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Allan Donald vs Joel Garner

Who was the greater bowler?

  • Allan Donald

    Votes: 25 59.5%

  • Joel Garner

    Votes: 17 40.5%
  • Total voters
    42
Slifer

Slifer

International Captain
sunilz said:
SA were better opposition to McGrath than WI in 90s.
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In terms of win/loss i believe the 90s went like this:

Australia
RSA
Pakistan
WI

The rest.

So yeah, RSA were the 2nd best team of the 90s and therefore the best opposition McGrath played against. The best batting lineup McGrath ever played against though, imo, was post 2000 India.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
Bolo. said:
All the quicks from Donalds era from RSA/Aus turned to water when playing each other. ATGs like Pollock and Mcgrath, as well as excellent bowlers like De Villiers and Gillespie were limping to just over 3WPM. Donald was the only quick from either side getting close to 4 with a significant amount of games IIRC. And thats with him playing his last 2 series against Aus, when his body broke down. Quirk of timing.

Look how far ahead of the others he is before that, as well as the quality of guys he was outperforming.


The only quick who could be relied on to take wickets in RSA AUS games until years after he retired. I assume you are marking everyone else down as well, and more so than him?
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McGrath in SA in 97 and 2001 was superb though, not so much at home against SA where Warne did the damage.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
I tend to not rate Donald as highly as others but I don't see how Garner is a better bowler. Donald was SA's premier strike bowler at a time when even Pollock was averaging 19. He was around the late 90s considered the best bowler in the world, has a great all round record and has unlike Garner has at least 300 wickets which for me is a minimum to be among the best of the best. I don't see how less than 300 wickets and no tenfer can get you into possibly in the top ten of all time unless it's just a raw stats case.

Was Garner ever spoke of being up there with Lillee and Marshall? He was the mop up bowler in his side after Marshall and Holding did the real damage.
 
duffer

duffer

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
_00_deathscar said:
Exaggerated version of a plethora of reasons used to excuse Warne's performances vs India on here. Bad form/injury/recovering from injury/divorce etc. etc. Basically he never played India at 100%.
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Heh, would like to see the mental gymnastics it took for the fora to come up with this
 
B

Bolo.

International Captain
Burgey said:
Nah I’m marking him down because he was as hard as a lemonade sandwich when things went against him. It was actually cringeworthy to watch
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Guess he got real lucky that things so consistently went his way while he was bowling. Real, real lucky to end up in the top handful all of SRs, averages and wpm of quicks ever. It almost sounds like he was good enough to ensure things tended to go his way.

Facetious remarks aside, he did go missing when things were not going his way in the sense that he bled runs. He bled runs frequently even when taking wickets. He was a strike bowler, and it was all he was ever trying to do. Would he have been better if he was also able to function as a containing bowler at times? For sure. But there has been no bowler ever who has managed to properly.

The question, particularly in the context of this comparison, is which you value more.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
I think the case of Shaun Pollock is instructive. Averaged less than Donald in the 90s during their respective peaks but at no point was considered a better bowler. I think if Garner had played with Donald it would have ended up similar.
 
B

Bolo.

International Captain
subshakerz said:
I think the case of Shaun Pollock is instructive. Averaged less than Donald in the 90s during their respective peaks but at no point was considered a better bowler. I think if Garner had played with Donald it would have ended up similar.
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Pretty likely. But not sure its meaningful. I highly doubt Donald would have done a better job for WI than Garner did.

All of the greats adapted to their roles in their teams.

Mcgrath >Hadlee > Steyn> Mcgrath in terms of what they brought to their teams, cos it was what they needed to be.

Nobody is close to Garner as something like a change bowler. He is uniquely good. Doesnt make him the best bowler, cos the best almost always open, but it is also unfair to hold his role against him.
 
S

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
Bolo. said:
Pretty likely. But not sure its meaningful. I highly doubt Donald would have done a better job for WI than Garner did.

All of the greats adapted to their roles in their teams.

Mcgrath >Hadlee > Steyn> Mcgrath in terms of what they brought to their teams, cos it was what they needed to be.

Nobody is close to Garner as something like a change bowler. He is uniquely good. Doesnt make him the best bowler, cos the best almost always open, but it is also unfair to hold his role against him.
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Teams tend to put their best pacers up front with the new ball, no? The only exception I can think is Pat Cummins, but he is recognized as the best in the attack which Garner wasnt.
 
B

Bolo.

International Captain
subshakerz said:
Teams tend to put their best pacers up front with the new ball, no? The only exception I can think is Pat Cummins, but he is recognized as the best in the attack which Garner wasnt.
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Very typically, yes. But not always. Sometimes balance is better served by having someone else open.

Topical point, the other thread I have been replying to today. Someone mentioned that Mcgrath and Bracken were swapping out being change bowlers at one stage. They were probably 2 of the 3 best quicks in the world at that stage. They had a teammate who was great at opening bowling, but not much else, so they did what was right by the team. Mcgrath, Steyn, Donald, Cummins... all of them were bowling change at some stage when the best bowler in their team, and arguably the world.

Not arguing that Garner was the best bowler in his team (doubt Donald would have been either if competing with Marshall, but that is neither here nor there). Just think that with the type of bowling Garner did, it isnt relevent if he was the best in his team in terms of his bowling position.
 
Flem274*

Flem274*

123/5
Garner is the best change bowler ever. That holds value, since one of the biggest hurdles any bowling has moving from very good to genuinely great is the drop in pace bowling effectiveness after the new ball bowlers. Even Australia had the odd man out with the mediocre Lee dragging down the overall rating of that attack.
 
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