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Sachin Tendulkar vs Jacques Kallis

Who was the better test cricketer?


  • Total voters
    70

Randomfan

School Boy/Girl Captain
Imran is a bit of a different case seeing as he did play as a specialist bat. It's very unfair on him as a bowler to include this period. I want to credit him for his batting phase too, as it makes him a better player, but it gets messy assessing him in different ways.

He's plenty good as a bowling AR without looking at his batting period. His average, runs, and longevity all drop, but remain excellent for a guy who is clearly a bowler first and foremost. But if you want to assess him as an AR on entire career, fair enough. At least this avoids the issue of people who will credit or discredit performances in one discipline based on agenda.
I rate him as the top 3 all rounders.

I see the point of not including tests where he played as a specialist bat in his bowling figures, but then he wasn't bowling in that last phase so it's get tricky to include that batting phase in all rounder phase, right? We can't say that let's remove the worst period for batting and bowling both to judge his all around contributions and then go back to cite 20 years of longevity and cite his entire volume of runs as an all rounder. I think it gets tricky.

I personaly don't think we need to take out 1 tests he played in first 4-5 years. 1 test is nothing. Or take out his bowling for the last phase when he was playing as specialist bat. That will only mess up his WPM but not his avg. WPM is anyway secondary after things like Avg. IK avg when he bowled less in later years is good as well. And when he did not bowl, it won't have any impact in his bowling avg.

If he had a huge decline as an all rounder like Botham then highlighting first part and second part tells us something new. Similarly, if a player has 80 tests of ATG performance then highlighting that stretch indicate the quality which we may miss due to stats declining a lot due to early years or later years. 80 tests are full career for most.

That's not the case with IK. As you said his case is comlicated, but his record is brilliant as an all rounder. Taking away this or that simply draws attention away from his actual great career record without adding much positive for him.
 

kyear2

International Coach
I think elimitating this or that is illogical if you are going to count IK as an all rounder. For good or bad, he had good batting and good bowling in different periods. Not just pretty average, I am talking about volume of runs and volume of wickets during that period as well.

In reduced period, how many runs he actually scored? If it's too less then it elimiates him as an all rounder.

I would think he has a geniuine case of being a top tier all rounder far more than being a top tier bowler. I would prefer to have his entire runs and wickets.
This is fair.
 

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
I rate him as the top 3 all rounders.

I see the point of not including tests where he played as a specialist bat in his bowling figures, but then he wasn't bowling in that last phase so it's get tricky to include that batting phase in all rounder phase, right?
I don't think when assessing IK as an allrounder that stats from 1990 onwards when he was a pure bat shouldnt be taken into consideration. They just make it more complicated.
 

Randomfan

School Boy/Girl Captain
I don't think when assessing IK as an allrounder that stats from 1990 onwards when he was a pure bat shouldnt be taken into consideration. They just make it more complicated.
Point I was making -

If we start isolating pure bat phase then it's becomes a problem to count pure bat runs for all roundner record, right? We can't really say that hey this phase was pure bat so ignore bowling but at the same time count pure bat runs as an all rounder. We should be counting both for all rounder record. I will simply count all his runs/wickets over his enire career. Everyone is aware that he had different phase and including all phase is best way to see his brilliance.

His record is brilliant as an all rounder over his entire career counting volume/quality of runs/wickets. With slicing and dicing, we start getting into tricky situations without adding much to his stature. Yes, something may look better with slicing and dicing, but something else will start loking worse. That's the nature of him doing more as bowler initially then more as a batsman later.
 

subshakerz

Hall of Fame Member
If we start isolating pure bat phase then it's becomes a problem to count pure bat runs for all roundner record, right? We can't really say that hey this phase was pure bat so ignore bowling but at the same time count pure bat runs as an all rounder.
No I argue NOT to count pure bat late career runs and wickets for his allround phase.
 

Randomfan

School Boy/Girl Captain
No I argue NOT to count pure bat late career runs and wickets for his allround phase.
I have read several arguments like( Not all of them necessarily from you, I don''t remember who made what argument to be honest)

We should exclude 1 test played in teen year.
We should not count start years and sometime even later years to keep bowling avg or SR down.
We should not count some years for all rounder to keep all rounder stats up.
We should not count bowling in later years to keep WPM stats high.
We should count all years to cite his 20 years of longevity.

I hope you see a problem with all these arguments taken togther. Those years keep changing based on which stats make him look better or worse depending on who is making the argument. Most of the times, these adjustment makes very little difference in his career output except it can artificially show a bit btter or a bit worse output. All these adjustments just distract from how brilliant he was as an all rounder.
 

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