Peak Botham vs Peak Sobers

[sledger]

Not at all, but determining when a "peak" begins and ends is entirely and necessarily subjective and arbitrary.

 

[subshakerz]

Not at all, but determining when a "peak" begins and ends is entirely and necessarily subjective and arbitrary.

That's not the same as saying it doesn't exist tho. And it many cases it is very clear when a peak begins. Many not so.

 

[sledger]

That's not the same as saying it doesn't exist tho.

Well if I see anyone saying that I'll be sure to let you know immediately.

 

[Coronis]

Best batsman in Asia is clearly Sehwag.

Beat batsman in Asia for me, means succeeding in all Asian conditions, which Sehwag didn’t and Younis did.

 

[Migara]

lol. Your whole schtick was trying to say Sobers batting peak is better than Botham’s all round peak, and now you’re saying Imran’s bowling peak is better than Botham’s all round peak too.

Do you just hate Botham or something?

Two separate statements have hit two separate raw nerves it seems.

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

Brilliant stat about Botham: The cricketer with most occurrences of a century and a fifer in the same match: 5 times. And four of those performances in his peak period. The next best cricketers have less than half of this(Ashwin and Jadeja both are in the next best bracket).

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

I think atleast it can be agreed Peak Botham was the most balanced allrounder equally capable of winning the match with either bat or ball, and on more than a few occasions, doing it with both in the same match.

 

[HouHsiaoHsien]

Botham in a stretch of 22 tests averaged 44+ with the bat with 6 hundreds(performances against Lillee, Hadlee and great counterattacking knocks) , and 125 wickets@ 18.6 with 12 5fers. He was a much better bat than Imran was during his 16 test peak(Imran only managed one hundred). He had good stats across all oppositions and conditions. In this period he managed the feat of a 100 and 5 fer in the same match three times, more than anyone else ever did in their whole career.

 

[howitzer]

Brilliant stat about Botham: The cricketer with most occurrences of a century and a fifer in the same match: 5 times. And four of those performances in his peak period. The next best cricketers have less than half of this(Ashwin and Jadeja both are in the next best bracket).

Think Imran was the only other with two for a while iirc. Beefy peaked really well. Just a shame it didn't last.

 

[Bolo.]

Sobers for the length of his peak.

 

[howitzer]

Botham in a stretch of 22 tests averaged 44+ with the bat with 6 hundreds(performances against Lillee, Hadlee and great counterattacking knocks) , and 125 wickets@ 18.6 with 12 5fers. He was a much better bat than Imran was during his 16 test peak(Imran only managed one hundred). He had good stats across all oppositions and conditions. In this period he managed the feat of a 100 and 5 fer in the same match three times, more than anyone else ever did in their whole career.

If you want Sobers at his closest to a pure all-rounder (i.e. his most successful bowling period) then from the beginning of 1962 up until the New Year Test of 1966/67 Sobers played 22 Tests (actually all the Tests played by the Windies in that time frame so full longevity) and averaged 62.28 with the bat (one can find much better batting peaks than this but it's still very good) whilst also taking 87 wickets at 26.45. That's very nearly 4wpm at an average that stands up really well in the higher scoring time frame it was done in.

Extend it a couple of years to the Boxing Day Test in 1968 and he has 30 Tests with a batting average of 65.83 and 113 wickets at 27.76. Slightly less purity of all-rounder but still a magnificent record.

Peak Botham was certainly a purer all-rounder than Peak Sobers but if you are asking me to pick just one for my team it's the latter 90% of the time. Only if I had a side with strong batting and relatively weak bowling like 2000s India would I take Botham.

Also if you think English Test spam compared to other teams these days is ridiculous then look at that 1962-66/7 period that Windies only played 22 Tests during. England played 55 over that period. The next highest was Australia with 32. That's nuts.

 

[ankitj]

Voted for peak Botham because he is the only one:

1. To pick a fiver and score a century in the same match 5 times; no one has done it more than twice ¹
2. To score 10+ centuries and take 10+ fivers over his career
3. To attain 800+ ICC rating points as both batsman and bowler

¹ Correction: Ashwin has done it thrice now.

 

[shortpitched713]

1. To attain 800+ ICC rating points as both batsman and bowler

Was this concurrently?

 

[ankitj]

Was this concurrently?

Don't think so

 

[ankitj]

1. To pick a fiver and score a century 5 times; no one has done it more than twice

Correction. Ashwin has now done this thrice.

 

[shortpitched713]

Correction. Ashwin has now done this thrice.

Beast bowler, beast allrounder, ATG in both categories confirmed.

Old, uncovered pitch / black and white era spinner supporters in shambles.

 

[ankitj]

Beast bowler, beast allrounder, ATG in both categories confirmed.

Old, uncovered pitch / black and white era spinner supporters in shambles.

@subshakerz

 

[kyear2]

Beast bowler, beast allrounder, ATG in both categories confirmed.

Old, uncovered pitch / black and white era spinner supporters in shambles.

Really dude?

 

[howitzer]

Was this concurrently?

No. His bowling rating was 754 the one Test he had 800+ batting for.

If we're talking ratings Botham's highest AR rating was 646 after the India Test in 1980. Sobers peaked at 669 after the New Year Test of 1966/67. His rating was also 655 after the 1968 Boxing Day Test.

 

[AndrewB]

There are some posts on the subject in this thread from a few years ago.