Dhoni v Gilchrist

[The Sean]

I imagine Viv's longevity would be extended by reducing his physical exertion - with his power using today's bats and roped in boundaries, he may have gone months at a time without actually needing to run a single.

 

[Teja.]

Tbf Richards was something of a wolf set amongst sheep. Bowlers of the time hadn't devised any tools to counter ultra-aggressive batsmanship, simply because it didn't exist on Richards' plane, and it's certainly to his credit that he exploited it. But I feel he'd still average more or less the same, in the modern era despite all the allowances made to batsmen today.

This is true to an extent but he was also batting on far less batting friendly pitches with larger boundaries, with bats not built for power hitting and without power plays and the like which surely would have more than made up for the tactical differences.

 

[Flem274*]

it doesn't matter tbh, it wasn't viv's job to be good in 2021.

which, tbf, i will apply the other way for the modern openers we've been trashing. they're playing the era they're in, and doing the job they're asked to do.

i don't blame the players. there is unarguably a certain timelessness to root and stokes in that english batting line up though, and morgan of course is no one note scrub either.

 

[srbhkshk]

Can someone standardise this brutality from 1975-1986 in terms of modern stats please. if Gilchrist is 40 @ 110, this must be about 70 @ 140 considering the run rates in Viv's era.

Not taking anything away from Viv (and who can anyway?) - if someone's standardized numbers for ten years actually start looking like 70 @ 140 or whatever than the standardization process itself is flawed.
Viv was a revolutionary free flowing batsman, the other batsman of that time except Kapil batted far more conservatively, it is quite possible that many of these batsman wouldn't have lost any(or much) points in their average while trying to strike at rather higher rates but they simply did not imagine that was necessary or possible. The game has definitely became far more optimized compared to the 80s or even 90s.

 

[Teja.]

Not taking anything away from Viv (and who can anyway?) - if someone's standardized numbers for ten years actually start looking like 70 @ 140 or whatever than the standardization process itself is flawed.
Viv was a revolutionary free flowing batsman, the other batsman of that time except Kapil batted far more conservatively, it is quite possible that many of these batsman wouldn't have lost any(or much) points in their average while trying to strike at rather higher rates but they simply did not imagine that was necessary or possible. The game has definitely became far more optimized compared to the 80s or even 90s.

Yeah my gripe is that the sub-optimal thing is usually only invoked for 80s cricket and not for 00s ODI cricket compared to modern cricket even though the amount of change is just as much.

Also, while the argument about how 80s batsmen were not trying to squeeze out the maximum amount of runs is brought up, the converse of them facing high quality swing/seam bowling in the early part of the innings on test level tracks with big boundaries and no powerplay is not brought up. Maybe part of the low SR is due to lack of optimization but it's also much harder to accelerate in those conditions as opposed to the type of conditions where Steyn can be smashed to all parts by any random no.6.

 

[Teja.]

A few batsmen lower down the rankings had high SRs as well but the SRs of the top 5 highest run scorers in the 1992 WC is pretty amusing:

 

[honestbharani]

Lara? I think he was near the top 5 then? Azhar too..

 

[Teja.]

Lara? I think he was near the top 5 then? Azhar too..

Lara and Azhar were 6 and 7 with SRs of 81 and 78.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Not taking anything away from Viv (and who can anyway?) - if someone's standardized numbers for ten years actually start looking like 70 @ 140 or whatever than the standardization process itself is flawed.
Viv was a revolutionary free flowing batsman, the other batsman of that time except Kapil batted far more conservatively, it is quite possible that many of these batsman wouldn't have lost any(or much) points in their average while trying to strike at rather higher rates but they simply did not imagine that was necessary or possible. The game has definitely became far more optimized compared to the 80s or even 90s.

The further you go back, and especially when you go all the way back to when ODIs started, the less accurate any such standardisation will be. I feel like if you're going back to the 90s it will be pretty accurate as most teams has specialists and ODI-specific plans and tactics and generally the game was understood pretty well. But when you go back to the 70s it's a bit of a **** show.

 

[stephen]

Also, it depends on how you standardise. If you standardise to top 8 countries only, the older players look a lot better.

I mean look at this ****:

https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?batting_positionmax1=2;batting_positionmin1=1;batting_positionval1=batting_position;class=2;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_strike_rate;qualmin2=20;qualval2=matches;spanmax2=30+Sep+2021;spanmin2=1+jan+2015;spanval2=span;team=1;team=2;team=3;team=4;team=5;team=6;team=7;team=8;template=results;type=batting

How many openers today are striking faster than Gilly, who was the fastest striking opener in his era? It's only just over a decade ffs.

Gilly would be the 7th worst by average today as well.

 

[srbhkshk]

wtf McCullum

 

[OverratedSanity]

2015 idgaf mccullum was glorious across formats.

 

[Migara]

I am never a fan of assuming how people will play across eras. But my point on Sehwag was more about how India saw it as a worthy investment to have a player averaging 33 but striking at 98 or 100 at the top of the order. It is interesting when we place so much emphasis on averages here but an actual side persisted with someone who was putting up statistically average numbers at his primary and mostly, only, skill.

There was nothing ordinary about Shewag's strike rate though. 100+ in that era was special.

 

[Migara]

This is true to an extent but he was also batting on far less batting friendly pitches with larger boundaries, with bats not built for power hitting and without power plays and the like which surely would have more than made up for the tactical differences.

I am not sure about this though. The grounds that we play are humungous compared to others in Asia. The other important factor was spinners were yet not the force top reckon in that era. Only Qadir provided meaningful resistance. This was some time away from emergence of Kumble - first ATG ODI spinner, who could even bowl at death. Later came Warne and Murali, both unfinished articles when they arrived, but the real potential was spin was shown by Saqlain. Warne developed much faster, Murali nearly took a decade and then came a host of ODI spinners like Hogg and Mendis. If there was anyone to challenge Viv on the field it would have been most likely a spin bowler.

 

[Arachnodouche]

Not to mention all the juggling catches on the boundary off knuckle balls that would send him scurrying into an early retirement.

 

[ma1978]

Sehwag played his hugely valuable role perfectly and was hardly ordinary

had the greatest top order bat in SRT and a superstar in Ganguly (and later the deplorable but very good Gambhir) around him

Dravid to accumulate at 4 - also a fine odi bat

Singh and Kaif (and later Dhoni)) to finish

with that lineup he had a role to play (decent average and ridiculous strike rate) and played it perfecty

too bad India had a bunch ofmediocreodi bowlers at that time

 

[Victor Ian]

No bad words about Sehwag please. Fair enough, you could pick others, but he would be a happy and useful player in any team, without any loss of productiveness.

SehWAG

 

[_00_deathscar]

I think the gripe with Sehwag is that he looked more suited to ODIs but was actually better in tests than ODIs. With that said the above is correct that he had a role to play and played it perfectly - but a huge part of that is because he was partnered by Sachin who was the perfect foil, even later in his career.

 

[honestbharani]

I think the gripe with Sehwag is that he looked more suited to ODIs but was actually better in tests than ODIs. With that said the above is correct that he had a role to play and played it perfectly - but a huge part of that is because he was partnered by Sachin who was the perfect foil, even later in his career.

I think a better analysis will be to see his SR and average distribution than the absolute numbers. Anecdotally, while I recall Gilly mostly playing around the same pace, Sehwag often had crazy knocks where he went at a very high SR and then there were games when he was just pushing it around with odd boundary for a 80-90 SR and then getting out within the powerplay, at a time when there is not enough powerplay overs left for the new batsman to get himself in and attack. Another reason why absolute numbers matter very little when it comes to ODIs esp. between 95 and 2015. The game and the rules kept changing so much.

 

[Spark]

I think a better analysis will be to see his SR and average distribution than the absolute numbers. Anecdotally, while I recall Gilly mostly playing around the same pace, Sehwag often had crazy knocks where he went at a very high SR and then there were games when he was just pushing it around with odd boundary for a 80-90 SR and then getting out within the powerplay, at a time when there is not enough powerplay overs left for the new batsman to get himself in and attack. Another reason why absolute numbers matter very little when it comes to ODIs esp. between 95 and 2015. The game and the rules kept changing so much.

This is less a reason to look at distributions and more a reason to not take raw average-based statistics like, well, average and strike rate too seriously. They are very crude, very rough estimates at best and should have massive error bars put on them at all times, especially in ODIs where game context changes so much and the nature of ODI cricket evolves so rapidly. As fallible as it is, human memory is the best way to account for all these changes in context and situation that you mention rather than just falling back on raw statistics.