kyear2
International Coach
A SR of 45 is not "slow". Anyways, the Gavaskar example was provided already.
Sachin, Smith and Sobers don't necessarily even compares that well as fast scoring players like Richards. They scored at a reasonable rate, Lara was fast scoring, but not that fast generally.
Yes, Sutcliffe and Hutton scored slowly because that worked the best for them. They were champion players with an excess of memorable innings and honestly, I haven't even read of a situation where they needed to score fast but didn't. Read of those of Boycott, can criticize him for that, but show me a match Hutton failed England to win/draw for scoring slowly and this discussion will have merit.
No, I think both require different sets of skills and saying one of Richards or Hutton was more skillful is delusional imo.
For a gentleman who scored at the rate he scored at, 45 wasn't slow? Just shifting the goal posts at this point.
Sobers, Smith, Tendulkar and Ponting all scored around the same rate, especially adjusting for era. And you're missing the point, it's easier to slow down when required than it is to go outside of your comfort zone to accelerate.
And yes, Hutton was criticized for his scoring rate during his career and inability or interest in dominating even lesser attacks.
You can't pretend that it takes the same amount of ability to have a career scoring at a s/r of 60 and 35.
At the end of the day, the bolwers objective is to keep the scoring rate as low as possible, there's no argument to that, hence a batsman who plays into that is preferred from the bolwers perspective that one who goes against that.
You'll just try to be contrarian for the sake of being so.