have a lower bowling average in a stronger team" theory a lot more than the "would have a higher bowling average if bowled more" theory.

How about the "would have had a worse batting record if he bowled more" theory?

 

[GoodAreasShane]

WPM is always correlated to the strength of the bowlers around you to some degree. Hence a lot of the great WI fast bowlers not faring too well on that metric.

 

[TheJediBrah]

How about the "would have had a worse batting record if he bowled more" theory?

Funny I was actually just thinking that and wondering if any one would bring that up. That one makes a lot more sense, but mostly for top-order batsmen IMO. Can't see it affecting the likes of Kapil, Imran, Botham, Miller (Can't remember if he batted much in the top 4?) etc. as much as a Kallis or Watson.

But then you could always say that if Kallis and Watson were needed to bowl a lot more then they possibly wouldn't have been used as top-order batsmen so there is that.

 

[stephen]

"I'm normally not a fan of using xyz meaningless statistic, but I will make an exception when it makes abc player who I like look good"

-Every CW poster ever (myself included), except maybe PEWS and PFK, for somewhat differing reasons.

I don't really think much of runs/ wickets in wins stat. It is pretty incredible that Miller had such a high win percentage though. When I was looking through stats earlier about the 80s, the number of draws Pakistan took part in significantly outnumbered their wins/ losses. 41 out of 71 tests were draws. That is just crazy.

 

[h_hurricane]

I can accept the "would have a lower bowling average in a stronger team" theory a lot more than the "would have a higher bowling average if bowled more" theory.

If Jacques Kallis bowled a lot more I doubt he would average much more than he did. Similar with Shane Watson (injuries aside).

Kallis bowls less than 20 overs per match though. Miller bowls 31. Humans (for that matter any living being or machines) are not built for enhanced productivity or same productivity with increased utilization beyond a point. There is a case for Miller's average to drop if he had bowled 40 overs for instance instead of 31. Not saying it would taper off completely, but it might diverge from its peak. Imran reduced his bowling workload towards the end of his career when he went on to become a better batsman. Miller probably would have maintained the same standards as a bowler with larger workload but may be his batting would have declined. There are stress points and endurance limits, a body could take only so much.

 

[harsh.ag]

Think it comes down to how something will have to be sacrificed.

ATG bowlers won't be that good with the bat. Hadlee and Imran had to sacrifice better batting records for better bowling ones. In Imran's case, he did the opposite at the fag end of his career.

ATG batsmen won't be that good with the ball. Kallis and Sobers had to sacrifice better bowling records for better batting ones.

Miller had to sacrifice taking on a bigger bowling workload to bat at #5.

Botham is special because he had a brief period of dominance as both a frontline bowler with a full workload and a full time batsman (even though he was batting at #6-7, and maybe things would have been different if he was batting higher up). Don't know if he would have been able to sustain that even if he hadn't turned into Fat Botham. Probably had a bit to do with squads going back to full strength post WSC too.

 

[ankitj]

I would have loved to be around to watch Botham in his prime when he was bossing with bat and ball together. I was technically around for some part of it but not grown up enough. It's incredible what he did -- only player to score 10+ hundreds and take 10+ five fors, only player to achieve peak batting and bowling rating of 800+, only player to take a five-for and score a hundred in a test 5 times (no one has done it more than twice).

 

[rtramdas]

yet another emphatic proof of what I said w.r.t support bowling strength. Ishant Sharma was averaging 36.55 when SAF series started for India in Jan 2018.Bumrah debuted in this series in first test.Now in mere 20 months time his average has come down to 33.41, a drop of mammoth 3.14 in average. Now, if some body claims that Ishant has been gradually improving till Jan 2018, no... he was averaging 36.51 by 28-8-2015 itself.That means,in the company of Bumrah ever since Jan 2018 , Ishan'ts bowling average has been improving so vastly.

 

[Starfighter]

I'm guessing you haven't watched Ishant bowling recently, or possibly ever.

 

[OverratedSanity]

yet another emphatic proof of what I said w.r.t support bowling strength. Ishant Sharma was averaging 36.55 when SAF series started for India in Jan 2018.Bumrah debuted in this series in first test.Now in mere 20 months time his average has come down to 33.41, a drop of mammoth 3.14 in average. Now, if some body claims that Ishant has been gradually improving till Jan 2018, no... he was averaging 36.51 by 28-8-2015 itself.That means,in the company of Bumrah ever since Jan 2018 , Ishan'ts bowling average has been improving so vastly.

Ishant has been bowling at a consistently good level since around the 2015 series in SL. Not to say bumrah hasn't helped his average dropping sharply but it also has to do with it being an overseas leg with some bowler friendly decks and more importantly him just being good now.