Sure, but that year is better than any Smith year, plus Smith's quality all also comes from two serieses, if he never haf those, I doubt people would consider him even an ATG, so it's not like it's Viv alone who relies on a small body of work.
Smith has at least a 5-7 average boost due to wickets at home.
Viv was mnt just scoring runs but scoring runs at an awesome rate against top attacks.
He's 36 years old.
No I'm not a grandpa, my oldest memory of batters are people like Waugh and Lara, but I've watched tons of Viv footage tho
I think that's really far fetched. Also it's like saying people won't consider Viv an ATG without 1976. Yes, 76 is better than year of Smith. Probably better than any year by anyone (with 1930 Don being the only competition). So he would win if the the question was who had the best year. It wasn't. Smith just scored way more in way too many different locations.
their averages are close enough in their peak times without a weak windies bashing, Smith's aggregate is better because you decide to ignore WSC, he still loses out on quality and thus loses out the whole thing of prime vs prime.
Viv went missing for half of his prime. That pretty much decided it for me. And I don't decide to ignore WSC, I rate it as I would rate Gavaskar's 188 for MCC or any similar tour/domestic match against a strong opposition. But it's not Test.
went missing for half his prime for reasons unrelated to his batsmenship, and still beats Smith's on quality. I rate it as much as Sobers's 254 against Lillee, while I rate county games a level below so fundamentally I will take WSC when rating Viv, same way you clearly took the 254 against Lillee into account when rating Sobers as #2 against true pace.
why does Smith average equal to or less than Root against every team they both have played against other than West Indies if his home pitches weren't favourable in his prime?
I won't take it among Sobers' peak till 71 kind of sense really. Also, I have way more reservations for WSC, which Imo, is the equivalent to IPL where a single man owned all the franchises.
Don't know what your first line means, and the WSC matches where Viv scored was still WSC West Indies vs WSC Australia in the peak of their feud where both team tried to kill each other in 75 and 79, IPL is discussed when rating the greatness of T20 players anyway.
It's not my words, many journalists were wary of the efforts the players gave in WSC back then as all the franchises are under the common ownership; so players getting injured will be very inefficient.
if the reasoning to ignore it is conspiracy theories then I'm probably not ignoring it personally, I would also question the amount of effort an aussie pacer puts in a match against West Indies 2 months before an Ashes series, doesn't mean I ignore the series
Sobers was a freak. Not sure it was that match or not (or even if it's a legend), but Lillee bowled bouncers at him relentlessly on a day. Some Aussie hot shot said something about Sobers not being able to see the ball and he replied that if bouncers came tomorrow, they won't see the ball. Every bouncer went for a 6 the next day.