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Gilchrist Vs Donald
- Thread starter Jumno
- Start date
Arachnödouche2.0
School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Gilchrist for sure. Revolutionized his discipline and the sport in general.
kyear2
International Coach
He revolutionized the position yes. But did he have more impact, or was more valuable? I would suggest not quite.
But it's really close between these two.
PlayerComparisons
International Vice-Captain
Gilchrist
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Gilly is overrated. Donald.
This is some pretty heavy hyperbole. He didn't kick off the trend of keeper bats, just accelerated it. Stewart and Flower started before him, as did Boucher, who was expected to be a better bat than he ended up as. Plus Sanga who started just after him, before Gilchrist's impact was clear, and who later made way for a specialist keeper.
Anyway, Gilchrist is still the answer to this poll.
Arachnödouche2.0
School Boy/Girl Cricketer
You know what I mean, he broke the staid, conventional keeper-batsman mold. The others you mentioned were primarily batsmen who could keep respectably and frequently gave up glove duty to focus exclusively on batting, but Gilchrist ushered in the school of thought that a keeper who could bat the way he did was the proverbial El Dorado for teams trying to transform their fortunes. It's proven to be as elusive a search too but as Pant's demonstrating presently, the appeal behind the idea and its potential rewards remain irresistible.
DrWolverine
U19 Cricketer
Gilchrist more influential
If I had a choice I would pick Allan Donald. If we take both formats into consideration, Top 5 fast bowler.
If I had a choice I would pick Allan Donald. If we take both formats into consideration, Top 5 fast bowler.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Donald the better cricketer. Gilly the greater cricketer.
It's been decades of moving from pure WKs to keeper bats. It accelerated in the 90s, and was more or less finalised in the 2010s. I'm not sure what you think Gilchrist did to that process besides accelerating it?
Why are these guys different to Gilchrist, other than the fact that he is better? It's a whole bunch of teams arguably not picking their best keeper to get more batting in. If he had played in a worse lineup and been a worse keeper, we likely would have seen him getting time as a specialist bat too.
sayon basak
International Debutant
This.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion Gilly is slightly overrated.
He lucked out by skipping his early formative batting years in intl cricket thanks to Healy and debuted in the middle of his batting prime, averaging 60 odd in a batting era which gave him a dynamite ATG rep before declining.
We understand this for Hussey too which is why we don't rate him as high.
He lucked out by skipping his early formative batting years in intl cricket thanks to Healy and debuted in the middle of his batting prime, averaging 60 odd in a batting era which gave him a dynamite ATG rep before declining.
We understand this for Hussey too which is why we don't rate him as high.
Coronis
International Coach
Gilly isn’t rated that high as a batsman either. He’s just correctly rated as clearly above other keeper batsman.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Not so sure about that. Maybe on this forum it's true.
But let's be frank, if he averaged 42/43, we would see him differently.
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Prince EWS
Global Moderator
TJB rates him really highly as a batsman alone. This thing I did had him ranked 127th of all time which is probably a bit lower than most people here, but the next best full-time WKB who isn't Flower is Waite at 178th (Ames 184th, Prior 237th). Flower was way ahead in 34th but you all know how I regard him as a keeper.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
I think this was the Kimber argument. Flower was a proper middle order bat, Gilly a lower order basher, and the former just more quality.
But if you reduce Gilly a few points for the fact that he skipped his formative years and got prime years in a batting era, the gap seems wider.
ataraxia
International Coach
Dhoni 209th; Mushfiq 220th and probably much higher now?
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Mushfiqur not a full time keeper so I didn't count him, but yeah he'd have climbed from that position (by scoring runs while not keeping, lol). I did miss Dhoni.
ataraxia
International Coach
Fair enough. Didn't realise that he wasn't always a keeper before Liton took over.
kyear2
International Coach
Oh definitely.
He played in the same era as Punter, who's downgraded by many because of said era. Not to add coming in much lower in the order, often with no pressure and a green light to attack.
He's a little over rated as a batsman, but he's become under rated with the gloves to some extent.
And he still has a healthy gap over Knotty.
But he batted in literally the strongest batting lineup of all time, in a flat era, and was the cheat code coming in at 7 when the attack was already, for the most part beaten down.