Reality of 99.4 Average?

[aussie tragic]

So annoyed OP couldn't get Don Bradman average right. It was so important it was on the Australian Cirizenship test for years ffs

 

[ankitj]

What was his average? 94.9?

 

[mr_mister]

So annoyed OP couldn't get Don Bradman average right. It was so important it was on the Australian Cirizenship test for years ffs

I think a postcode in the city is inspired by it too. Forget which suburb though

 

[Red]

What was his average? 94.9?

100

 

[mr_mister]

What was his average? 94.9?

That's actually super close to his FC average

 

[Red]

I think a postcode in the city is inspired by it too. Forget which suburb though

It's the GPO Box for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

 

[a massive zebra]

Bradman thought Verity was harder to face than Grum. O'Reilly was #1 though.

Bradman wasn't the only top contemporary batsman to rank Verity higher. For instance, in his biography of Walter Hammond, Ronald Mason reported that Hammond considered O'Reilly and Verity to be the two best spinners he played against.

The common consensus on this forum seems to rank Grimmett over Verity, but I completely disagree.

1. Verity got Bradman out more times in Tests than anyone else in the 1930s, and averaged less than 60 against him, a really commendable record.
2. Grimmett's test bowing average is boosted by his dominance of the weaker teams. He had to work much harder for his wickets against England, averaging 32 against them. Verity was more successful against an Australian side including Bradman.
3. Verity once took 15 wickets in a single day against Australia. Grimmett never got close to this against England.
4. Verity's first class record is leagues ahead, averaging 14 against 22 by Grimmett. With only 6 Australian states as opposed to umpteen counties, perhaps the standard of batting in Australian first class cricket was higher and Grimmett certainly wouldn't have bowled on as many sticky wickets. But these factors did not stop O'Reilly achieving a similar first class record to Verity on the same pitches Grimmett played on. Also, if we consider English first class cricket only, Grimmett's first class record is still materially worse than Verity. Grimmett's best first class bowling average on any of his three tours of England was 17. Verity's entire career first class bowling average was less than 15.
5. Grimmett's round arm action looks rather bizarre to the modern eye and Verity's beautiful easy action is much better to watch.

 

[Coronis]

5 is really irrelevant.

 

[trundler]

Bradman wasn't the only top contemporary batsman to rank Verity higher. For instance, in his biography of Walter Hammond, Ronald Mason reported that Hammond considered O'Reilly and Verity to be the two best spinners he played against.

The common consensus on this forum seems to rank Grimmett over Verity, but I completely disagree.

1. Verity got Bradman out more times in Tests than anyone else in the 1930s, and averaged less than 60 against him, a really commendable record.
2. Grimmett's test bowing average is boosted by his dominance of the weaker teams. He had to work much harder for his wickets against England, averaging 32 against them. Verity was more successful against an Australian side including Bradman.
3. Verity once took 15 wickets in a single day against Australia. Grimmett never got close to this against England.
4. Verity's first class record is leagues ahead, averaging 14 against 22 by Grimmett. With only 6 Australian states as opposed to umpteen counties, perhaps the standard of batting in Australian first class cricket was higher and Grimmett certainly wouldn't have bowled on as many sticky wickets. But these factors did not stop O'Reilly achieving a similar first class record to Verity on the same pitches Grimmett played on. Also, if we consider English first class cricket only, Grimmett's first class record is still materially worse than Verity. Grimmett's best first class bowling average on any of his three tours of England was 17. Verity's entire career first class bowling average was less than 15.
5. Grimmett's round arm action looks rather bizarre to the modern eye and Verity's beautiful easy action is much better to watch.

At this point I know this essay word for word

5 is really irrelevant.

He also brought up aesthetics to justify Laker > Tayfield. ITSTL

 

[_00_deathscar]

I personally don't think Bradman would have averaged what he did back then. It's clear that for his era, he was well ahead of his peers - but as the decades progress, it gets harder and harder to be THAT ahead of the competition at the rate at which Bradman was (which kind of makes Smith's achievements all the more incredible really). You can still be clearly ahead of the rest - as someone like Smith clearly is - but not to the extent that Bradman was. It seems unlikely that would happen again at the top levels of sport. Essentially, he was a man ahead of his time in a world where the talent pool was far, far smaller than it is today, and while the fundamentals of the game have remained the same, everything else around it has certainly changed making it that much harder to stand out quite so much.

It's very possible, if we assume Bradman to be a freak, that he would still have been comfortably ahead of others - but probably not by the distance that he was. It's tough to gauge really, but I suspect he would probably have held a test average of somewhere between 60-75 in today's game.

 

[trundler]

Yeah but you only say that because Bradman was born then and not now. If he hadn't existed in the 30s then averaging 100 would've seemed as likely then as it does now.

 

[Migara]

What further proof is needed that he was an alien?

"Former lightning fast bowler Jeff Thomson says the most outstanding batsman he bowled to was not Viv Richards, Greg Chappell or David Gower, but a 70-year-old Don Bradman."

Thommo relives bowling to The Don

Pace ace says he was in awe of Australia's greatest player decades after he retired

www.cricket.com.au

Thomson utters a hell of a lot of trash. Just like he hit the bat at 160ksph.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Yeah but you only say that because Bradman was born then and not now. If he hadn't existed in the 30s then averaging 100 would've seemed as likely then as it does now.

Of course - his average for that era (any era) is ridiculous, and I'm sure people in the 30s or whatever said the same thing. It's clear that he'd have been ahead of his contemporaries even if he had just turned 50, but I don't think the difference would be 99.94 to an approximate next best of 60.

If you look at the highest ever batting averages, excluding Voges and Labuschange (20 or fewer tests played) and Smith (freak - but hard to say if this is an extended peak/purple patch or what, we can only judge at the end of his career), most of the highest ever batting averages are all pre 70s.
The only modern players are Sanga and Kallis, both of whom made hay in the batting friendly 00s (clearly great batsmen, made the most of their circumstances given).
You have to go down to Chappell and Sachin, somewhere around the top 25 mark, to find modern players who didn't take advantage of the best batting conditions in decades (and that's a whole different thread re: Sachin not making hay in the 00s - his own fault/injuries etc so let's not go there).

The overall averages may or may not have gone up, but the highest averages have actually come down since the 60s. Surely cricket would have produced such a prodigious talent (not even talking about Bradman level - let's say next down to Pollock or Headley) who would have averaged 60 or 65+, especially given the easy batting conditions?

The mixture of number of tests played (see also, Ricky Ponting and his decline), number of other cricket games played (ODIs, T20s, IPL etc). All of it. On top of that, the pool you pick from is greater than ever before.

Hence I don't think it's likely that Bradman would have averaged what he did - he clearly was a man ahead of his time. And he would have likely been a man ahead of his time in the 90s/00s/10s too, but that would have meant averaging 60-75 rather than nearly 100.

(Of course, I know no one else managed to average close to Bradman even then, or even before that, - but again, the pool of people selected to play was just so small in comparison to what it is now that it makes that harder to judge. All it points to is that he was clearly ahead of his contemporaries).

Anyway this is a muddled up post cos it's 3:45am, but that's kind of the gist of it.

I guess what I'm saying is that even those who are clearly ahead of their competitors, it's harder NOW to succeed to the same level that Bradman did back then - because the average level has been raised, if not the extremes.

To put forward a completely irrelevant and perhaps erroneous comparison, but one that maybe can help explain what I'm trying to say - life expectancy. Life expectancy in the last 50 years has shot up. But the extremes haven't changed, it's just that less people are dying early than they used to. People still live as long as the oldest person used to. But most people live much longer than they used to.

In the same way, 60-75 (or thereabouts, not an exact score for it) is the new 99.

 

[Jack1]

Think deathscar is spouting nonsense personally considering the new leg side rule compared to when Bradman played and incentives. Bradman would average more now in my view. He seems to have a lack of understanding how good and above the mean Bradman was. Bradman would have the best bat and equipment going and a helmet too.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

ultimately it's an extremely pointless exercise even by the standards of forum debates, you don't regenerate people through time like that unless you're a Time Lord...

when I read about Bradman the comparison that sprung to mind was the tennis player Bjorn Borg - that single minded drive for perfectionism and raising standards at hitting the damn thing, complete with devising your own training programme because the coaches weren't providing what they needed.

 

[stephen]

I could see Bradman averaging less these days, but only when looking at his t20 average.

All jokes aside, the sheer volume of cricket played today would mean that fatigue might be more of a factor for Bradman these days than in the past. That's basically the only way he's averaging less than 85 in tests IMO.

 

[trundler]

Far more FC cricket was played in those days and there wasn't any workload management

 

[trundler]

What I'm more interested in is how he would've adapted to limited overs cricket which has an additional metric to judge batsmen by. Bradman was, of course, a very a very quick scorer but 'only' as fast as Lara and McCabe. Strike rates don't really matter as much in tests though and he was a master of placement and rotating the strike so he wasn't one to get bogged down for long.

 

[stephen]

What I'm more interested in is how he would've adapted to limited overs cricket which has an additional metric to judge batsmen by. Bradman was, of course, a very a very quick scorer but 'only' as fast as Lara and McCabe. Strike rates don't really matter as much in tests though and he was a master of placement and rotating the strike so he wasn't one to get bogged down for long.

His hundred from 3 (8 ball) overs showed a bit of promise in the shorter formats.

 

[GotSpin]

I could see Bradman averaging less these days, but only when looking at his t20 average.

All jokes aside, the sheer volume of cricket played today would mean that fatigue might be more of a factor for Bradman these days than in the past. That's basically the only way he's averaging less than 85 in tests IMO.

Ive never bought this argument. Modern players might have to travel more, but they play less and are pampered more.