Players who went up or down in your judgement after going through their records

[kyear2]

I would have to say Hammond, his record vs Australia was good, but it was mostly minnow basing and he struggled and was uncomfortable vs the one good pace attack that did exist.

Gavaskar is great, like potentially top 2 opener great. But his record isn't as good as it is on face value.

To a lesser extent and varying degrees, Bradman, Sobers and Imran. Doesn't mean they still aren't highly rated, and in some instances the absolute best, but just not the beyond reproach records that I initially believed.

Higher? Hadlee for sure,don't know why he didn't get the recognition that the others did while he played. He was unquestionably better than Lillee and definitely a top 3 bowler of all time.

Still unsure about, Wasim. Think he's probably the most difficult bowler to rate.

 

[Prince EWS]

I'll say it again, the inability for me to ever be really sure which country you come from and follow the most is absurd. And I envy how much cricket you must watch.

I know you don't like this fact but I really have lived in New South Wales all my life.

Thank you so much for the kind words though. I was lucky enough to find away to basically watch rugby league and cricket for a living for a while (made money sports betting, got banned, then got contracted to advise sports betting agencies), until I accidentally got someone elected to parliament and was conscripted to become his chief of staff. That explains to some extent how I was able to follow it so closely for so long. Labour of love though for sure.

 

[The Sean]

I know you don't like this fact but I really have lived in New South Wales all my life.

Thank you so much for the kind words though. I was lucky enough to find away to basically watch rugby league and cricket for a living for a while (made money sports betting, got banned, then got contracted to advise sports betting agencies), until I accidentally got someone elected to parliament and was conscripted to become his chief of staff. That explains to some extent how I was able to follow it so closely for so long. Labour of love though for sure.

You've probably told this story already during one of my many absences, but I'd be fascinated to hear it. Actually, all of that sounds brilliant.

 

[Burgey]

don't know why he didn't get the recognition that the others did while he played. He was unquestionably better than Lillee

He probably wasn't while their careers overlapped tbf, which might partly explain why he was overshadowed a bit. He became properly great more or less after Lillee retired.

Lillee and the Windies guys cast a very long shadow in the late 70s and early 80s. It's a terrible thing to say, but Hadlee just suffered massively from a reputation POV from being a Kiwi at a time when they didn't get the exposure of other sides.

Have you seen that old 60 Minutes (I think) segment on Hadlee where he talked about his pre-game routine and the mantras he used to overcome his own self-doubts? Was filmed when he was still playing and was incredibly illuminating for its time.

 

[Burgey]

I know you don't like this fact but I really have lived in New South Wales all my life.

Thank you so much for the kind words though. I was lucky enough to find away to basically watch rugby league and cricket for a living for a while (made money sports betting, got banned, then got contracted to advise sports betting agencies), until I accidentally got someone elected to parliament and was conscripted to become his chief of staff. That explains to some extent how I was able to follow it so closely for so long. Labour of love though for sure.

I find it pretty hard to believe anyone could know your world view and think you're either widely traveled or broad minded tbh

 

[Prince EWS]

I find it pretty hard to believe anyone could know your world view and think you're either widely traveled or broad minded tbh

The joys of only reading my Cricket Chat posts.

 

[The Sean]

He probably wasn't while their careers overlapped tbf, which might partly explain why he was overshadowed a bit. He became properly great more or less after Lillee retired.

Lillee and the Windies guys cast a very long shadow in the late 70s and early 80s. It's a terrible thing to say, but Hadlee just suffered massively from a reputation POV from being a Kiwi at a time when they didn't get the exposure of other sides.

Have you seen that old 60 Minutes (I think) segment on Hadlee where he talked about his pre-game routine and the mantras he used to overcome his own self-doubts? Was filmed when he was still playing and was incredibly illuminating for its time.

Was this when he was speaking to Richie, talking about how Lillee was his hero and when times got tough he would ask himself WWLD (what would Lillee do)?

 

[Burgey]

Was this when he was speaking to Richie, talking about how Lillee was his hero and when times got tough he would ask himself WWLD (what would Lillee do)?

I don’t think it was the same interview but I have seen that one.

This had him in a dressing shed somewhere showing the interviewer a laminated bit of paper he kept in his kit bag which had all these affirmations on it to basically help him overcome self doubt. One of them was if he was bowling and it was getting tough, he would stand at the top of his mark and just say “Lillee” to get his mindset right. It was one of several things he did though. I’ll see if I can find it on YouTube somewhere. Was quality

I think there’s several blokes who were pretty clearly ahead of DK as fast bowlers, but I also think he was unquestionably the prototype for the modern fast bowler. The number of guys who basically tried to emulate him and then did it just as well if not better is tribute enough to the bloke.

 

[The Sean]

I don’t think it was the same interview but I have seen that one.

This had him in a dressing shed somewhere showing the interviewer a laminated bit of paper he kept in his kit bag which had all these affirmations on it to basically help him overcome self doubt. One of them was if he was bowling and it was getting tough, he would stand at the top of his mark and just say “Lillee” to get his mindset right. It was one of several things he did though. I’ll see if I can find it on YouTube somewhere. Was quality

I think there’s several blokes who were pretty clearly ahead of DK as fast bowlers, but I also think he was unquestionably the prototype for the modern fast bowler. The number of guys who basically tried to emulate him and then did it just as well if not better is tribute enough to the bloke.

Fair enough, I remember another line from Hadlee somewhere where he talked about Line-Length-Lillee as his 3 Ls (though as I think about it there may have been a fourth L that I'm forgetting). Completely agree about Lillee though - notwithstanding who he was or wasn't better than, the number of quicks he inspired or influenced from his own generation and those which followed is probably unparalleled.

 

[Prince EWS]

You've probably told this story already during one of my many absences, but I'd be fascinated to hear it. Actually, all of that sounds brilliant.

People are going to be annoyed at us derailing the thread with this, especially those who read my posts in News and Politics, but meh.


Virtual dictator:




Bringing the party into disrepute by installing a candidate with "zero" chance of winning:




Well that's awkward:

 

[The Sean]

People are going to be annoyed at us derailing the thread with this, especially those who read my posts in News and Politics, but meh.


Virtual dictator:

View attachment 37153


Bringing the party into disrepute by installing a candidate with "zero" chance of winning:

View attachment 37157


Well that's awkward:

View attachment 37155

Haha I'd assumed that if you told me the story it would have been with a PM rather than in the thread itself, but I'm very grateful. And so as not to derail the thread any further, I'll simply say that is glorious.

 

[Slifer]

I would have to say Hammond, his record vs Australia was good, but it was mostly minnow basing and he struggled and was uncomfortable vs the one good pace attack that did exist.

Gavaskar is great, like potentially top 2 opener great. But his record isn't as good as it is on face value.

To a lesser extent and varying degrees, Bradman, Sobers and Imran. Doesn't mean they still aren't highly rated, and in some instances the absolute best, but just not the beyond reproach records that I initially believed.

Higher? Hadlee for sure,don't know why he didn't get the recognition that the others did while he played. He was unquestionably better than Lillee and definitely a top 3 bowler of all time.

Still unsure about, Wasim. Think he's probably the most difficult bowler to rate.

Yes!!!!

 

[subshakerz]

It's not about doing it against India. But the one big innings he had in the subcontinent in his career was in a game where Imran didn't play and literally 1000 runs (well, 999 to be exact) were scored for the loss of 12 wickets.

I primarily bring up the spin thing because every other great player of his era did go on tours in unfamiliar conditions. He may have done brilliantly if he'd toured more , who knows. But to not acknowledge that his test record has this one small unproven thing, compared to border and Ponting would be unfair.

His brother said Greg Chappell didn't have a good technique for spin

 

[shortpitched713]

Are there any older generations players who have incredible averages, who are poo pooed as just not being any good at all, the way that the players in very recent memory are ( Think Philander, Hayden, etc. )?

I think any context starts to fade into the background, and wannabe writer/historian types who want to write pieces just look for guys with good averages, especially the ones that have less written on them, so a hyper context focus that we get in a current time tends to melt over time for your average casual cricinfo reader or whatever.

 

[Prince EWS]

Are there any older generations players who have incredible averages, who are poo pooed as just not being any good at all, the way that the players in very recent memory are ( Think Philander, Hayden, etc. )?

Barrington, Lohmann, Briggs, Turner, Paynter, Ponsford, Weekes certainly do not have reputations that match their averages.

 

[shortpitched713]

Barrington, Lohmann, Briggs, Turner, Paynter, Ponsford, Weekes certainly do not have reputations that match their averages.

Guess you're right. I've heard the names of the middle 5, and know Lohmann's record pretty well (being a nerd), but for the life of me can't remember a single thing about them.

Edit:
Briggs seems like exactly the kind of slow bowling bowling all-rounder I'd have absolutely no interest in.
Turner is a low sample size bowler, but seems an interesting "pioneer" type.
Paynter clearly overperformed in Tests compared to FC, but still has an interesting record.
Ponsford I've also heard of, and he raked some giant FC scores.

Not surprising to me that if they're a batsman I'm have much more likely to heard of them. They literally just brought in any of their field hands/laborers on short notice to do the bowling to them those days, didn't they?

 

[honestbharani]

Haha I'd assumed that if you told me the story it would have been with a PM rather than in the thread itself, but I'm very grateful. And so as not to derail the thread any further, I'll simply say that is glorious.

 

[Burgey]

I think the best thing about this is Cribbeh asserting this was somehow "accidental" rather than a deliberately orchestrated attempt to get on the public t!t and to hell with his and Ruddick's libertarian "ideals".

 

[Burgey]

Also, imagine that ****ing Barry Reed idiot digging around inside your north and south. No wonder so few people in the Hunter have their own teeth.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Haha I'd assumed that if you told me the story it would have been with a PM rather than in the thread itself, but I'm very grateful. And so as not to derail the thread any further, I'll simply say that is glorious.

He trying to recruit people on the forum, disgusting behaviour from a mod.