Garry Sobers v Imran Khan,Test Cricket:Poll

[Adorable Asshole]

Nah, Sobers is a better specialist. They are roughly equal is secondary disciplines.

It's hard to rate Sobers as a better specialist when he batted half of his career at 5 or lower.

 

[subshakerz]

It's hard to rate Sobers as a better specialist when he batted half of his career at 5 or lower.

Nah. It's one of those cases where he was that great that his class shined through and it doesn't matter.

 

[Adorable Asshole]

Nah. It's one of those cases where he was that great that his class shined through and it doesn't matter.

Because you say so

 

[Fuller Pilch]

It's hard to rate Sobers as a better specialist when he batted half of his career at 5 or lower.

Sobers is a contender for the 2nd best bat of all time. Imran isn't a contender for 2nd best bowler.

 

[Adorable Asshole]

Sobers is a contender for the 2nd best bat of all time. Imran isn't a contender for 2nd best bowler.

He barely scraps top 10 in my list and that's the only thing that matters.

But i want to know the reasoning behind him being no. 2. So enlighten me

 

[The Sean]

The big story of this poll is that it got nearly 150 votes. Those were the days.

 

[Burgey]

The big story of this poll is that it got nearly 150 votes. Those were the days.

Yeah. Then again there weren't 18 others going on at the same time.

 

[The Sean]

Yeah. Then again there weren't 18 others going on at the same time.

Ha, fair point.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

He barely scraps top 10 in my list and that's the only thing that matters.

????

But i want to know the reasoning behind him being no. 2. So enlighten me

I said a contender for no 2.

It is very hard to split the likes of Hobbs, Hutton, Sobers, Viv, Tendulkar, Lara, and Smith.

 

[Adorable Asshole]

He barely scraps top 10 in my list and that's the only thing that matters.

????

But i want to know the reasoning behind him being no. 2. So enlighten me

I said a contender for no 2.

It is very hard to split the likes of Hobbs, Hutton, Sobers, Viv, Tendulkar, Lara, and Smith.

Sobers stands out as the only one who batted most of his career at 5 or below.

 

[Slifer]

It's hard to rate Sobers as a better specialist when he batted half of his career at 5 or lower.

Really??

 

[Adorable Asshole]

Really??

Is it surprising? Batting at the top is significantly harder than batted down the order.

 

[Slifer]

Sobers batted anywhere from opening down to number 9. But he made runs from 3 down to 7. Of his 160 innings he batted 50 innings in the top 4 and averaged in excess of 60. He batted mostly from 5 to 6 because that was the needs of the team. And also, after bowling a ton of overs, naturally, he'd be tired and who would risk their best batsman potentially facing the new ball straight up (WI openers were poor outside of Sir Conrad).

Fact remains, and this is a compliment to sir Gary, is that he could bat anywhere in the batting order and still make runs. Had he played higher up more, (he played sufficient) no doubt he'd still make runs.

 

[shortpitched713]

Sobers stands out as the only one who batted most of his career at 5 or below.

6 or lower are more challenging batting spots than the 4 spot. Arguably, it's a bit wasteful of a talent like his, but that's a tactical argument, not one against his skill and ability which is goated.

Besides that, he did great anywhere from 3 to 7, so this is a strange hill to fight him on. This is not Sarfaraz Khan in Indian domestic cricket, Sobers actually could and did "do it" at the premier batting spots. He just chose not to quite often (my guess is it depended on how tired he felt from bowling output in a given innings).

 

[kyear2]

If we are only taking batting and bowling in consideration then there is not much between them to septate but Sobers was far better fielder than Imran and I don't think captaincy is that much of skill to offset that.

I agree that it's close, but would give Sobers the edge with regards to primary skills for reasons as discussed above. Agree the secondary skills are a bit over stated for both and a wash.
Where Sobers separates as you said is in his fielding, it's just no contest there.

 

[kyear2]

Is it surprising? Batting at the top is significantly harder than batted down the order.

Look at his record up the order, it wasn't that he couldn't do it.
The main reason he batted down the order was because he was over bowled, over bowled him self (again to his detriment) and needed the rest. His best and ideal position position was either 3 or 4.

 

[subshakerz]

He barely scraps top 10 in my list and that's the only thing that matters.

But i want to know the reasoning behind him being no. 2. So enlighten me

Unanimously considered best bat of his era and no noticeable weakness in his style of play or record.

 

[Coronis]

Unanimously considered best bat of his era and no noticeable weakness in his style of play or record.

imo he has a noticeable weakness against Kiwis. Can’t even call it sample size, 12/93 tests is pretty decent.

 

[Slifer]

imo he has a noticeable weakness against Kiwis. Can’t even call it sample size, 12/93 tests is pretty decent.

Weakness? More like a head scratcher tbh. NZ were in no way shape or form a strong team during his time and most of his contemporaries had at least a decent record vs NZ.

 

[trundler]

Weakness? More like a head scratcher tbh. NZ were in no way shape or form a strong team during his time and most of his contemporaries had at least a decent record vs NZ.

Were NZ yours an addendum to Aus tours back then? Going from the Caribbean to NZ without visiting Aus at all can't have been a thing, I imagine. Maybe he just had a cbf attitude to the NZ series after playing Aus which was a big deal.