Imran Khan vs Curtley Ambrose

[The Sean]

I spoke a bit about Imran’s away record in my previous post and wasn’t inclined to revisit it, but as I noted then I don’t think it’s as simple as just the over all career number. Even before he hit his prime, he had been a prolific wicket taker in both Australia (including a match-winning 12-wicket haul) and West Indies in the 1970s and – as I also noted – in those early years seven of his first nine Test series were away from home.

However, if we look at his away series between November 1979 and April 1988:

1979/80 in India – 19 wickets at 19.21
1981/82 in Australia – 16 wickets at 19.50
1982 in England – 21 wickets at 18.57
1985/86 in Sri Lanka – 15 wickets at 18.00
1986/87 in India – 8 wickets at 49.00
1987 in England – 21 wickets at 21.67
1987/88 in West Indies – 23 wickets at 18.09

That one anomaly in India in 86/87 aside (where he actually had an excellent series with the bat), that is a spectacular run of away performances over a significant period of time. And it could well have been even more impressive but for that knee injury which left a big gap between 1983 and 1985 and caused him to miss out on Australia in 1983/84 (he played two Tests and didn’t bowl at all) and New Zealand in 1984/85 (peak Hadlee v peak Imran may well have been one for the ages).

As I said previously, you can make arguments for or against so many of the great quicks when we try to rank them, but in Imran’s case I really don’t think just repeating “averaged 25 away” without any context is one of the stronger ones.

 

[ankitj]

Number of days above 800 ranking points(Till 2010)

I want this data. Where do you get it from?

 

[sunilz]

reliancemobileiccrankings.blogspot.com

There are 40 to 50 blogs done by ICC according to their ratings points. You can go through them. You will find these stats.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Wasim was arguably the most magical bowler ever to play the game and so the job of just getting cheap wickets gets overlooked (where a few others were better than him).

Which is of course ironic because, as I recall, he has the one of the higher numbers of cheap (tailender) wickets!

 

[_00_deathscar]

Haha not running down Bill O'Reilly because he is one of the absolute all-time great bowlers, but he's the beneficiary of some fortunate - for want of a better word - timing there to have the entirety of World War II counted among his days above 800 points!

Don't forget Steyn being lucky because his contemporaries were ****.

 

[smash84]

Which is of course ironic because, as I recall, he has the one of the higher numbers of cheap (tailender) wickets!

By cheap wickets I meant lower bowling average, not tailender wickets. He doesn't take wickets as cheaply as Marshall or McGrath, but he has everybody beat on magical deliveries.

 

[_00_deathscar]

By cheap wickets I meant lower bowling average, not tailender wickets. He doesn't take wickets as cheaply as Marshall or McGrath, but he has everybody beat on magical deliveries.

Ah yes fair enough. Bumrah, especially of late, sometimes seems to suffer from the same thing.

 

[Slifer]

Ah yes fair enough. Bumrah, especially of late, sometimes seems to suffer from the same thing.

Bumrahs problem is that Indian fielding is atrocious.

 

[TheJediBrah]

View attachment 29118

How is it circular reasoning? Do you really think that bowling in Pakistan was harder for Imran than anywhere else? And if so why the difference in averages?

 

[Starfighter]

How is it circular reasoning? Do you really think that bowling in Pakistan was harder for Imran than anywhere else? And if so why the difference in averages?

Lol I'm thinking about making a thread about this sort of thing. I don't think it's clear cut at all that just because conditions are prima facie unfavourable bowlers should get extra plaudits. It's not that simple.

 

[Engle]

Not sure how many may know this, but the only instance AFAIK of an umpire banning a bowler in a Test is :



Back on topic

 

[Chrish]

I think fans are inherently biased in favor of bowlers who have done well against their teams. You will see aussies/ poms raving about Ambrose; Indians can’t stop singing praise of Steyn; Warne not rated highly by Indians but being hailed as top 5 cricketer by poms etc.

This bias is always reflected in these polls. I completely understand the logic but what I am getting at is it’s impossible to be completely objective when rating the players even though you are voting as a “neutral”.

 

[Migara]

Haha not running down Bill O'Reilly because he is one of the absolute all-time great bowlers, but he's the beneficiary of some fortunate - for want of a better word - timing there to have the entirety of World War II counted among his days above 800 points!

Non playing results in drop in points with time.

 

[harsh.ag]

I think very few people know about this incident

Not even clever cheating. Get in the bin.

 

[subshakerz]

Teams didn't forfeit their innings in India because of biased home umpiring.

And due to his poor overseas record , Kapil is not rated as ATG fast bowler by many on CW.

Imran introduced neutral umpiring and the result was immediate for everyone to see.
Pak which lost 1 test at home between 1980-90 , lost test series to almost every test nation ( even Zimbabwe)

They introduced neutral umpires in 1986 though and until 1995 only lost two test matches to the West Indies.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Not even clever cheating. Get in the bin.

As clever as bowling meter and a half no-balls and thinking you would get away with spotfixing?

still hard to beat sandpaper

 

[subshakerz]

Again, I dont mind those ranking Ambrose ahead. But Ambrose doesnt have as complete record as say Marshall.

So for me the gap between him and Imran is small. Ambrose was more consistent his whole career and across countries but if you had to pick a bowler to ball on a flat wicket, my sense is Imran would be a better pick. Hence the gap is small.

I recall Ambrose bowling in Pakistan in 1997 and he simply went into autopilot mode as the wickets didnt offer him anything, whereas Walsh and Wasim did much better in the same series as they had the variety to adapt to the low bounce wickets. He was so ineffective he dropped out of the last test once the series was lost. He did well early in his career in Pakistan in 1990, but that was a rare low scoring series where the wickets were sporting and every pacer did well from both sides.

Yes, just one series, but that was basically Ambrose MO his career, keep it at a particular length in the corridor and wait for the batsman to bite. I personally dont think he would have done as well as Walsh had he played in the subcontinent as often.

I prefer bowlers with more tricks who can adapt.

 

[ankitj]

How is it circular reasoning? Do you really think that bowling in Pakistan was harder for Imran than anywhere else? And if so why the difference in averages?

It's circular because you are using his own success to argue his success is not special. See averages of visiting pacers in Pakistan. If Imran (+ Wasim, Waqar) did well at home that's extra credit to them. If a South African spinner did very well at home, you shouldn't dismiss him as "meh, home bully"

 

[TheJediBrah]

It's circular because you are using his own success to argue his success is not special. See averages of visiting pacers in Pakistan. If Imran (+ Wasim, Waqar) did well at home that's extra credit to them. If a South African spinner did very well at home, you shouldn't dismiss him as "meh, home bully"

I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm not even arguing anything. I don't know **** about Imran so I wouldn't really try to argue against him or for him either way. I'm just postulating that those stats could be misleading because the implication is that Pakistan = hard for fast bowling, hence Imran + low average in Pakistan = incredible stat.

But his bowling stats in Pakistan are so much better than out of Pakistan that for whatever reasons (I have no idea what, nor do I claim to) he was more effective in Pakistan than away so whether or not Pakistan was "hard for fast bowlers" in general doesn't hold as much weight because Pakistan conditions clearly suited Imran's bowling specifically more than away. How visiting fast bowlers did in Pakistan in comparison might not even be that relevant.

I spoke a bit about Imran’s away record in my previous post and wasn’t inclined to revisit it, but as I noted then I don’t think it’s as simple as just the over all career number. Even before he hit his prime, he had been a prolific wicket taker in both Australia (including a match-winning 12-wicket haul) and West Indies in the 1970s and – as I also noted – in those early years seven of his first nine Test series were away from home.

However, if we look at his away series between November 1979 and April 1988:

1979/80 in India – 19 wickets at 19.21
1981/82 in Australia – 16 wickets at 19.50
1982 in England – 21 wickets at 18.57
1985/86 in Sri Lanka – 15 wickets at 18.00
1986/87 in India – 8 wickets at 49.00
1987 in England – 21 wickets at 21.67
1987/88 in West Indies – 23 wickets at 18.09

That one anomaly in India in 86/87 aside (where he actually had an excellent series with the bat), that is a spectacular run of away performances over a significant period of time. And it could well have been even more impressive but for that knee injury which left a big gap between 1983 and 1985 and caused him to miss out on Australia in 1983/84 (he played two Tests and didn’t bowl at all) and New Zealand in 1984/85 (peak Hadlee v peak Imran may well have been one for the ages).

As I said previously, you can make arguments for or against so many of the great quicks when we try to rank them, but in Imran’s case I really don’t think just repeating “averaged 25 away” without any context is one of the stronger ones.

This is a good post that goes some way to try and explain it, but still can't make up such a big difference.

Again, I'm not saying for a second that Imran's average in Pakistan isn't a special stat. But the potential for using it as a "proof" that he's better than others is there and misleading.

 

[TheJediBrah]

whether or not Pakistan was "hard for fast bowlers" in general doesn't hold as much weight because Pakistan conditions clearly suited Imran's bowling specifically more than away. How visiting fast bowlers did in Pakistan in comparison might not even be that relevant.

Good analogy for this might be Warne. Australia is hard for spinners, and Warne was so much more effective there than virtually any visiting spinners. Therefore he must be so much better than any other spinners ever? Not necessarily just based on that stat because clearly his bowling was suited to Australian conditions. Whether nor not it was hard for visiting spinners is irrelevant.

I don't know but maybe something similar applies to Imran in Pakistan. Others have talked about ball-tampering and biased umpiring but I don't know anything about that, very well could just be speculation and sour grapes.