Jack Hobbs vs Gary Sobers

[honestbharani]

I think Chennai wasn’t the ideal place to start pace foundation because of weather (humidity)Should have opened it in Mohali or Himachal (Colder weather)

I think it was because of the other facilities we had. And IIRC, Bumrah, Bhuvi, Ishant and Shami have all been there. So has Siraj I think.

 

[Coronis]

Bumrah was literally unearthed at MRF but sure, continue.

tbh I just did quick googles of them and couldn’t find any links so meh

 

[honestbharani]

tbh I just did quick googles of them and couldn’t find any links so meh

Inside the bowling machine called MRF Pace Foundation that helped India hit the seam and win abroad

The Indian fast-bowling phenomenon did not happen overnight. Since 1987, MRF Pace Foundation has been working tirelessly to churn out genuine fast bowlers – from Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan to Ishant Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah. It is perhaps the most successful corporate intervention in...

www.google.com

Literally first link when I googled just now.

 

[honestbharani]

'The last two...': Glenn McGrath decodes how speedster Jasprit Bumrah generates pace | Cricket News - Times of India

Cricket News: Legendary Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath stressed that considering Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah's unique bowling action and workload, it is imper

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The second link. I wonder what you actually googled tbh.

 

[Coronis]

'The last two...': Glenn McGrath decodes how speedster Jasprit Bumrah generates pace | Cricket News - Times of India

Cricket News: Legendary Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath stressed that considering Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah's unique bowling action and workload, it is imper

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The second link. I wonder what you actually googled tbh.

I googled Jasprit Bumrah MRF Foundation. I saw a bunch of articles with comments about him playing formats that didn’t actually mention him being a part of it, just that McGrath was commenting on it (and him being Director) and burning out and others behind paywalls. I also checked information about the mrf foundation on wikipedia and it only listed Zaheer and Ishant.

 

[Sunil1z]

Love this forum.
The thread is about Hobbs vs Sobers and we are discussing MRF pace academy

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

Love this forum.
The thread is about Hobbs vs Sobers and we are discussing MRF pace academy

Who’d you pick?

 

[Sunil1z]

Who’d you pick?

Sobers .
If 2 batsmen have similar average, I always pick modern one .

 

[_00_deathscar]

Strikes me as a bit odd that India randomly started popping out quality pacers after 80 years of mediocrity. **** happens

Yes, but Pakistan didn’t.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Strikes me as a bit odd that India randomly started popping out quality pacers after 80 years of mediocrity. **** happens

What I was actually trying to say here was this...

Since then, we've had debates on whether guys like Kumble (600+ wickets), Ashwin (500+ wickets) or Ravi Jadeja who averages 20 for about 60% of the matches he plays in are ATG bowlers (but let's not start that debate again here since there's a whole thread with 1,000+ pages for it...the former 2 are at best a borderline call, the latter one isn't as a bowler alone).

The only two we really have a consensus on are Warne and Murali, and both got smacked around in India.

The challenges these spinners (and indeed players) are facing gets harder and harder with a greater variety of conditions and so many other things to account for - so I don't take the "guy averaged 20 in the 1920s [in about 2 countries] so he must have been an ATG" argument at face value necessarily.

It's very, very difficult to rate these players from way back when, where there is minimal or in some cases zero footage available.

Again, that's why it's perplexing that other sports don't seem to have such a hard on for the old timers, but cricket seems to.

And by the way, the first (officially awarded) test match was 1876/1877?
The first football league in England was in 1888/1889, with the first FA Cup game in 1871.

There isn't that much in it in terms of timeline - but in discussions on forums, cricket seems to bizarrely sway towards picking some guy from the 1910s that no one ever saw. The amount of these seems to be massively overrepresented - just as an impression.
Football tends to (generally) pick players from around the 50s onwards, with a very small handful from an earlier era.

 

[shortpitched713]

What I was actually trying to say here was this...

Since then, we've had debates on whether guys like Kumble (600+ wickets), Ashwin (500+ wickets) or Ravi Jadeja who averages 20 for about 60% of the matches he plays in are ATG bowlers (but let's not start that debate again here since there's a whole thread with 1,000+ pages for it...the former 2 are at best a borderline call, the latter one isn't as a bowler alone).

The only two we really have a consensus on are Warne and Murali, and both got smacked around in India.

The challenges these spinners (and indeed players) are facing gets harder and harder with a greater variety of conditions and so many other things to account for - so I don't take the "guy averaged 20 in the 1920s [in about 2 countries] so he must have been an ATG" argument at face value necessarily.

It's very, very difficult to rate these players from way back when, where there is minimal or in some cases zero footage available.

Again, that's why it's perplexing that other sports don't seem to have such a hard on for the old timers, but cricket seems to.

And by the way, the first (officially awarded) test match was 1876/1877?
The first football league in England was in 1888/1889, with the first FA Cup game in 1871.

There isn't that much in it in terms of timeline - but in discussions on forums, cricket seems to bizarrely sway towards picking some guy from the 1910s that no one ever saw. The amount of these seems to be massively overrepresented - just as an impression.
Football tends to (generally) pick players from around the 50s onwards, with a very small handful from an earlier era.

Agreed 100%.

In football AT XI discussions, no one gets picked from a time before Pele.

Cricket should do the same, and should not really consider for serious quality anyone from a time before Bradman, but we fall foul of this constantly.

WG Grace, Barnes, Hobbs as historical signposts are immense. As meaningfully comparable all time quality cricketers they are nothing more than a gigantic question mark.

 

[Coronis]

What I was actually trying to say here was this...

Since then, we've had debates on whether guys like Kumble (600+ wickets), Ashwin (500+ wickets) or Ravi Jadeja who averages 20 for about 60% of the matches he plays in are ATG bowlers (but let's not start that debate again here since there's a whole thread with 1,000+ pages for it...the former 2 are at best a borderline call, the latter one isn't as a bowler alone).

The only two we really have a consensus on are Warne and Murali, and both got smacked around in India.

The challenges these spinners (and indeed players) are facing gets harder and harder with a greater variety of conditions and so many other things to account for - so I don't take the "guy averaged 20 in the 1920s [in about 2 countries] so he must have been an ATG" argument at face value necessarily.

It's very, very difficult to rate these players from way back when, where there is minimal or in some cases zero footage available.

Again, that's why it's perplexing that other sports don't seem to have such a hard on for the old timers, but cricket seems to.

And by the way, the first (officially awarded) test match was 1876/1877?
The first football league in England was in 1888/1889, with the first FA Cup game in 1871.

There isn't that much in it in terms of timeline - but in discussions on forums, cricket seems to bizarrely sway towards picking some guy from the 1910s that no one ever saw. The amount of these seems to be massively overrepresented - just as an impression.
Football tends to (generally) pick players from around the 50s onwards, with a very small handful from an earlier era.

And as stated earlier in the thread for reasons we’ve mentioned, its not just cricket. Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb etc. are all names consistently brought up in all time player discussions. (and as a non baseball fan, these are just the ones I’ve heard of)

 

[shortpitched713]

And as stated earlier in the thread for reasons we’ve mentioned, its not just cricket. Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb etc. are all names consistently brought up in all time player discussions. (and as a non baseball fan, these are just the ones I’ve heard of)

Brought up, and actually put in concensus AT teams are 2 different things. Only Babe Ruth out of those names should have a shot.

And it's not because we actually know his game would translate into dominance today in what are vastly different conditions. We just assume he has the potential because his statistical dominance is of such an outlier level that he must be at least worth a shot. Bradman too is such an exception (nay, he should be the very trope namer, of old-timer with statistically impossible dominance). But I think it's delusional to think the games have not since passed by almost all other contenders as they were then.

 

[Coronis]

Brought up, and actually put in concensus AT teams are 2 different things. Only Babe Ruth out of those names should have a shot.

And it's not because we actually know his game would translate into dominance today in what are vastly different conditions. We just assume he has the potential because his statistical dominance is of such an outlier level that he must be at least worth a shot. Bradman too is such an exception (nay, he should be the very trope namer, of old-timer with statistically impossible dominance). But I think it's delusional to think the games have not since passed by almost all other contenders as they were then.

But thats the crux of the argument. Its as stupid to say magically bringing Hobbs or anybody else to 2024 they would average the same and play exactly the same as to say putting Smith or anyone else in a past era would lead to the same for them. Hobbs doesn’t have experience with modern conditions or bowlers, Smith doesn’t have experience with past conditions or bowlers. There’s no telling how Smith would perform on a sticky wicket in the 1920’s. There’s also no telling how Hobbs would perform on a raging turner in India.

Its stupid to inherently downgrade one or the other.

 

[honestbharani]

I googled Jasprit Bumrah MRF Foundation. I saw a bunch of articles with comments about him playing formats that didn’t actually mention him being a part of it, just that McGrath was commenting on it (and him being Director) and burning out and others behind paywalls. I also checked information about the mrf foundation on wikipedia and it only listed Zaheer and Ishant.

Again, the first link. It's ok, dude. You posted something without any idea of what it was. Move on.

 

[Patience and Accuracy+Gut]

And as stated earlier in the thread for reasons we’ve mentioned, its not just cricket. Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb etc. are all names consistently brought up in all time player discussions. (and as a non baseball fan, these are just the ones I’ve heard of)

Soccer has basically no relation with cricket. Baseball is ofc lot close and the older guys are valued just as much if not more than cricket.

 

[centurymaker]

Yup. O’Reilly is a huge factor, if you go with Holding - you only have Sobers bowling spin (he was mostly effective with pace) and Lillee, Lindwall and Davidson are all ATG pacers. Bradman is Bradman. Windies mostly have better batsmen there, but we have Bradman. He’s further ahead of Sobers Lara or Viv or Headley than they are of Marsh or Dujon - more than enough to overcome the distance between Chappell, Border and Harvey vs the rest of the middle order.

WI attack is the most lethal attack of all time.
They bowl not only to take wickets cheaply but to cause terror, pain and injury. Bradman would have to do well to average even 40 against them, given how he had a hard time against significantly inferior bodyline. So there's no Bradman advantage against this lot. IMO Chappell might fare better than your no.3.

And let's not talk about 20s O'Reilly as he will get obliterated by Sobers, Lara and Viv.

So I agree with others that Mcgrath + Gilly are key to 'balancing' the odds for Aus against WI ATXI.

 

[shortpitched713]

Soccer has basically no relation with cricket. Baseball is ofc lot close and the older guys are valued just as much if not more than cricket.

Not really. Even the old timers rarely seriously bring up anyone other than Ruth, and the occasional Ted Williams stans.

The dead ball era was an inherently different game, with different skillets valued, as compared to the beefy longball and power pitching centered game the modern players have honed.

Cricket too has undergone an evolution, but we're still stuck idealizing the past, even to the point of constraining and hurting present players by pushing them to emulate certain aspects of "proper batting technique" for example.

 

[Patience and Accuracy+Gut]

And let's not talk about 20s O'Reilly as he will get obliterated by Sobers, Lara and Viv.

So I agree with others that Mcgrath + Gilly are key to 'balancing' the odds for Aus against WI ATXI.

O’Reilly played in 30s. He ain’t getting murdered by nobody. Even Bradman couldn’t do it neither could any other ATG, so how on earth is he no factor against Sobers, Lara, Viv etc? Viv had huge troubles against Chandra, he would be going through hell against O’Reilly.

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

O’Reilly played in 30s. He ain’t getting murdered by nobody. Even Bradman couldn’t do it neither could any other ATG, so how on earth is he no factor against Sobers, Lara, Viv etc? Viv had huge troubles against Chandra, he would be going through hell against O’Reilly.

False. Viv had this problem in his debut series. Smashed the quartet in WI, on spin friendly pitches, where Bedi and Chandra took as many wickets each as Holding