• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Steve Waugh vs Ricky Ponting in Tests?

Steve Waugh vs Ricky Ponting


  • Total voters
    43

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
Reading the first part I almost thought we found a middle ground.... No, saying a batsman like Gavaskar is "less skillful" than Sehwag; because Sehwag is more dominant; is just wrong. And it's also wrong to think dominant batsmen don't need support any more than passive ones. Reference; George Headley. If you think the things like patience and perseverance are secondary and not as important as dominance; I don't think we really have much to continue this discussion on.
You really have lost it. You're interpreting the posts -the way you want to interpret them and not how we are presenting them.

No one is saying patience is secondary. Even a dominant innings requires a lot of patience and excellence decision making- which balls to defend, which to leave and which to score off. You are not trying to play a quick fire short innings. You are trying to play a long productive innings like any other batter.

And who is comparing Sehwag with Gavaskar? Sehwag is not close to Gavaskar as an opener. He was quite technically deficient. Meanwhile, Gavaskar played in a completely different era without helmets and against hostile bowling as an opener. Get hit on the head/neck and you could get seriously hurt and potentially even die. So you had to play late and more cautiously. Look at the run rates back then. Game has changed.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
You really have lost it. You're interpreting the posts -the way you want to interpret them and not how we are presenting them.

No one is saying patience is secondary. Even a dominant innings requires a lot of patience and excellence decision making- which balls to defend, which to leave and which to score off. You are not trying to play a quick fire short innings. You are trying to play a long productive innings like any other batter.

And who is comparing Sehwag with Gavaskar? Sehwag is not close to Gavaskar as an opener. He was quite technically deficient. Meanwhile, Gavaskar played in a completely different era without helmets and against hostile bowling as an opener. Get hit on the head/neck and you could get seriously hurt and potentially even die. So you had to play late and more cautiously. Look at the run rates back then. Game has changed.
You literally said a passive batsman needs to rely on patience and need other greats around them..... How am I interpreting it differently??
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
You literally said a passive batsman needs to rely on patience and need other greats around them..... How am I interpreting it differently??
I literally said they rely 'more' on patience/perseverance. It's relative. They probably have fewer scoring areas so they have to wait longer for their scoring opportunities or they get bogged down trying to stay in.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
I literally said they need 'more' patience/perseverance. They probably have fewer scoring areas so they have to wait longer for their scoring opportunities or they get bogged down trying to stay in.
But if someone can 'stay in' and return on those; I can't see all the fuzz you have. An anchor is a hella underrated and highly dismissed job. Every great team needed a batsman deep down who could rescue their innings and not always by attacking; Steve Waugh is among the very finest of those.
 

Coronis

International Coach
Steve Waugh is by far one of if not the best back the wall batsman. And then by the batting position argument, shouldn't Pujara be easily ahead of Laxman. Waugh for instance performed really good away against India, England, South Africa and West Indies. Ponting's away record is not really anything to write home about.
Shockingly playing for a more dominant team and further up the order tends to make back to the wall innings rarer.



No, definitely I know about crickets:

Crickets are orthopteran insects which are related to bush crickets, and, more distantly, to grasshoppers. In older literature, such as Imms,[3] "crickets" were placed at the family level (i.e. Gryllidae), but contemporary authorities including Otte now place them in the superfamily Grylloidea.[1] The word has been used in combination to describe more distantly related taxa[3] in the suborder Ensifera, such as king crickets and mole crickets.

Cricket (insect)
Temporal range: Triassic–Recent
PreꞒ

O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N




[1]
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Families
Synonyms[2]
Juvenile Gryllus campestris
Juvenile Gryllus campestris
Domain:Eukaryota
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Arthropoda
Class:Insecta
Order:Orthoptera
Suborder:Ensifera
Infraorder:Gryllidea
Superfamily:Grylloidea
Laicharting, 1781[2]
See Taxonomy section
  • Gryllides Laicharting, 1781
  • Paragryllidae Desutter-Grandcolas, 1987
Crickets have mainly cylindrically shaped bodies, round heads, and long antennae. Behind the head is a smooth, robust pronotum. The abdomen ends in a pair of long cerci; females have a long, cylindrical ovipositor. Diagnostic features include legs with 3-segmented tarsi; as with many Orthoptera, the hind legs have enlarged femora, providing power for jumping. The front wings are adapted as tough, leathery elytra, and some crickets chirp by rubbing parts of these together. The hind wings are membranous and folded when not in use for flight; many species, however, are flightless. The largest members of the family are the bull crickets, Brachytrupes, which are up to 5 cm (2 in) long.

Crickets are distributed all around the world except at latitudes 55° or higher, with the greatest diversity being in the tropics. They occur in varied habitats from grassland, bushes, and forests to marshes, beaches, and caves. Crickets are mainly nocturnal, and are best known for the loud, persistent, chirping song of males trying to attract females, although some species are mute. The singing species have good hearing, via the tympana on the tibiae of the front legs.

Crickets often appear as characters in literature. The Talking Cricket features in Carlo Collodi's 1883 children's book, The Adventures of Pinocchio, and in films based on the book. The insect is central to Charles Dickens's 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth and George Selden's 1960 The Cricket in Times Square. Crickets are celebrated in poems by William Wordsworth, John Keats, Du Fu and Vladimir Nazor. They are kept as pets in countries from China to Europe, sometimes for cricket fighting. Crickets are efficient at converting their food into body mass, making them a candidate for food production. They are used as human food in Southeast Asia, where they are sold deep-fried in markets as snacks. They are also used to feed carnivorous pets and zoo animals. In Brazilian folklore, crickets feature as omens of various events.
Looks like this post was AI generated, I don’t think this is your own knowledge at all!
 

Coronis

International Coach
But if someone can 'stay in' and return on those; I can't see all the fuzz you have. An anchor is a hella underrated and highly dismissed job. Every great team needed a batsman deep down who could rescue their innings and not always by attacking; Steve Waugh is among the very finest of those.
And every great team also needed someone who could dominate early on and grind the opponent down, Ponting is also one of the finest of those. I don’t believe one is inherently more valuable than the other.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
Shockingly playing for a more dominant team and further up the order tends to make back to the wall innings rarer.





Looks like this post was AI generated, I don’t think this is your own knowledge at all!
But he still has plenty of those! And Australia's rise to World dominance truly began when Steve Waugh already was an established player in the side; the mid 80s-early 90s are some of the weakest Australian teams in the last 50 years.

And Noooo.... Why would that be AI generated! That's some very common knowledge; you could just look up Wikipedia....
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
And every great team also needed someone who could dominate early on and grind the opponent down, Ponting is also one of the finest of those. I don’t believe one is inherently more valuable than the other.
I don't too..... But most does apparently that the dominator is more valuable. Honestly, among every single vote here; I am truly shocked by only your vote.
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
But if someone can 'stay in' and return on those; I can't see all the fuzz you have. An anchor is a hella underrated and highly dismissed job. Every great team needed a batsman deep down who could rescue their innings and not always by attacking; Steve Waugh is among the very finest of those.
Yeah every team needs an achor. We are dealing with things that can't be reflected in individual stats.

An anchor adds value in their own way keeping you solid, while a dominant batter capitalises and takes the game away.

A batsman like Ponting was also capable of playing an achor type of innings according to the situation. And Steve Waugh had gears.
 

Coronis

International Coach
I don't too..... But most does apparently that the dominator is more valuable. Honestly, among every single vote here; I am truly shocked by only your vote.
Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t just automatically pick the batsman with the lower SR in a close comparison.

I don’t think there’s much between Waugh and Ponting, I prefer Ponting myself but I can definitely see why people would prefer Waugh, and would never fault them for doing so. I don’t think there’s a truly wrong answer here, but as with any comparison, we are an overly passionate bunch.

Personally at last check I believe I have them at 16th and 18th respectively. You’ll never guess which bloke lines up at 17th
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
I don't too..... But most does apparently that the dominator is more valuable. Honestly, among every single vote here; I am truly shocked by only your vote.
Coz although both Ponting and Waugh are greats and had wonderful careers, Ponting was just that small bit better.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah every team needs an achor. We are dealing with things that can't be reflected in individual stats.

An anchor adds value in their own way keeping you solid, while a dominant batter capitalises and takes the game away.

A batsman like Ponting was also capable of playing an achor type of innings according to the situation. And Steve Waugh had gears.
Exactly. I don't disagree on any of that. I don't necessarily think dominators are better than anchors like some do; and for the majority of their careers, Ricky Ponting batted behind a very good and successful openers, not only Hayden and Langer; but also Slater, Mark Taylor, Katich, etc. It wasn't like he was George Headley, coming in to crease very soon. Ponting enjoyed the 2000s flat pitches and bowling quality dip much more than Waugh; that alone overcomes their batting position difference. And add to that, Ponting's away record against challenging teams were all around good, but not something suiting an ATG. Steve Waugh dominated top tier attacks of WI and SA at their home; and did much better than Ponting in India and England.
 

capt_Luffy

Cricketer Of The Year
Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t just automatically pick the batsman with the lower SR in a close comparison.

I don’t think there’s much between Waugh and Ponting, I prefer Ponting myself but I can definitely see why people would prefer Waugh, and would never fault them for doing so. I don’t think there’s a truly wrong answer here, but as with any comparison, we are an overly passionate bunch.

Personally at last check I believe I have them at 16th and 18th respectively. You’ll never guess which bloke lines up at 17th
I sure don't, and hopefully it's not Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
More than half of Australia's Tests were played at home.
5.5/10 at home
1.5/10 in India & West Indies
1/10 ..in England
1/10 ..in South Africa & New Zealand
1/10 ..in Pakistan & Sri Lanka

something like that..

So if a player is crap in SA and NZ, they are only 1/10 (one tenth) unsuccessful. Most important thing is to be absolutely great at Home because thats where >50% of your matches are.

So I think people are giving way too much importance to performances in individual away countries, forgetting about the really low volume of matches a player plays in such countries. So whether you avg 35 or avg 50 in an away nation could be all done to luck or prevailing factors -

Factors such as - when you toured each time, your overall form heading into the tours, type of pitches you played on, weather conditions, situations you faced, morale, match & series position, bowlers you faced, catches caught/dropped, form of opposition bowlers, magic balls, rub of the green, your form vs certain bowlers, how well/poorly they bowled, grounds you played on.... list goes on..
 
Last edited:

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
Tours are far apart and all it takes is some magic balls to dismiss you and lose some confidence and end up having an ordinary tour. On the flip side, you could get lucky have a couple of dropped catches and some nice plays and misses and next thing you know you got a big ton and have salvaged your tour.

Sometimes a player is in hot form against certain bowlers of a particular nation and thus ends up having a great tour. This may not have much to do with playing in that away nation conditions, but that you loved facing certain couple of bowlers. Or opposition may have bowled poorly and you really benefited from that.

Sample size plays a great role. Since away matches in a particular nation are only a handful over a career, just few good innings could make or break your record there. And those few good innings could be a product of so many other factors besides it necessarily meaning that 'player xx plays well in that nation'

My point is that the prominent factor in an away record is not necessarily the away country's conditions! Because there are so many factors at play (besides local conditions) that determine your output in a series. Just because you avg 60 in England or WI doesn't mean you are awesome in 'that' country, especially based on the 9 tests you have played there! Plus these sample sizes are nothing. And averages are super volatile over small sample sizes, rendering them less useful.

In conclusion, stop obsessing over an away average in a particular nation as it represents just 5% to 10% of a player's career. It's their overall career that counts the most. And the impact they had.
 
Last edited:

Top