Better Test opener, Hayden or Gooch?

[BazBall21]

Interested to see the results of this one. Always assumed Hayden would win comfortably but was taken aback at the magnitude of his defeat to Sehwag.

 

[ashley bach]

I'll make an early prediction and say Matty Hayden wins it relatively easily.

 

[Sunil1z]

Interested to see the results of this one.

Who was better batsman?
Sehwag or Laxman . Ans to your question is similar to this one.

 

[BazBall21]

I'll make an early prediction and say Matty Hayden wins it relatively easily.

I thought so too, but I was quite taken aback at the magnitude of his defeat to Sehwag, so this is a bit of an experiment.

 

[BazBall21]

Who was better batsman?
Sehwag or Laxman . Ans to your question is similar to this one.

I'll go Sehwag just

 

[Sunil1z]

I'll go Sehwag just

You yourself answered your question then . Both Laxman and Gooch played some ATG knocks against ATG attacks. But their overall career output is slightly lower than where it should have been ideally.

 

[BazBall21]

You yourself answered your question then . Both Laxman and Gooch played some ATG knocks against ATG attacks. But their overall career output is slightly lower than where it should have been ideally.

Sehwag played plenty of great innings against strong bowling too, think the argument for Laxman is slightly more balanced conditions wise, but he was a middle order bat which helped outside Asia. So I'm not convinced the two comparisons are paralleled entirely but maybe to some extent.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think I'm probably the most anti-Hayden CWer this side of Richard, but he was still better than Gooch.

 

[BazBall21]

I should have gone Hayden v KP instead, opener v middle order but that would have been close and accurately so. Always thought this matchup would be a walkover before the Sehwag-Hayden poll too.

 

[Sunil1z]

Probably the right result. More an experiment than anything else.

You should atleast vote for Gooch . Noone should have 0 votes .

 

[BazBall21]

You should atleast vote for Gooch . Noone should have 0 votes .

Haha I will if he's in genuine danger of being nilled tomorrow

 

[trundler]

Where's @Richard when you need him?

 

[honestbharani]

I have not actually seen Gooch at his best but felt like giving him a pity vote here given the margin.

 

[Anil]

gooch was clearly the better player against pure pace...overall i guess hayden had the better career...

 

[BazBall21]

Gooch had it tougher in just about every measure and he was better than Hayden against high pace, but averaging 37 after 64% of his Test innings, having not averaged above 40 at any stage before that should work against him a lot, as it seems to do.

 

[Prince EWS]

Where's @Richard when you need him?

I had a chat to him the other day about the CA website ripping off his FCA thing and calling it a world-first stat. He seems in good spirits - I don't think he's following cricket much at the moment though.

 

[Chubb]

Have to be honest, I think Gooch was a much, much better player than Hayden. If he'd been in the Aussie system of the 1990s/2000s, played on the same pitches and faced the same attacks, he would have averaged 50+.

That's a purely subjective opinion, I am sure others will have stats to contest it.

 

[subshakerz]

Have to be honest, I think Gooch was a much, much better player than Hayden. If he'd been in the Aussie system of the 1990s/2000s, played on the same pitches and faced the same attacks, he would have averaged 50+.

That's a purely subjective opinion, I am sure others will have stats to contest it.

Gooch suffers the same fate as other quality openers like Atherton, Anwar, Kirsten who wont get the credit they deserve because they opened in the hardest times in cricket history.

 

[Prince EWS]

Gooch suffers the same fate as other quality openers like Atherton, Anwar, Kirsten who wont get the credit they deserve because they opened in the hardest times in cricket history.

Kirsten was better than Hayden IMO. Have we had that thread yet?

 

[trundler]

Gooch was underwhelming for the majority of his career, Kirsten averaged 42 as opener, Anwar was gun but had a shorter career and Atherton merely existed in the same time as great bowlers and is also as far from being underrated as it is possible to be.