Good effort. I'd go:
I like going for Sanga at 3 and Pant as the keeper although I prefer Rohit to karunaratne. For the Ashes Xi it was a toss up b/w KP and Clarke but Clarke's away record isn't too great and hence went with KP. CDG for Holder also I agree, just forgot about CDG tbh. Don't agree with Taylor for Gayle though, don't think Taylor is that much better than him to warrant shifting the batting order and putting Amla as an opener to fit him in.
And I think, based on Everything we know and you lacking eye Test, that's crazy. If Fredfertang or Peterhrt rates him that high I can understand because eye Test is the main basis behind that rating, but always gets a bit fuzzy with you because you rank him that high just because you aren't satisfied by the rate Hutton and Sunny scored at.
With Warne, Lillee, Barnes and McGrath; I disagree. Also re Jadeja and Ashwin, with Murali already offering off breaks, I find another spinner turning the ball in the same direction redundant.
Even if you are completely convinced of his quality, there are plenty of questions about how good he was in comparison to the other openers. They represent the best and worst of players in these teams. Even if you really rate him, you can't judge him relative to the other openers with any degree of confidence.
1. There's quite a bit of his batting online, quite a bit.
Ok, you're using Barnes, I don't.
He batted alongside Greenidge for years and was clearly the better of the two.
Ratings pretty much always reward flash at the expense of functionality. Barry is no doubt benefiting from this. In his case, it might be more understandable than most as we are assessing him primarily on 3 day games where fast striking could be very beneficial. But extrapolating this usefulness to 5 day games from an opener is likely to be a mistake, especially for an opener.
I think you know full well how different the two's situations are..... As I said, for the following reasons, I rate Barry highly. But can't put him above, say Victor Trumper, who did all of the above and still had a Great Test Career. Hence, around the likes of Miandad, who had a 50+ averaging career close to 2 decades; seems Perfectly fair to me.
He batted in the same competition as Turner for years and was his inferior.
Is this a comment on batting averages alone, or was Turner actually better? I have no idea.
Batting averages, far better century ratio, far better conversion rate.
Outside of batting average, these stats don't mean much. They should just be reflected in the average. Particularly meaningless in 3 day games. The second innings can be meaningless or a pseudo ODI shoot out. First innings not that far off either under the 100 over rule.
I only mentioned the bowlers as in extra ones they each had to face compared to the other. I disagree re: tons and conversion rates. Especially with both being openers and Turner being a batsman that was less aggressive than Richards I’d say his much higher rate of tons and conversions is quite an important factor.
I rate him 9th all time as a bat, the back end of the pantheon of the game, just behind Hutton.
It's strange, there's very few batsmen and bolwers who's held that mantle over the history of the game.
By playing 4 Test matches and not a single one in Sub continent..... In the 50s you mentioned Compton and May, but not the one who actually was the best of the lot, Hutton. And he often was underrated. Why? Not flashy enough. Among all the batsmen you have named, tell me one who wasn't flashy. You will find the answer. Tell me, without using peer ratings, why Barry should be rated ahead of Vijay Merchant? And with using peer ratings, why ahead of Victor Trumper?
All he said was ratings (both by peers and media) tend to reward flash over functionality.