I h8 cricketer rankings, what are we even ranking them on? Here's my problem:
So my thinking is that the small Tendulkar–Kallis gap in batting is offset by the large Kallis–Tendulkar gaps in bowling, fielding, braainess, and forum thread eponymity.
Or another way I sometimes look at this terribly important issue is that Kallis is normally more valuable to a team than Tendulkar as he allows for greater team balance due to his bowling prowess. Or is it that Kallis has simply done moar? How do you actually rate all-rounders here, comparing them to specialists on what they actually do or to a basic replacement 27bat–35bowl AR (think Wins Above Replacement in #baseball)?
Which brings us to this question: are we standardising these 'cricketers' relative to their disclipline? Normally I'd be all for that, but it seems logical given the framing of the question that those who achieve more are better; a Barnes or Murali who bowls so much would be ranked as a cricketer.
If we do opt to not standardise, then bowlers are king. Bowlers on the whole are ~as important as batters on the whole and bowlers are lesser in number in a team, unless you're in the world of NZ domestix. What's more, bowlers tend to be more proficient at batting than batters are at bowling. It stands to reason that McGrath > Tendulkar going by this, one of many perspectives.
Yet that, which seems like it should be the CW consensus view, is not. McGrath = Kallis > Tendulkar – nope. We look to be at Tendulkar > Kallis >= McGrath. Hmm, we say. What?, we snarl. Is the batriarchy upon us? Well I haven't a clue – you see, there's a lot of unresolved question marks in this post (? questionable statement, there's only 4? edit: oops, 5 now I think? aw crap that's 1-2-3-4-5-6? Ah well, blast this: interrobang‽).
