Imran Khan vs Richard Hadlee

[bagapath]

Imran the better cricketer, Hadlee the better bowler though

both points are disputable
hadlee was no less a cricketer than anyone bar Sobers. his bowling was good enough to win him a place in any all time xi. his lower order batting and good fielding would bring up his ranking on par with the many no.2s behind sobers; of which imran is one. they are neck to neck - toe to toe. there is no "better" at this level of giants.
also, imran was a dynamite with the ball. while hadlee excelled in clinical dismantling of teams, imran worked up raw pace for a good a part of his career and literally blew oppositions out. you will find his bowling stats superior to hadlee's over the entire 80's. they are equals in all respects in my opinion. will refrain from voting.

 

[bagapath]

Hadlee is in the same tier as Marshall and McGrath, while Imran is a tier or two below. Note that I still voted for Imran despite being from NZ due to batting and captaincy.

as a fast bowler, there is no way anyone can be deemed better than imran. for a few years, he was possibly the greatest bowler ever seen on planet earth. the level of excellence he showed in 1981/82 cannot ever be forgotten. hadlee-marshall-mcgrath-imran are all on the same tier.

 

[subshakerz]

both points are disputable
hadlee was no less a cricketer than anyone bar Sobers. his bowling was good enough to win him a place in any all time xi. his lower order batting and good fielding would bring up his ranking on par with the many no.2s behind sobers; of which imran is one. they are neck to neck - toe to toe. there is no "better" at this level of giants.
also, imran was a dynamite with the ball. while hadlee excelled in clinical dismantling of teams, imran worked up raw pace for a good a part of his career and literally blew oppositions out. you will find his bowling stats superior to hadlee's over the entire 80's. they are equals in all respects in my opinion. will refrain from voting.

I agree, its very close between Imran and Hadlee as bowlers. But not as batsmen, which is why Imran being the better cricketer is less disputable.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Imran was the worst fielder of the big four, while Hadlee was very good in the gully.

 

[subshakerz]

This is my thinking too. You can throw a blanket over the top 10-20 quicks, and even the extreme ends of it (McGrath and Pollock say) the noticeable but small gap in bowling doesn't nerd the bowling allrounder h4x.

Yeah, I kinda disagree. Outside of the top 10 or so, then I think there is an increasingly gap that can't be made up with just runs down the order.

So Pollock to me isn't ahead of McGrath as a cricketer. The areas in which he lacked compared to McGrath as bowler mean more than his runs at no.8. In fact, I am not sure if even Wasim can be a better cricketer than McGrath.

 

[subshakerz]

Marshall, McGrath, Hadlee, Ambrose, Steyn and Imran to me are bowlers who achieved success almost everywhere with very balanced records. They are tier one with Marshall, McGrath and Hadlee jostling for first spot as best of the best.

Tier two is Lillee, Trueman, Wasim, Donald and Lindwall, guys who were considered the best bowlers of their time but have significant problems with their records to stop them from tier one status.

Tier three is all the pacers below this who were worldclass level yet not really as highly rated or have as strong records.

 

[Godard]

Ya i have slightly revised my thoughts on the matter. Considering Imran’s short term peaks, and the fact that he bowled in a relatively less conducive place more than most other commonly recognised ATGs, he is very close(tho not equal to Marshall, McGrath and Hadlee) so the gap between Hadlee and Imran as bowlers is not as big as the gaps between their batting. Hence I’ll revise my opinion and rate Imran higher. And I also agree with Wasim, Pollock<McGrath.
Note: But if Imran had say Wasim level bowling stats(top 12) and the same batting or if Wasim had Imran’s batting stats, I would rate Hadlee marginally above either.

 

[honestbharani]

Someone said Imran is to Hadlee as Sachin is to Lara. So obviously, Hadlee.

 

[subshakerz]

Someone said Imran is to Hadlee as Sachin is to Lara. So obviously, Hadlee.

So you changed your mind.

 

[ZK$]

Marshall, McGrath, Hadlee, Ambrose, Steyn and Imran to me are bowlers who achieved success almost everywhere with very balanced records. They are tier one with Marshall, McGrath and Hadlee jostling for first spot as best of the best.

Tier two is Lillee, Trueman, Wasim, Donald and Lindwall, guys who were considered the best bowlers of their time but have significant problems with their records to stop them from tier one status.

Tier three is all the pacers below this who were worldclass level yet not really as highly rated or have as strong records.

That looks about right. I’d add Garner, Holding, and Waqar to tier two though. Tier three would have like Walsh, Anderson, Pollock, Davidson, Statham, and Willis.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, I kinda disagree. Outside of the top 10 or so, then I think there is an increasingly gap that can't be made up with just runs down the order.

So Pollock to me isn't ahead of McGrath as a cricketer. The areas in which he lacked compared to McGrath as bowler mean more than his runs at no.8. In fact, I am not sure if even Wasim can be a better cricketer than McGrath.

It's a 25 run gap in batting average. Pollock is unquestionably the better overall cricketer.

I mentioned this in one of the Kallis threads, but allrounders are a long term investment you don't always expect to see achieve the same results as a specialist because they are putting development time into two disciplines while most guys just work on one.

To be an ATG pacer is a special achievement. To be one of the very best bowlers the planet has ever seen and average 32 with the bat is just unfair.

McGrath is the GOAT bowler imo, but his margin of victory is small. He is definitely the better bowler but it isn't by a lot and Pollock averages more than hundreds of specialist test batsmen who have attempted the highest level and is one of the best #8s in history.

IRL you pick both because they're not in competition for the same role. Pollock is slightly harder to turn down for me, since if you remove the names and say "best bowler ever or one of the best bowlers ever who averages 30 with the bat down the order" then the answer is obvious.

 

[subshakerz]

That looks about right. I’d add Garner, Holding, and Waqar to tier two though. Tier three would have like Walsh, Anderson, Pollock, Davidson, Statham, and Willis.

I think Garner and Holding were shy of wickets to be in the tier two status, plus all three of them were as highly rated as the other ahead of them.

 

[ZK$]

McGrath and Pollock aren’t close as bowlers. McGrath was the better cricketer.

 

[thierry henry]

This is my thinking too. You can throw a blanket over the top 10-20 quicks

imo this is broadly true of almost all elite batsman and bowlers - which would mean that (a) anyone with a clear advantage in a secondary skill is therefore a more useful cricketer and (b) a lot of these elite v elite debates are pretty much correctly answered by ‘they were about equal’ - but I guess if that proposition is accepted then we’d have nothing to argue about.

 

[subshakerz]

It's a 25 run gap in batting average. Pollock is unquestionably the better overall cricketer.

I mentioned this in one of the Kallis threads, but allrounders are a long term investment you don't always expect to see achieve the same results as a specialist because they are putting development time into two disciplines while most guys just work on one.

To be an ATG pacer is a special achievement. To be one of the very best bowlers the planet has ever seen and average 32 with the bat is just unfair.

McGrath is the GOAT bowler imo, but his margin of victory is small. He is definitely the better bowler but it isn't by a lot and Pollock averages more than hundreds of specialist test batsmen who have attempted the highest level and is one of the best #8s in history.

IRL you pick both because they're not in competition for the same role. Pollock is slightly harder to turn down for me, since if you remove the names and say "best bowler ever or one of the best bowlers ever who averages 30 with the bat down the order" then the answer is obvious.

Pretty sure if I was the SA captain, I would pick McGrath over Pollock, assuming Donald isn't around.

The problem is that cricket isnt just numbers on a spreadsheet. You have to remember the context.

McGrath and Pollock were their respective opening bowlers of their teams. A relatively small difference in the output of a pace bowling spearhead would have a massive difference on team series results.

McGrath has nearly twice as many fifers as Pollock. If Pollock took wickets at the rate McGrath did, he would have something like 70-80 more wickets in his tally. That could mean the difference between multiple series victories in places like Australia and England where SA couldnt win over the course of a career since the opening bowler has the most impact.

Pollock's batting at no.8 was no doubt very useful but even over the course of his career I don't think it mattered as much as McGrath's sustained excellence which had such an effect on Australia that it was noticed even when he wasn't taking wickets.

If Pollock batted regularly at 6/7 it would have been a different case for me since that has more impact on match results. Flintoff who averaged less than Pollock but batted at 6/7 was more of an impact bat IMO.

Hence when it comes to Hadlee and Imran, as bowlers they are hard to separate but Imran the bat over his career made a lot more difference to Pakistan than Hadlee did with NZ as Imran was regularly saving Pakistan after top order collapses.

 

[ZK$]

The second disciplines only matter when comparing players who are in the same tier in their first disciplines.

 

[Zinzan]

Not sure how Hadlee got 13 votes. Hadlee and Imran are very much equals in bowling while Imran is a much better bat.

They're not almost equal bowlers though unless you only factor overall bowling average. I can't imagine any of their peers from their era (from neutral countries) NOT saying Hadlee was the better bowler of the two.

 

[Coronis]

That looks about right. I’d add Garner, Holding, and Waqar to tier two though. Tier three would have like Walsh, Anderson, Pollock, Davidson, Statham, and Willis.

Davidson in a tier below Lindwall totally makes a lot of sense………

 

[Flem274*]

Pretty sure if I was the SA captain, I would pick McGrath over Pollock, assuming Donald isn't around.

The problem is that cricket isnt just numbers on a spreadsheet. You have to remember the context.

McGrath and Pollock were their respective opening bowlers of their teams. A relatively small difference in the output of a pace bowling spearhead would have a massive difference on team series results.

McGrath has nearly twice as many fifers as Pollock. If Pollock took wickets at the rate McGrath did, he would have something like 70-80 more wickets in his tally. That could mean the difference between multiple series victories in places like Australia and England where SA couldnt win over the course of a career since the opening bowler has the most impact.

Pollock's batting at no.8 was no doubt very useful but even over the course of his career I don't think it mattered as much as McGrath's sustained excellence which had such an effect on Australia that it was noticed even when he wasn't taking wickets.

If Pollock batted regularly at 6/7 it would have been a different case for me since that has more impact on match results. Flintoff who averaged less than Pollock but batted at 6/7 was more of an impact bat IMO.

Hence when it comes to Hadlee and Imran, as bowlers they are hard to separate but Imran the bat over his career made a lot more difference to Pakistan than Hadlee did with NZ as Imran was regularly saving Pakistan after top order collapses.

I'm well aware cricket is more than spreadsheets thanks. I've pointed that out to the 'Southee > Bond' brigade recently.

South Africa didn't lose because of Pollock, they lost because some sides were too good for the Pollock/Kallis axis to keep them competitive. You go tour 00s Australia with Boeta Dippenaar, Jacques Rudolph, Nicky Boje and Andre Nel.

There's a general trend in sports to blame star players for not doing more in losses when the problem is usually their team mates could be better.

Batting at #8 is a huge advantage. Daniel Vettori being the most recent example of the premium #8 keeping NZ out of associate status along with Ross Taylor. To minimise it is silly, and given Imran and Hadlee often get picked in ATG exercises as the #8 because they can bat I think everyone understands this when we don't mention randomly denigrated South African cricketers. You'd think Pollock averaged 28 with the ball the way people carry on about his bowling.

Without scorecard browsing Pollock's batting kept South Africa competitive in at least one odi series I recall against NZ where he almost won them games from nowhere.

Pollock probably sacrificed some bowling time to be a better batsman, and no matter which way you shake it he is an ATG pacer, one of the very very best ever bowlers to live. One would need to go full CricketWeb Brain to try and deny it. Adding a very healthy batting average on top of achieving something most test bowlers never do with more time investment just makes Pollock an unfair cricketer. He is a very special player and people always seem to hyper focus on Shaun Pollock 2008 rather than Shaun Pollock, ATG pace bowler.

If he was Australian, Indian or God forbid English (with 800 test wickets to match) we'd never hear the end of it.

 

[Flem274*]

The second disciplines only matter when comparing players who are in the same tier in their first disciplines.

of which they are.