I agree with you that Imran is inferior to Sir Curtly in Aus and Eng. But if you see the context, he is between good to great in each country. In addition to that he is an ATG in WI, and good in Nz(cause he outperformed Sir Richard by a lot there in the test they played against each other).
Imran is from Pakistan; he had his fair few matches on familiar conditions in India. Marshall, McGrath performed much better in those flat pitches. I think you are missing the point, you logically can't say Ambrose was below average in any country. Imran wasn't too, but he certainly wasn't Great in Australia and India.
That wasn't really the argument. The argument was that outside England/Australia he doesn't have overall performances of note, just a bunch of low yield results. Can you respond to the below please:
He was between good and great in Aus. In Ind, he was goodish only cause of the one good series he had. I am not saying Sir Curtly was bad or even below average in any country. That would be idiotic. I am just saying that the matches he played in some countries like NZ/SL and too small in number to analyse his performance there
Was it up for even discussion? Ambrose truly doesn't have a great record outside of Australia and England. That's perfectly true. My point was his record in Australia is better than even Imran's in WI, and his record in England is better than any other 3 of Imran's.
Yes, so the heart of our disagreement is whether having a good record in more places is better than great record in fewer places. And I don't think there is a wrong answer either way.
Debatable, considering WI in Immy’s era was prolly the best team ever. Australia in Ambrose’ era(early and mid 90s not that good, plus Imran’s better SR and WPM, and his increased average can be attributed to the fact that he was shouldering the weight of the entire attack in 75-76 at the beginning of his career). The latter I agree with, but Imran’s record in brilliant too, given he averaged sub 25, and if not for his wrong selection in 74, when he was simply not good enough to play at the international level, his WPM would be 5+ and average sub 22. Ambrose played against a lot of horrible Eng teams(Eng being horrible in the 90s is a universal truth). Still Ambrose in Eng ahead of Imran in the same. But Imran in Aus and Eng is between good to great, and Ambrose cannot be called the same in countries beside WI, Aus and Eng
I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss series saying he wasn't of international standards.... Marshall also had a bad record in India in '78, but still he more than make up for that. Also, with due respect to Viv and co; that dominance was due to the bowling attack not the batting.
It's like saying Don is inferior to Sachin; because Sachin maintained a very good to great record in every country and Don didn't played outside of England and Australia.
Don is an exception just like I mentioned. His record in too overwhelming in those countries
Bradman is a red herring.
With Imran, it was true. Kapil said he wasn’t even club level yet. It wasn’t mere debutant problems
WI team's batting was better than 90s Australia. I just said it wasn't probably the best batting line-up ever assembled.
Australia that Ambrose played away to in 96-97 was an atg team and was indisputably the best in the world. It's uninformed disingenuous comments like this that make me not take things you post at face value. And I love how whenever Imran under performed it was due to "wrong selection" or whatever myriad of other excuses, yet we don't afford the same to Sir Curtly. But carry on...
It's irrelevant to the main point of discussion. But I agree that was a great lineup but not quite ATG yet. Ambrose though should be note struggled in first two tests on batting wickets in that series before storming back on better wickets.
Maybe, but I would rate the batting of WI in 80s higher. I never disputed that Aus weren’t the primary challenge and best team in the world. Whether they were ATG them, debatable, but certainly not indisputable. Also I mentioned the wrong selection in relation to Imran for the 74 series vs Eng which is true, and applies with special force here. Even Kapil Dev said that he wasn’t even a club level cricketer then. When I was saying Aus weren’t an ATG team then, I was referring to Amrbose’ series vs them in 89 and 92. And Imran in the first half of his career in certain series, shouldered the weight of the entire attack. That’s why his average is higher in certain cases. (Ambrose in contrast bowled with good support, atleast for a good part of his initial career). You don’t need to discount these series, but that’s context, and why Imran’s high average in countries like WI don’t bring down his performance to a great extent. If it’s excuses for you, fair enough, i won’t force you to accept it as genuine.
It should be noted he wasn't close to being 100% for that series which led to him sitting out the crucial 4th test with injury. This is the disingenuous bs we're talking about. Give the man credit for doing great vs Australia and leave it at that. Is that so hard to do? We literally can sit here all day and dissect any cricketer the way you constantly dissect Curtly. But most of us don't, because we don't have the agenda you seem to....