Curtly Ambrose vs Dale Steyn

[TheJediBrah]

That is my main point of Ambrose above Steyn as well. Steyn got dominated too often for my liking. Ambrose was just relentless. Even when he declined, he wasnt taken apart.

I agree it is pretty close though and there are points in Steyn's favor, like his subcontinent record and matchwinning skills, though I am not taken in by the 'stood out in a tough era' argument.

I am pretty sure if Steyn in top form played in the early nineties, Ambrose would still be rated higher. Ambrose was being rated as the best bowler in the world at a time when Waqar was a demon and Wasim was also at his peak. He was that good.

Outside of Marshall in India in 83, I don't recall a visiting fast bowler repeatedly destroying a top class batting lineup as Ambrose did in Australia in 93.

Basically this. I'm not saying the answer to this thread isn't Steyn > Ambrose. I don't have a strong opinion either way, they're very different bowlers. But the argument a lot of people are going with here that Steyn gets a bonus for not having any other great bowlers in his era is illogical.

 

[trundler]

Steyn dominated roads better than anyone barring Imran and McGrath. Bonus points for that.

 

[Xix2565]

That's the only thing I'm disagreeing with. It's pretty clearly both #1 and #2. The best 5 to 6 bowlers in the 90s were way better than the best 5 to 6 in Steyn's time, regardless of conditions.

If it's so obvious you could at least do more than just say/repeat it.

 

[Coronis]

You pretty explicitly said that you thought bowling didn't get worse in the 00s and it was entirely due to conditions, or at least that's how I inferred this:


That's the only thing I'm disagreeing with. It's pretty clearly both #1 and #2. The best 5 to 6 bowlers in the 90s were way better than the best 5 to 6 in Steyn's time, regardless of conditions.

He’s not comparing any of those bowlers you mentioned to the ATG bowlers from the 90’s. He’s talking about an average bowler from either era. I don’t know the actual figures but say a bloke averaging 27 in the 90’s and a bloke averaging 30 in the 00’s might roughly end up with the same averages if their careers were simultaneous, I’ve seen this argument about era adjustment many times here and it usually doesn’t get this much pushback..

Anyway yes Steyn stood out a lot more than Ambrose in his era, probably because the other best bowlers either ended up injured, doping or match fixing. In my mind its probably Steyn just ahead of Ambrose, probably have them just behind the top 3. Miniscule difference, both at such a high level.

 

[subshakerz]

My problem with rating Steyn in the top tier with Ambrose, Hadlee, McGrath or Marshall is that those other bowlers were known to be consistently excellent performers with very few bad days. Taking them apart would be headline news.

Whereas with Steyn, having watched him throughout in his career fairly well, I can confidently say he was the most hot/cold ATG bowler I have seen.

When he was in the zone, he was a matchwinning champion, but his tendency in his career was to win a game a series and go fairly absent the rest of the time. And by absent, I dont just mean having a quiet game or missing the mark with his swingers as he was hunting for wickets.

His bowling somehow would lose its zip, he would seem negotiable, fairly hittable and not the alpha dog he was supposed to be. When Steyn was not in God mode, batsmen would seem comfortable against him in a way that belied his ATG status. Whereas with the others, especially McGrath and Ambrose who I saw, even if they weren't getting wickets, the batsmen was always respecting them.

Plenty of examples. I recalled after his Nagpur 10-fer in 2010, the next test all the Indian batters treated him fairly ordinarily, even with the new ball. In 2012 in Australia, he was quite poor in the first two tests, yes on batting roads, before turning it on in Perth. In 2008 in England, Steyn was just outright mediocre in the first test before taking England on in the next test at Edgbaston. When Australia toured SA in 2009 and 2014, I remember Phil Hughes and then Warner repeatedly battering Steyn in a manner that if it happened to a 90s ATG, we would be talking about those as legendary exploits.

You might want to chalk that all up to dead pitches, but I know that even on unresponsive surfaces, Wasim, McGrath and Ambrose would still be given some measure of respect ahead of other pacers in the attack, whereas with Steyn, I saw him just as another member of the SA attack in these circumstances.

Though on record alone Steyn belongs in the top ten ever, this is why I can't see him in the top five or better than Ambrose.

 

[TheJediBrah]

He’s not comparing any of those bowlers you mentioned to the ATG bowlers from the 90’s. He’s talking about an average bowler from either era.

Yes. I know. Which no one disagrees with and is not really relevant here in the context of this discussion. We're talking about Steyn and standing out compared to Ambrose and Flem's come along and maybe misunderstood the context and gone on a rant about bowlers averaging 28-30 which is fine but misleading.

In this context it's not the difficulty of conditions that is the major factor like Flem's claiming (though it is a factor), it's the reduced number of ATG/ATVG bowlers that is the major factor.

 

[subshakerz]

Steyn dominated roads better than anyone barring Imran and McGrath. Bonus points for that.

Which roads though? He averaged 26 in NZ, 28 in Australia and 31 in England. That's not dominating.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Steyn got spanked in 2012-13 in those 2 drawn Tests on roads at Brisbane and Adelaide, that's the only time I recall him bowling on roads

 

[Xix2565]

I mean people act like no one can improve at all from the 'glory' days. And it's a lot easier to be better when things are set up for you. I don't get why the 90s bunch of great bowlers don't get as questioned in such topics as the current mobs running around today in every team. It's one thing to have dips in talents but a collective dip is difficult to acknowledge, especially to that extent.

 

[Flem274*]

You pretty explicitly said that you thought bowling didn't get worse in the 00s and it was entirely due to conditions, or at least that's how I inferred this:


That's the only thing I'm disagreeing with. It's pretty clearly both #1 and #2. The best 5 to 6 bowlers in the 90s were way better than the best 5 to 6 in Steyn's time, regardless of conditions.

Okay, I'll make this my last post since I'm actually meant to be trying IRL right now hence procrastinating on CW all arvo.

By "the entire world, outside of a few players, spontaneously forgot how to bowl despite all the advances and depth increases in world bowling for 30-40 years prior" I mean literally the population of professional bowlers.

It's actually really, really unlikely an entire global profession in a sporting context just goes bad overnight, especially when that sport is played outside. Are you really meaning to tell me that outside of Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock, every test nation just got bad at fast bowling, an art nations pour so much into building their depth in? That kids just got less talented overnight, that coaches woke up on January 1st 2000 and forgot how to coach?

No, it didn't happen. That's ridiculous. The number of potential ATG bowlers in the global pool stayed constant. It might even have increased as cricket world population rose and less advantaged countries improved their overall health. We didn't suddenly fire all the coaches either. Everything around the professional bowlers got harder very quickly, mainly the pitch homogensation towards CEO roads but you can definitely argue absolute batting skill advanced and I have time for that argument.

This is most easily seen in the statistics of the median test bowler. The Hoggard, the Kasprowicz, the Simon Doull and the Kemar Roach. These guys are the most vulnerable to changes around them because they're not as good.

The 2000s already had McGrath, Pollock, Shoiab, Bond, Gillespie, Ntini and Vaas in the "Great to very good in their era" bracket. If you start stamping averages of 27-28 on Hoggard, Harmison, Flintoff, Kasprowicz, Bichel, Nel, Tuffey, Zaheer and others instead of low 30s then the 2000s relative to history start looking alright, and if they had the same conditions as the 90s and today I think they would have those statistics and I think the sharp end of the very good bowlers like Gillespie and Vaas would also benefit, bringing their averages down to sneaky ATG levels.

The "Fast bowling got empirically worse in the 2000s" conventional wisdom is the biggest load of rubbish the sport has ever sold. If it was true it should have been the biggest general play emergency the game has ever seen, but it wasn't.

This is why Glenn McGrath is the GOAT - he beat what should have happened to him.

Anyway, Dale Steyn is a bit lucky he began his career as the environment he played in was getting kinder to fast bowlers. He is more a contemporary of Anderson, Broad, Harris, Johnson and the younger versions of the current Indian, Australian and NZ attacks than the guys above but he did make his name during the tail end of the CEO pitch era and missed out on the party currently going on in the return to 80s statistics era so he is very impressive.

I should really do some work so good chat. Hope your day was a bit more productive than mine.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Okay, I'll make this my last post since I'm actually meant to be trying IRL right now hence procrastinating on CW all arvo.

By "the entire world, outside of a few players, spontaneously forgot how to bowl despite all the advances and depth increases in world bowling for 30-40 years prior" I mean literally the population of professional bowlers.

It's actually really, really unlikely an entire global profession in a sporting context just goes bad overnight, especially when that sport is played outside. Are you really meaning to tell me that outside of Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock, every test nation just got bad at fast bowling, an art nations pour so much into building their depth in? That kids just got less talented overnight, that coaches woke up on January 1st 2000 and forgot how to coach?

No, it didn't happen. That's ridiculous. The number of potential ATG bowlers in the global pool stayed constant. It might even have increased as cricket world population rose and less advantaged countries improved their overall health. We didn't suddenly fire all the coaches either. Everything around the professional bowlers got harder very quickly, mainly the pitch homogensation towards CEO roads but you can definitely argue absolute batting skill advanced and I have time for that argument.

This is most easily seen in the statistics of the median test bowler. The Hoggard, the Kasprowicz, the Simon Doull and the Kemar Roach. These guys are the most vulnerable to changes around them because they're not as good.

The 2000s already had McGrath, Pollock, Shoiab, Bond, Gillespie, Ntini and Vaas in the "Great to very good in their era" bracket. If you start stamping averages of 27-28 on Hoggard, Harmison, Flintoff, Kasprowicz, Bichel, Nel, Tuffey, Zaheer and others instead of low 30s then the 2000s relative to history start looking alright, and if they had the same conditions as the 90s and today I think they would have those statistics and I think the sharp end of the very good bowlers like Gillespie and Vaas would also benefit, bringing their averages down to sneaky ATG levels.

The "Fast bowling got empirically worse in the 2000s" conventional wisdom is the biggest load of rubbish the sport has ever sold. If it was true it should have been the biggest general play emergency the game has ever seen, but it wasn't.

This is why Glenn McGrath is the GOAT - he beat what should have happened to him.

Anyway, Dale Steyn is a bit lucky he began his career as the environment he played in was getting kinder to fast bowlers. He is more a contemporary of Anderson, Broad, Harris, Johnson and the younger versions of the current Indian, Australian and NZ attacks than the guys above but he did make his name during the tail end of the CEO pitch era and missed out on the party currently going on in the return to 80s statistics era so he is very impressive.

I should really do some work so good chat. Hope your day was a bit more productive than mine.

Again, never disagreed with your contention about how 30-33 avge bowlers would have been 27-30 instead etc. I don't think anyone did. I was purely focusing on the ATG sort of bracket given what we're discussing. If we're talking about only the best 5 or so fast bowlers in the world it's very fair to say that it got "empirically worse" for that period IMO.

Agree with the general idea of your comments and I think most would, it's not particularly controversial. Just not in relation to Steyn or other ATG bowlers.

Edit: Oh and I'm still at work for another 2 hours so plenty of time to kill

 

[subshakerz]

Okay, I'll make this my last post since I'm actually meant to be trying IRL right now hence procrastinating on CW all arvo.

By "the entire world, outside of a few players, spontaneously forgot how to bowl despite all the advances and depth increases in world bowling for 30-40 years prior" I mean literally the population of professional bowlers.

It's actually really, really unlikely an entire global profession in a sporting context just goes bad overnight, especially when that sport is played outside. Are you really meaning to tell me that outside of Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock, every test nation just got bad at fast bowling, an art nations pour so much into building their depth in? That kids just got less talented overnight, that coaches woke up on January 1st 2000 and forgot how to coach?

No, it didn't happen. That's ridiculous. The number of potential ATG bowlers in the global pool stayed constant. It might even have increased as cricket world population rose and less advantaged countries improved their overall health. We didn't suddenly fire all the coaches either. Everything around the professional bowlers got harder very quickly, mainly the pitch homogensation towards CEO roads but you can definitely argue absolute batting skill advanced and I have time for that argument.

This is most easily seen in the statistics of the median test bowler. The Hoggard, the Kasprowicz, the Simon Doull and the Kemar Roach. These guys are the most vulnerable to changes around them because they're not as good.

The 2000s already had McGrath, Pollock, Shoiab, Bond, Gillespie, Ntini and Vaas in the "Great to very good in their era" bracket. If you start stamping averages of 27-28 on Hoggard, Harmison, Flintoff, Kasprowicz, Bichel, Nel, Tuffey, Zaheer and others instead of low 30s then the 2000s relative to history start looking alright, and if they had the same conditions as the 90s and today I think they would have those statistics and I think the sharp end of the very good bowlers like Gillespie and Vaas would also benefit, bringing their averages down to sneaky ATG levels.

The "Fast bowling got empirically worse in the 2000s" conventional wisdom is the biggest load of rubbish the sport has ever sold. If it was true it should have been the biggest general play emergency the game has ever seen, but it wasn't.

This is why Glenn McGrath is the GOAT - he beat what should have happened to him.

Anyway, Dale Steyn is a bit lucky he began his career as the environment he played in was getting kinder to fast bowlers. He is more a contemporary of Anderson, Broad, Harris, Johnson and the younger versions of the current Indian, Australian and NZ attacks than the guys above but he did make his name during the tail end of the CEO pitch era and missed out on the party currently going on in the return to 80s statistics era so he is very impressive.

I should really do some work so good chat. Hope your day was a bit more productive than mine.

You can make the argument that the environment didnt allow more ATGs to emerge in the 2000s. But that doesnt mean those who did emerge are somehow better by default.

 

[subshakerz]

Steyn got spanked in 2012-13 in those 2 drawn Tests on roads at Brisbane and Adelaide, that's the only time I recall him bowling on roads

No, to be fair, he did face some roads in England and Australia in 2008

 

[subshakerz]

Again, never disagreed with your contention about how 30-33 avge bowlers would have been 27-30 instead etc. I don't think anyone did. I was purely focusing on the ATG sort of bracket given what we're discussing. If we're talking about only the best 5 or so fast bowlers in the world it's very fair to say that it got "empirically worse" for that period IMO.

Agree with the general idea of your comments and I think most would, it's not particularly controversial. Just not in relation to Steyn or other ATG bowlers.

Edit: Oh and I'm still at work for another 2 hours so plenty of time to kill

The very title ATG suggest that the bowler will excel across eras. If you put Marshall or Akram or Ambrose in Steyn's place, they would still end up at ATGs. So to me giving brownie points to Steyn because no other ATGs rose up around him is silly. That lack of competition for some posters seems to make Steyn look better somehow.

I would much rather prefer Ambrose who stood tall, figuratively, over the ATGs of his time rather than Steyn who stood tall over the far worse bowlers of his time.

 

[OverratedSanity]

No, to be fair, he did face some roads in England and Australia in 2008

He ran through India and SL on complete highways in the 2010 and 2014 tours.

 

[TheJediBrah]

No, to be fair, he did face some roads in England and Australia in 2008

I'm not saying he didn't do well on roads, literally just saying those are the only ones I saw

 

[Xix2565]

The very title ATG suggest that the bowler will excel across eras. If you put Marshall or Akram or Ambrose in Steyn's place, they would still end up at ATGs. So to me giving brownie points to Steyn because no other ATGs rose up around him is silly. That lack of competition for some posters seems to make Steyn look better somehow.

I would much rather prefer Ambrose who stood tall, figuratively, over the ATGs of his time rather than Steyn who stood tall over the far worse bowlers of his time.

This sort of implies Steyn couldn't do as well as Ambrose if he got to play for that WI side against the batters then. As if he couldn't stand up among a more competitive era helped out by better pitches more often and worse batters in general.

 

[subshakerz]

This sort of implies Steyn couldn't do as well as Ambrose if he got to play for that WI side against the batters then. As if he couldn't stand up among a more competitive era helped out by better pitches more often and worse batters in general.

Steyn would still be an ATG even in Ambrose's era. Whether he would be as highly rated as Ambrose is something we can speculate on. I wouldnt think so, as even Waqar at that time was rated below Ambrose.

 

[Xix2565]

Steyn would still be an ATG even in Ambrose's era. Whether he would be as highly rated as Ambrose is something we can speculate on. I wouldnt think so, as even Waqar at that time was rated below Ambrose.

Yeah but playing for Pakistan =/= playing for WI then. There's a stark difference there.

 

[Raz0r6ack]

Interesting to see Curtly’s wpm number drop away so markedly in the late 90’s. While he’d undeniably lost a yard by that stage, you have to wonder how much this had to do with the fact that the drop off in quality from him and Courtney to the support bowlers became absolutely cavernous after Bishop and the Benjamin’s faded away.

Wouldn't it have to do more with the batting drop off? West Indies didn't have a great batting lineup during the late 90s.

Less rest for the bowlers. If your batsmen don't score enough runs then you probably don't get a second innings to bowl pre 2001.

I can't imagine South Africa's batting lineup not scoring enough runs to not ensure 2 bowling innings for Steyn. Or not giving him sufficient rest.