Bahnz
Hall of Fame Member
Can't be bothered starting a specific thread for this, but was just thinking - who was the better batsman - Cairns or Vettori?
Both picked young, both struggled with the bat (although obviously not a whole lot was expected of Vettori at the start). Both blossomed into fine batsmen. For the record, I'm only looking at both players from the age of 24, as both players started their careers predominantly as bowlers and only matured into genuine allrounders at a later age.
Cairns at his absolute peak was Botham-esque, taking on peak-Australia and pummeling them in a low-scoring series. But he was also Botham-esque in the less fortunate sense - frequently getting carried away and losing his wicket due to unnecessary aggression.
Vettori's batting career is a bit hard to gauge as - until the last few years - he was batting down at 8 and therefore frequently benefitted from batting against tired bowlers who were looking to get him off strike so they could chip out the tail. But the fantastic consistency from 2003 onwards is hard to ignore - hitting 3653 runs at 37.65. For a player who batted relatively low down the order, his numbers weren't actually significantly inflated by not outs - again from 03 onwards, he averaged over 33 runs per innings, and over this time period he hit the same number of hundreds as Cairns did in his career.
Cairns benefitted less from bullying weak Zim and Bangladesh sides, but Vettori still has good numbers v Australia (36), India (42), Pakistan (47) and Sri Lanka (44). Cairns however does have the more complete career record, average sub-30 only against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Cairns was clearly the better player of swing (no wonder considering Vettori's unorthodox style and reliance on the late cut), averaging 28 compared to Vettori's 12 in England. Cairns was also the better player in Australia, especially considering that Vettori played the later part of his career after McGrath and Warne's retirement. However, Cairns' style of play was much less well-suited to Asia where he averaged 22 compared to Vettori's 42.
Having said all that, Cairns was less fortunate. Injury robbed him of many of his best batting years between 2000 and 2004. He may well have piled up a ton of runs during this phase if his body had held together. But this post is about was's not couldabeens, so I'm going to discount that from the comparison.
I don't think Vettori could ever play the kind of innings like Cairns' 6 laden 158 v SA in 2004, but equally I couldn't imagine Cairns playing the kind of scrappy counter-punching, horizontal-bat dominated innings as Vettori's 140 v Murali and Herath in 2009. I'd probably back Cairns to score slightly more runs on average, but equally I'd probably prefer Vettori coming in to bat in a crisis.
I'm going to go with Cairns for purely aesthetic reasons, but it's a very close contest.
Both picked young, both struggled with the bat (although obviously not a whole lot was expected of Vettori at the start). Both blossomed into fine batsmen. For the record, I'm only looking at both players from the age of 24, as both players started their careers predominantly as bowlers and only matured into genuine allrounders at a later age.
Cairns at his absolute peak was Botham-esque, taking on peak-Australia and pummeling them in a low-scoring series. But he was also Botham-esque in the less fortunate sense - frequently getting carried away and losing his wicket due to unnecessary aggression.
Vettori's batting career is a bit hard to gauge as - until the last few years - he was batting down at 8 and therefore frequently benefitted from batting against tired bowlers who were looking to get him off strike so they could chip out the tail. But the fantastic consistency from 2003 onwards is hard to ignore - hitting 3653 runs at 37.65. For a player who batted relatively low down the order, his numbers weren't actually significantly inflated by not outs - again from 03 onwards, he averaged over 33 runs per innings, and over this time period he hit the same number of hundreds as Cairns did in his career.
Cairns benefitted less from bullying weak Zim and Bangladesh sides, but Vettori still has good numbers v Australia (36), India (42), Pakistan (47) and Sri Lanka (44). Cairns however does have the more complete career record, average sub-30 only against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Cairns was clearly the better player of swing (no wonder considering Vettori's unorthodox style and reliance on the late cut), averaging 28 compared to Vettori's 12 in England. Cairns was also the better player in Australia, especially considering that Vettori played the later part of his career after McGrath and Warne's retirement. However, Cairns' style of play was much less well-suited to Asia where he averaged 22 compared to Vettori's 42.
Having said all that, Cairns was less fortunate. Injury robbed him of many of his best batting years between 2000 and 2004. He may well have piled up a ton of runs during this phase if his body had held together. But this post is about was's not couldabeens, so I'm going to discount that from the comparison.
I don't think Vettori could ever play the kind of innings like Cairns' 6 laden 158 v SA in 2004, but equally I couldn't imagine Cairns playing the kind of scrappy counter-punching, horizontal-bat dominated innings as Vettori's 140 v Murali and Herath in 2009. I'd probably back Cairns to score slightly more runs on average, but equally I'd probably prefer Vettori coming in to bat in a crisis.
I'm going to go with Cairns for purely aesthetic reasons, but it's a very close contest.
