Sachin Tendulkar vs Garry Sobers

[OverratedSanity]

If Sachin had scored 12 more runs in that one game vs Hadlee, he'd have scored hundreds on tours of Australia, England, South Africa and NZ as a teenager. Would've been an incredibly cool feat.

 

[Coronis]

Tendulkar had an amazing career start for me.

Note the qualifier.

An amazing career start - no imo. It was good, not great like the majority of his career, but not great and definitely not amazing.

 

[Slifer]

No. He had higher highs but was also owned by McGrath in an entire series in 96. Tendulkar never got owned by McGrath in a series.

SUBS we've done this dance before. McGrath dismissed Sachin at a higher rate than he did Lara. And in matches where McGrath features, Lara averages 45 to Sachins 36. Please give this rhetoric a rest.

And you say Lara struggled vs Donald, so did Sachin. They both averaged in the 30s vs him. Doesn't matter how they looked they both struggled. Yes Sachin scored two 100s, which means for his average to still be in the 30s, he must have had some serious troughs. Whereas Lara consistently had 30s and 50s without any real big scores. Make of that what you will.

Is Lara a great player of pace? No. But neither is Sachin if we're going by his record vs McGrath, Donald, Wasim and Waqar. Sachin did well vs Steyn that's it, which is commendable.

 

[subshakerz]

SUBS we've done this dance before. McGrath dismissed Sachin at a higher rate than he did Lara. And in matches where McGrath features, Lara averages 45 to Sachins 36. Please give this rhetoric a rest.

And you say Lara struggled vs Donald, so did Sachin. They both averaged in the 30s vs him. Doesn't matter how they looked they both struggled. Yes Sachin scored two 100s, which means for his average to still be in the 30s, he must have had some serious troughs. Whereas Lara consistently had 30s and 50s without any real big scores. Make of that what you will.

Is Lara a great player of pace? No. But neither is Sachin if we're going by his record vs McGrath, Donald, Wasim and Waqar. Sachin did well vs Steyn that's it, which is commendable.

I don't want to get down the rabbit hole.

I will just suffice by saying that yes if going strictly by the overall record, Tendulkar doesn't have a big advantage over Lara vs these bowlers. However, I think Lara's problem with pace is likely why he never scored a ton vs Donald and the 2Ws and I watched him in the 97 and 98 series truly struggle against them. I never saw that in Tendulkar's case in his prime, even if his output wasnt larger he wasn't getting out to the same bowlers again and again..

 

[subshakerz]

Note the qualifier.

An amazing career start - no imo. It was good, not great like the majority of his career, but not great and definitely not amazing.

For a teenager it was great to me and pretty much without any other example except maybe Mohd Aamir.

 

[Slifer]

I don't want to get down the rabbit hole.

I will just suffice by saying that yes if going strictly by the overall record, Tendulkar doesn't have a big advantage over Lara vs these bowlers. However, I think Lara's problem with pace is likely why he never scored a ton vs Donald and the 2Ws and I watched him in the 97 and 98 series truly struggle against them. I never saw that in Tendulkar's case in his prime, even if his output wasnt larger he wasn't getting out to the same bowlers again and again..

Lara doesn't have a ton vs WWs because he got bowled between his legs by a spinner (see the '93 series in WI). Vs Donald he had I believe 2 or 3 90+ scores and tried to dominate Donald to no avail. Donald didn't have Lara hopping around or anything. Lara tried to get on top of Donald but Donald (plus excellent south african fielding) wouldn't allow that to happen. Anyway, neither player was great vs pace.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Thats is an awful conclusion. They were both great players of pace.

 

[Coronis]

For a teenager it was great to me and pretty much without any other example except maybe Mohd Aamir.

Again not great compared to the rest of his career, and not great compared to other players starts of their careers. Thus why its not an “amazing start” to his career. Get it?

 

[trundler]

Again not great compared to the rest of his career, and not great compared to other players starts of their careers. Thus why its not an “amazing start” to his career. Get it?

I think his point is that Mike Hussey and Herbert Sutcliffe weren't 16 when they debuted. It's only an amazing start considering his age.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I never appreciated Sachin earlier, but his consistency is simply unmatched. So many of his knocks are criminally underrated. Also, we've mostly had a very average bowling/fielding side for the most part when he was playing.

Have to say great innings’ losing marks because of negative results really is a nonsense.

I can sort of understand it a little bit when we're talking about 4th innings knocks. But for other scenarios it shouldn't matter as much. If your innings brings your team back into a position of strength from a position of weakness, it has all the characteristics of a so-called "match-winning" knock.

For instance, Tendulkar's last hundred, the 146 at Capetown had every ingredient you could possible want. It was the deciding test of an away series against a great team, the bowling quality was as high as you can possibly get (Steyn bowled two of the best spells I've ever seen), and the innings brought india back from a very dicey position into parity/maybe slight favourites. The only real reason it ended up not being a "match winning" knock is because India's bowling and captaincy wasn't good enough. Otherwise, it ends up being a historic knock giving India their first series win in SA. It'd be talked about as highly or honestly even higher than something like Waugh's 200 vs WI. It doesn't make much sense when you think about it.

 

[Coronis]

I think his point is that Mike Hussey and Herbert Sutcliffe weren't 16 when they debuted. It's only an amazing start considering his age.

And I specifically said I was comparing to the rest of his career in the initial post.

 

[trundler]

And I specifically said I was comparing to the rest of his career in the initial post.

But you did compare it to other great starts. The point is none of them came in the player's teens and Tendulkar wasn't a child during his latter years so you're just arguing at cross purposes. The point is that nobody who started his career so young did close to as well as Tendulkar so it really was a special start considering that. The amazing part is him being decent against good attacks, usually away from home, as a literal child, not his output itself.

 

[number11]

Viv belongs there.

And Lara.

 

[subshakerz]

Thats is an awful conclusion. They were both great players of pace.

Lara wasn't. Even Brett Lee used to give him some trouble. His high back lift didn't help. He rode his luck but was not as solid against them.

 

[Socerer 01]

Thats is an awful conclusion. They were both great players of pace.

this is the problem with analysis by checklist you get too much of a reductive conclusion at the end that turns players into mere numbers without nuance

 

[honestbharani]

Also,.most of the analysis by checklist is usually done only to suit personal.biases anyways.

 

[Prince EWS]

this is the problem with analysis by checklist you get too much of a reductive conclusion at the end that turns players into mere numbers without nuance

Also,.most of the analysis by checklist is usually done only to suit personal.biases anyways.

What I hate most about it is that the sample sizes we have for players' careers are already smaller than we'd really like given how different the circumstances can be throughout a Test, a series, a career etc, and people want to carve them up into even tinier bits. Cricket is high variance - forcing yourself to judge players based on the numbers produced in a handful of Tests just stacks the deck in favour of luck and circumstance.

What I hate second most about it is the implication that being a 'rounded' great is more useful than being absolutely unbeatable in some conditions/circumstances and just good in others. I really don't think is necessarily true.

I could probably give ten reasons why I hate it, but those are the top two.

 

[OverratedSanity]

What I hate second most about it is the implication that being a 'rounded' great is more useful than being absolutely unbeatable in some conditions/circumstances and just good in others. I really don't think is necessarily true.

Mostly agree but I think being dominant only in familiar conditions is when it gets to be an issue. Because you could argue there'd be other players in the team capable of producing nearly the same kind of production.

Being rounded in all countries shows some kind of adaptability in a hypothetical scenario where you get more confidence that a batsman could probably succeed if faced with randomly generated set of conditions. It's not the most useful in a real world analysis.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Average in matches with bowler X is just piss poor though. Unless we're willing to argue that Azhar mahmood played Donald better than Sachin/Lara or Ijaz Ahmed played Mcgrath better. It's statistical noise.

 

[ZK$]

In my opinion, averaging 40 in a country means you’ve succeeded and averaging 39 in a country means you’ve failed.