Steve Smith vs Ricky Ponting

[Coronis]

Whenever anyone does literally any analysis to standardise by era or opposition or average scores in games or anything like that, May massively benefits.

We've also had @peterhrt talk about how he was perceived at the time, and I'm not big on peer ratings but I think it backs up what those exercises suggest.

I think Peter May and Graeme Smith are the most underrated batsmen of all time. Faulkner and Noble also spring to mind as players I reckon were much better batsmen but worse bowlers than people think. But as specialist bats those are my top two, and only one was in black and white, ha.

Steve Smith is kinda hard as his career hasn't finished yet, plus people tend to not agree with me about how long his home wickets stayed stupidly flat so I might be an outlier on that one... but yeah I definitely reckon May was better than Ponting.

dw the whole black and white thing was a joke. I also think May is underrated, perhaps not to the same extent. He is in that competition with Root for England’s 3rd best middle order bat - I’ll have to wait til the end of Root’s career before properly defining that.

His record in England is ridiculously impressive but his relative lack of success anywhere else (bar NZ) brings him down for me.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

dw the whole black and white thing was a joke. I also think May is underrated, perhaps not to the same extent. He is in that competition with Root for England’s 3rd best middle order bat - I’ll have to wait til the end of Root’s career before properly defining that.

Compton is in that competition as well

 

[capt_Luffy]

dw the whole black and white thing was a joke. I also think May is underrated, perhaps not to the same extent. He is in that competition with Root for England’s 3rd best middle order bat - I’ll have to wait til the end of Root’s career before properly defining that.

His record in England is ridiculously impressive but his relative lack of success anywhere else (bar NZ) brings him down for me.

Compton is in that competition as well

Colonel Kumar Sri Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji II??

 

[OverratedSanity]

I think Peter May and Graeme Smith are the most underrated batsmen of all time. Faulkner and Noble also spring to mind as players I reckon were much better batsmen but worse bowlers than people think. But as specialist bats those are my top two, and only one was in black and white, ha.

Because of the difficulty of his home batting conditions? Hmm I don't know, I rate him highly but he has a very poor record in his home conditions anyway so not sure he deserves more credit for it.

 

[kyear2]

Whenever anyone does literally any analysis to standardise by era or opposition or average scores in games or anything like that, May massively benefits.

We've also had @peterhrt talk about how he was perceived at the time, and I'm not big on peer ratings but I think it backs up what those exercises suggest.

I think Peter May and Graeme Smith are the most underrated batsmen of all time. Faulkner and Noble also spring to mind as players I reckon were much better batsmen but worse bowlers than people think. But as specialist bats those are my top two, and only one was in black and white, ha.

Steve Smith is kinda hard as his career hasn't finished yet, plus people tend to not agree with me about how long his home wickets stayed stupidly flat so I might be an outlier on that one... but yeah I definitely reckon May was better than Ponting.

You had me literally till the last line.

Smith definitely underrated and that's with many having him as the 5th best opener and best since Sunny.

May better than Punter though, ugh

 

[PlayerComparisons]

May does seem to be rated extremely highly by peer and pundits from his era

 

[Zinzan]

Ponting, for anyone who has actually seen them both bat. More dominance, more versatility, more swagger. Could intimidate the opposition in a way Smith never has.

This. From a NZ POV Ponting used to batter us into the dirt if he batted for any amount of time, whereas Smith it seems more like paper-cuts and while he's obviously a great run-scorer he just didn't seem to take the game from the opposition like Punter.

 

[centurymaker]

DRS has been a game changer for spinners in particular, hence even on flat decks matches are finishing inside 4 days in India.

India refused to have DRS both home and away up until late 2016, when they finally used it in a 5 match series vs England at home and were satisfied and accepted it from that point onwards both home and away.

I recall they had had a bad experience with it in an away series vs Lanka in 2008/09 and because of that outright rejected it for several years

 

[shortpitched713]

Smith>Border >Ponting >Waugh is the correct order.

Smith >> Chappell > Border = Ponting > Waugh

 

[Raz0r6ack]

The central question is whether his totally-out-of-control trigger movement across the crease, which is very obviously caused by him opening and being far too amped up against the new ball, is a permanent thing or whether it's something he can fix in the off-season where (hopefully) he has a long break to work these things out. As it is, he's walking so far outside off stump that frankly he seems like a walking wicket to anything vaguely straight - and is nicking off to wide balls too - but the one innings where he hasn't done that, at Brisbane, he looked imperious - if you watch highlights you'll notice that his trigger movement was much smaller and more composed there than it was in this NZ series:

View attachment 39599

Compare this to the way he batted yesterday where you could see all of leg stump and part of middle when he was setting up at the crease. So I don't think it's completely settled yet whether he's fallen off a cliff or not.

Geoff Boycott dissects Steve Smith's technique as a top order batsman in 2015: "He's not a number 3 against the moving ball".

 

[_00_deathscar]

Basically none of Kohli's runs there in that peak came on rank turners. Apart from a couple of games against Australia, India barely rolled out any bunsens during that period. Kohli's best work in that peak period came away from home where runscoring was legitimately hard.

Is the Kolhi basically 0 runs all series vs Australia in that timeframe too? Because to still average 96 after that is mad

 

[_00_deathscar]

Oh, you and your black and white players

I’m pretty sure that’s racist

 

[srbhkshk]

India refused to have DRS both home and away up until late 2016, when they finally used it in a 5 match series vs England at home and were satisfied and accepted it from that point onwards both home and away.

I recall they had had a bad experience with it in an away series vs Lanka in 2008/09 and because of that outright rejected it for several years

My memory is that this specific incident in the 2011 World Cup match (Ball - 24.6 , Yuvraj to Bell) strongly affected Indian opinion about DRS as well. DRS essentially showed the ball hitting the middle of the off/middle stump but Bowden refused to change his decision anyway. The incident is kinda burned into my mind because of the Bowden saying no to something that looked plumb af and the incredulous faces of the Indian team after this.

 

[Spark]

My memory is that this specific incident in the 2011 World Cup match (Ball - 24.6 , Yuvraj to Bell) strongly affected Indian opinion about DRS as well. DRS essentially showed the ball hitting the middle of the off/middle stump but Bowden refused to change his decision anyway. The incident is kinda burned into my mind because of the Bowden saying no to something that looked plumb af and the incredulous faces of the Indian team after this.

I remember this. It's kind of baffling how their reaction was "man DRS sucks" and not "man Billy Bowden is ****ing incompetent, can we please retire this oaf"

 

[Coronis]

I’m pretty sure that’s racist

Sounds more inclusive to me

 

[centurymaker]

My memory is that this specific incident in the 2011 World Cup match (Ball - 24.6 , Yuvraj to Bell) strongly affected Indian opinion about DRS as well. DRS essentially showed the ball hitting the middle of the off/middle stump but Bowden refused to change his decision anyway. The incident is kinda burned into my mind because of the Bowden saying no to something that looked plumb af and the incredulous faces of the Indian team after this.

Oh yes this too

 

[Burgey]

I remember this. It's kind of baffling how their reaction was "man DRS sucks" and not "man Billy Bowden is ****ing incompetent, can we please retire this oaf"

Tendulkar hated it. He basically held back Indian cricket for about half a dozen years.

 

[Socerer 01]

Tendulkar hated it. He basically held back Indian cricket for about half a dozen years.

wasnt Dhoni the one who hated it and held it back from being implemented?

 

[ankitj]

Ponting, and it isn’t all that close for anyone who has actually seen them both bat. More dominance, more versatility, more swagger. Could intimidate the opposition in a way Smith never has.

I can say as a spectator Smith intimidates me more than Ponting did.

 

[centurymaker]

Dhoni retired from tests in 2015. India starts using it later in 2016.