The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[bagapath]

Compton was solid at best. I wouldn't have him anywhere near Root class

By all accounts, Compton was a mercurial batsman. He was always described as Stylish. Instictive. Risk taking. Solid was the least used adjective to define the nature of his batsmanship.

 

[bagapath]

Stokes and Botham seems not quite the balance. KP might fit better for one of the “match winners”

if that top five doesn't wear down any all time great bowling attack then no one else can. you don't any more specialist batsman beyond that list.

whereas, the four frontline bowlers in Trueman, Barnes, Laker and Botham are good enough to take 20 wickets every time, they will certainly benefit from the support of Stokes and, occasionally, Hammond rolling their arms over.

 

[TheJediBrah]

You guys, you're taking the term "solid" literally I don't think it was intending that way. It basically just means "pretty good, but not incredibly good". Like you know, "Krispy Kreme's choc iced custard is solid, but it's no original glazed".

 

[bagapath]

You guys, you're taking the term "solid" literally I don't think it was intending that way. It basically just means "pretty good, but not incredibly good". Like you know, "Krispy Kreme's choc iced custard is solid, but it's no original glazed".

even then the usage is wide off the mark. he was not rated just "pretty good" by anybody.

Denis Compton - Magnificent knight of English batsmanship — CricketMash

Denis Compton, born May 23, 1918, was one of the greatest batsmen of England whose career might have traced even higher paths if he had not been hampered by a near-crippling knee injury. Arunabha Sengupta remembers the knight in shining armour of English cricket who brightened

cricmash.com

Remembering Denis Compton - An audacious cricketer ahead of his time

Born in Hendon on May 23, 1918, Compton was known for his audacious brand of batting at a time when batsmen didn’t have the luxury of protective gears which modern day willow-wielders enjoy.

www.news9live.com

Denis Compton | A crowd favourite with his aggressive stroke play, sharp bowling and good looks.

23rd May 1918 saw the birth of a maverick and a style icon who was also a seriously good batsman for England. Denis Compton was always a crowd’s favourite with his aggressive stroke play, sharp bowling and good looks.

www.chaseyoursport.com

 

[Gob]

You guys are talking about Nick Compton right?

 

[Flem274*]

This is a decidedly idiosyncratic assessment of Denis Compton's batting, to put it mildly. "Solid" is not a term generally used to describe it. Instead, players like Trevor Bailey, Tom Graveney and Dennis Amiss among others described him as the most brilliant English strokeplayer they had ever seen. So did several journalists who were old enough to remember players from the interwar period. Care to reconsider this view?

old players and cricket journalists regularly make comments on games played yesterday that i think they could only have said after a few too many or a couple of lines, there's no way im going to listen to them talk about ancient history that's had decades to marinate in nostaliga.

fwiw i agree compton was a monster.

 

[The Battlers Prince]

if that top five doesn't wear down any all time great bowling attack then no one else can. you don't any more specialist batsman beyond that list.

whereas, the four frontline bowlers in Trueman, Barnes, Laker and Botham are good enough to take 20 wickets every time, they will certainly benefit from the support of Stokes and, occasionally, Hammond rolling their arms over.

I just feel like Hammond is more than enough to go with Botham/Stokes and have a better bat. If there’s no better bat then keeping both Botham and Stokes is awesome. Just feel like more batting is needed.

 

[Ymaxxx]

? limited overs xi for asia > ROW?

 

[steve132]

old players and cricket journalists regularly make comments on games played yesterday that i think they could only have said after a few too many or a couple of lines, there's no way im going to listen to them talk about ancient history that's had decades to marinate in nostaliga.

fwiw i agree compton was a monster.

Admiration for Compton's batting is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. Contemporaries expressed the same feelings - he was the biggest draw in English cricket in the decade after the war. You need only to read the reports of the 1947 season, when he scored 18 centuries, to see this.

In general I think that posters on this forum need to pay more rather than less attention to what might be termed the expert consensus. It is not always right, but it is usually revealing. The fact that virtually everyone who saw Hobbs regarded him as the most complete batter in their experience tells us something about him that mere stats do not covey (although Hobbs' statistical record is in fact excellent). Similarly, a number of posters seem to be mesmerized by Ken Barrington's Test average, although virtually no one who saw him considered him a better player than his Surrey colleague Peter May. It's certainly well worth asking why that is the case.

 

[Gob]

? limited overs xi for asia > ROW?

View attachment 29102

 

[Fuller Pilch]

? limited overs xi for asia > ROW?

View attachment 29102

Rest of the world looks stronger:

Johnny Bairstow
David Warner
Kane Williamson (c)
Ross Taylor
Ben Stokes
Jos Buttler (wk)
Andre Russell
Chris Woakes
Mitchell Starc
Trent Boult
Adam Zampa

Just realised there are no South Africans and the side needs one. Maybe Devon Conway for Warner.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

? limited overs xi for asia > ROW?

View attachment 29102

I'd probably pick the Fizz instead of Afridi

 

[stephen]

Admiration for Compton's batting is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. Contemporaries expressed the same feelings - he was the biggest draw in English cricket in the decade after the war. You need only to read the reports of the 1947 season, when he scored 18 centuries, to see this.

In general I think that posters on this forum need to pay more rather than less attention to what might be termed the expert consensus. It is not always right, but it is usually revealing. The fact that virtually everyone who saw Hobbs regarded him as the most complete batter in their experience tells us something about him that mere stats do not covey (although Hobbs' statistical record is in fact excellent). Similarly, a number of posters seem to be mesmerized by Ken Barrington's Test average, although virtually no one who saw him considered him a better player than his Surrey colleague Peter May. It's certainly well worth asking why that is the case.

That's because Barrington was an away track bully who wasn't particularly pretty to watch.

He's still one of the best English batsmen of all times.

 

[ataraxia]

That's because Barrington was an away track bully who wasn't particularly pretty to watch.

He's still one of the best English batsmen of all times.

I do wonder how Barrington would've gone with a different country. Probably would be downgraded for his record in England.

 

[stephen]

I do wonder how Barrington would've gone with a different country. Probably would be downgraded for his record in England.

He have been as dramatically underrated as Hayden IMO.

 

[Gob]

Interesting idea. World xi at a given point

Late 2006

Hayden
Dravid
Ponting
Yousef
Lara
Flintoff
Gilchrist
Warne
Murali
Bond
McGrath

 

[JBMAC]

Admiration for Compton's batting is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. Contemporaries expressed the same feelings - he was the biggest draw in English cricket in the decade after the war. You need only to read the reports of the 1947 season, when he scored 18 centuries, to see this.

In general I think that posters on this forum need to pay more rather than less attention to what might be termed the expert consensus. It is not always right, but it is usually revealing. The fact that virtually everyone who saw Hobbs regarded him as the most complete batter in their experience tells us something about him that mere stats do not covey (although Hobbs' statistical record is in fact excellent). Similarly, a number of posters seem to be mesmerized by Ken Barrington's Test average, although virtually no one who saw him considered him a better player than his Surrey colleague Peter May. It's certainly well worth asking why that is the case.

Finally some common sense

 

[Flem274*]

In general I think that posters on this forum need to pay more rather than less attention to what might be termed the expert consensus. It is not always right, but it is usually revealing. The fact that virtually everyone who saw Hobbs regarded him as the most complete batter in their experience tells us something about him that mere stats do not covey (although Hobbs' statistical record is in fact excellent). Similarly, a number of posters seem to be mesmerized by Ken Barrington's Test average, although virtually no one who saw him considered him a better player than his Surrey colleague Peter May. It's certainly well worth asking why that is the case.

no, we really don't. i've listened to enough former players talk about things right in front of me to know i should pick and choose former players worth listening to on anything very carefully. comptons an atg, a proper damn player, but im not going to take someones word for it.

nasser hussain good, michael vaughan brain damaged.

maybe i will feel differently in a few decades when the kids start chipping in on what today is like, but i doubt it. i also think the days of taking journalists and former players word for it are over. we have youtube, and when the indian media of 2070 pretend kohli was the best of the fab 4 i my half dead body can send them endless youtube links to him snicking off all the time.

Finally some common sense

common sense is usually the last defense against a more developed understanding

 

[steve132]

no, we really don't. i've listened to enough former players talk about things right in front of me to know i should pick and choose former players worth listening to on anything very carefully. comptons an atg, a proper damn player, but im not going to take someones word for it.

nasser hussain good, michael vaughan brain damaged.

maybe i will feel differently in a few decades when the kids start chipping in on what today is like, but i doubt it. i also think the days of taking journalists and former players word for it are over. we have youtube, and when the indian media of 2070 pretend kohli was the best of the fab 4 i my half dead body can send them endless youtube links to him snicking off all the time.

common sense is usually the last defense against a more developed understanding

As far as I know no one on this thread has suggested that we must accept blindly any individual's evaluations of particular players, however distinguished that individual may be. That sounds like a straw man. For the record, I have disagreed with some of the assessments offered by players as great as Bradman and Sobers and writers as celebrated as Neville Cardus and E.W. Swanton. It is well known, for instance, that players often rank their own teammates higher than more dispassionate observers would.

An expert consensus is a very different matter indeed. If everyone or almost everyone who saw X and Y play agrees that X was a greater player than Y, and that X is one of the very greatest players of all time that information seems to me impossible to ignore. The expert consensus may, of course, be wrong, but I would be very careful about challenging it unless I had a good explanation for why so many observers got things so wrong.

My go-to example for this is usually Hobbs, since he is one of the three most universally admired players over the past century. Of the other two, very few really challenge Bradman's status, and I saw Sobers play many times, more than enough to make my own judgment. But Hobbs ... the stats may show that he scored 199 first class centuries at a highly respectable but not extraordinary average. But behind every stat there is a story. Hobbs's contemporaries stress that he only really exerted himself to amass runs when needed, that he was unequalled on a sticky wicket and that he could have scored a lot more runs if he had put his mind to it. These are things that do not show up in Stats Guru or its equivalents. And Hobbs is not the only player for whom the statistical record is not enough to explain his greatness. I could make similar claims about Dennis Lillee and both Barry and Viv Richards, to choose some other examples.

And what's the alternative? You Tube highlights? They are at best incomplete and even when available a very poor substitute. I agree that stats are indispensable for assessing players, but by themselves they are not nearly enough, especially when they are taken out of context. We need the backstory as well, and that tends to be found in match reports, players' memoirs and the like. It's difficult to take seriously any "analysis" that offers less.

 

[stephen]

As far as I know no one on this thread has suggested that we must accept blindly any individual's evaluations of particular players, however distinguished that individual may be. That sounds like a straw man. For the record, I have disagreed with some of the assessments offered by players as great as Bradman and Sobers and writers as celebrated as Neville Cardus and E.W. Swanton. It is well known, for instance, that players often rank their own teammates higher than more dispassionate observers would.

An expert consensus is a very different matter indeed. If everyone or almost everyone who saw X and Y play agrees that X was a greater player than Y, and that X is one of the very greatest players of all time that information seems to me impossible to ignore. The expert consensus may, of course, be wrong, but I would be very careful about challenging it unless I had a good explanation for why so many observers got things so wrong.

My go-to example for this is usually Hobbs, since he is one of the three most universally admired players over the past century. Of the other two, very few really challenge Bradman's status, and I saw Sobers play many times, more than enough to make my own judgment. But Hobbs ... the stats may show that he scored 199 first class centuries at a highly respectable but not extraordinary average. But behind every stat there is a story. Hobbs's contemporaries stress that he only really exerted himself to amass runs when needed, that he was unequalled on a sticky wicket and that he could have scored a lot more runs if he had put his mind to it. These are things that do not show up in Stats Guru or its equivalents. And Hobbs is not the only player for whom the statistical record is not enough to explain his greatness. I could make similar claims about Dennis Lillee and both Barry and Viv Richards, to choose some other examples.

And what's the alternative? You Tube highlights? They are at best incomplete and even when available a very poor substitute. I agree that stats are indispensable for assessing players, but by themselves they are not nearly enough, especially when they are taken out of context. We need the backstory as well, and that tends to be found in match reports, players' memoirs and the like. It's difficult to take seriously any "analysis" that offers less.

Ok