I've skim read the thread. I'll give a less snarky reply. I'll start with the assertion your team mates or the opposition have no effect on ATGs performances.
Menn GcLath is an ATG, his team concedes 500 off 150 overs. He's probs a bit tired.
In which scenario is he more likely to take 5/50 in his second innings? In one scenario his side is shot out for 180 in 50 overs, in the other his side make 400 from 120 overs. Pragmatically, it's pretty clear IMO which situation favours him taking 5/50 more.
To return to the "there were less ATG bowlers in Steyn's era" argument, we can get circular here. In the 80s there were a severe lack of 50+ averaging batsmen. Viv, Gavaskar, Chappell in the early part, Border, Miandad...running out of players here. You could just as easily say Hadlee, Marshall etc aren't as good as they look because there were few ATG batsmen.
This is why how you go in your own era is so important. Relative era quality is hard to quantify and cricket is always in a state of flux. DRS and some actual semi-professional umpiring have recently brought fingerspin back into the seriously low averages game once we got rid of Sachin.
Can it not be the case that conditions of cricket allowed for a lull period in the rise of world class fast bowlers between 2007 and 2015? I mean, there were several there that could have potentially rivaled Steyn but had their career cut short due to injury, etc.
I do know Steyn and McGrath (especially McGrath) outperformed their peers by a long way in an era stacked with batsmen who had at least some proper quality to average 50. Hadlee was a superb spearhead in a limited bowling attack backed up by a class keeper and a good batting line up for the era he played in, but he was only in the top echelon of bowlers rather than clearly ahead.
While it's very close, and Hadlee is the more valuable cricketer overall because he averaged 27 with the stick to boot, I think Steyn's bowling career was better.
Honestly, this argument doesn't make much sense.
In the 80s, Hadlee was pretty much in the same league as his peers Marshall, Imran, etc. at the ATG level.
Between 2007 and 2015, Steyn was far ahead of his peers as the only bonafide ATG.
Now logically, it can either be that:
- Steyn being ahead of his peers in a batting era has to do some exceptional abilities he had to persevere, which means if he was to go to the 80s in a bowling era, he would be ahead of guys like Hadlee, Marshall, Imran due to these abilities, and if you brought Hadlee, Marshall and Imran to the 2000s, they wouldn't be at Steyn level
- Steyn is an ATG in league with Hadlee, Marshall and Imran, but the era he played in due to various factors didn't allow other ATGs to rise up to rival him.
To put it simply, Steyn being head and shoulders over his contemporaries has less to do with Steyn and more to do with his contemporaries.
