Peak Bumrah vs Peak Imran

[Randomfan]

I said that it will be hard to find good stretch for IK away because his away record even during his best period was ordinary compared to other greats. Lots of tests against many countries with high avg and high SR. No wonder his SR even during his best period comes around 60.

IK played 38 away tests against non-minnows in his best period ( 74-87). Here is entire away record during that period, highlighted is Avg and SR. You can try to find the best 25 away test stretch out of it.

Just focus on away SR trend during his best phase, it does not paint a good picture for the greatest peak in 100 years.




Think if it this way, If you show this away SR and Avg combination trend to anyone without mentioning that it's for IK and then say that this is the output during the best period of a bowler. I doubt anyone will say that it's output of a tier 1 pacer in his best phase.

I see a comment that he had best peak in 100 years. Statistically correct, but peak seems to be largely based on home record. Away record is pretty ordinary compared to other greats even during his best phase. Great bowlers should have similar trends home and away during their peaks. Yes, he had some great series, but no big consistent stretch when playing away. Due to ball tampering and biased home umpiring, home stretch in the same period can't be given the same weight as away. Away is equal playing field for everyone specially comparing across era.

That's why I think, Bumrah has to do very little in addition to his current level to go ahead of IK. He does not need 300 plus wickets. Another 50 high quality wickets and career comparison with IK becomes lopsided in my opinion. That's not true when comparing Bumrah to greats who have good away and over all record. He needs to do more in those comparisons.

 

[ankitj]

I should calculate average value of Bumrah's wickets soon

 

[Randomfan]

No.

He was at best 3rd during his own peak.

3rd best during his own peak? Then the same peak can't be in contention for even the top 5 peak in history. Anyone having Sub 20 Avg and Sub 50 SR for long stretch away and over all both should be in contention for the top 5 peaks. Highest quality peaks can't be just based on home. You got to turn it on consistenly away as well during your peak.

I think the best peak in history goes to Marshall.

Away : Malcom Marshall ( 8 Dec 1980 and 21 Jul 1988 ) : 28 tests - 151 wickets - Avg 17.84 - SR 41
Over all : Malcom Marshall (12 Jul 1984 - 23 Nov 1990 ) : 41 tests - 215 wickets - Avg 18.55 - SR 43

2nd best peak in history goes to Bumrah.

Away : Jasprit Bumrah ( 18 Aug 2018 - 15 Jan 2025 ) : 29 tests - 144 wickets - Avg 18.91 - SR 42
Over all : Jasprit Bumrah ( 24 Jan 2018 - 31 Jan 2025 ) : 41 tests - 187 wickets - Avg 19.21 - SR 42


No other bowler has a long stretch of away and over all with sub 20 Avg + sub 45 SR. Only Marshall and Bumrah have it.

Hadlee and McGrath had long stretches with sub 20 avg with SR around 47 in away and also over all. Then we have Ambrose in contention for the top 5 peak.


Over all, the top 5 high quality peaks based on away and over all are:

1. Marshall
2. Bumrah
3. McGrath
4. Hadlee
5. Ambrose

The best peak statistically without looking at quality is IK. The longest stretch of quality peak is by McGrath/Hadlee.

 

[ankitj]

2nd best peak in history goes to Bumrah.

Away : Jasprit Bumrah ( 24 Jan 2018 - 31 Jan 2025 ) : 41 tests - 187 wickets - Avg 19.21 - SR 42
Over all : Jasprit Bumrah ( 18 Aug 2018 - 15 Jan 2025 ) : 29 tests - 144 wickets - Avg 18.91 - SR 42

You swapped away and overall?

 

[Randomfan]

You swapped away and overall?

Thanks for catching. Fixed.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

Bumrah. The Australian teams he's dominated in Australia is better than any batting lineup Imran ever faced. And Bumrah is doing it in a time of neutral umpires and without any ball tampering controversies. He may be having the best peak of any pace bowler of all time. Sucks that his body lets him down thiugh

 

[centurymaker]

Let's stop jumping the gun. Bumrah is 150+ wickets short of Imran Khan.

He should not be rated super highly until he does really well for another 2 years at least.

It's all too soon.

Plus, you lot especially Randomfan, are hell bent on jinxing him into a serious injury.

 

[centurymaker]

Bumrah is no higher than 10th in the ATG pacers' ranking.

 

[Randomfan]

Let's stop jumping the gun. Bumrah is 150+ wickets short of Imran Khan.

He should not be rated super highly until he does really well for another 2 years at least.

It's all too soon.

Plus, you lot especially Randomfan, are hell bent on jinxing him into a serious injury.

I said 50 more high quality wickets then he goes above IK without any questions. Also, it's not given that it will happen. It looks easy when a great bowler in hot form, but it's not easy with or without injury.

 

[Randomfan]

Bumrah is no higher than 10th in the ATG pacers' ranking.

That's perfectly fine. Most fans will have him somewhere nearby in ranking. To move up, he needs more wickets.

 

[smash84]

Yes, it really isn't a stretch to see Bumrah overtaking Imran soon should he continue taking wickets in the same manner.

 

[Rob Wesley]

I said that it will be hard to find good stretch for IK away because his away record even during his best period was ordinary compared to other greats. Lots of tests against many countries with high avg and high SR. No wonder his SR even during his best period comes around 60.

IK played 38 away tests against non-minnows in his best period ( 74-87). Here is entire away record during that period, highlighted is Avg and SR. You can try to find the best 25 away test stretch out of it.

Just focus on away SR trend during his best phase, it does not paint a good picture for the greatest peak in 100 years.


View attachment 45105

Think if it this way, If you show this away SR and Avg combination trend to anyone without mentioning that it's for IK and then say that this is the output during the best period of a bowler. I doubt anyone will say that it's output of a tier 1 pacer in his best phase.

I see a comment that he had best peak in 100 years. Statistically correct, but peak seems to be largely based on home record. Away record is pretty ordinary compared to other greats even during his best phase. Great bowlers should have similar trends home and away during their peaks. Yes, he had some great series, but no big consistent stretch when playing away. Due to ball tampering and biased home umpiring, home stretch in the same period can't be given the same weight as away. Away is equal playing field for everyone specially comparing across era.

That's why I think, Bumrah has to do very little in addition to his current level to go ahead of IK. He does not need 300 plus wickets. Another 50 high quality wickets and career comparison with IK becomes lopsided in my opinion. That's not true when comparing Bumrah to greats who have good away and over all record. He needs to do more in those comparisons.

Can you do the same for Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting? What is his peak away record vs top teams?I think for Lara, it won’t paint a really good picture especially his record in 90s and even Ponting also in 2000s.

I really feel we are going too much into this home away disparity especially because this is the case with numerous other greats of the game such as Lara, Ponting, Sangakkara, Root, Rabada, Cummins, Waqar, Donald, Wasim, Pollock. You remove home record and then minnow record and that’s a lot of players whose stats take a hit.

 

[Rob Wesley]

I said that it will be hard to find good stretch for IK away because his away record even during his best period was ordinary compared to other greats. Lots of tests against many countries with high avg and high SR. No wonder his SR even during his best period comes around 60.

IK played 38 away tests against non-minnows in his best period ( 74-87). Here is entire away record during that period, highlighted is Avg and SR. You can try to find the best 25 away test stretch out of it.

Just focus on away SR trend during his best phase, it does not paint a good picture for the greatest peak in 100 years.


View attachment 45105

Think if it this way, If you show this away SR and Avg combination trend to anyone without mentioning that it's for IK and then say that this is the output during the best period of a bowler. I doubt anyone will say that it's output of a tier 1 pacer in his best phase.

I see a comment that he had best peak in 100 years. Statistically correct, but peak seems to be largely based on home record. Away record is pretty ordinary compared to other greats even during his best phase. Great bowlers should have similar trends home and away during their peaks. Yes, he had some great series, but no big consistent stretch when playing away. Due to ball tampering and biased home umpiring, home stretch in the same period can't be given the same weight as away. Away is equal playing field for everyone specially comparing across era.

That's why I think, Bumrah has to do very little in addition to his current level to go ahead of IK. He does not need 300 plus wickets. Another 50 high quality wickets and career comparison with IK becomes lopsided in my opinion. That's not true when comparing Bumrah to greats who have good away and over all record. He needs to do more in those comparisons.

IK’s peak was between 1980-1986. He played 35 tests during this peak out of which 22 were at home. This peak includes 2 years of time away from cricket due to injury.

This period is comparable to Bumrah who again has his peak going for 7 years. He too had couple of injuries break which counts for about 2 years of staying away from cricket due to back injury.

The difference here is that IK played only 13 away test at his prime and picked 66 wickets at avg of 18.72.

Bumrah’s away avg is 19 or something.

So, the only thing Imran is missing is away sample set but that is understandable because everyone plays home and away both. Imran played 22 tests at home. Bumrah is an exception because he in his 7 years of peak played 30 odd tests away and only 10 at home.

Your analysis of 20 away test stretch has a flaw that someone might be at his prime for 7 years but not played 20 away tests. Someone could do the same analysis at home record of 20 test stretch and would find that Bumrah doesn’t feature in it but every single great from 70s onwards would feature in that.

 

[subshakerz]

I said that it will be hard to find good stretch for IK away because his away record even during his best period was ordinary compared to other greats.

Now you are just lying because the stars aren't in your favor. Please check his away record during his peak of 1980 to 1988. He literally has one poor series against India in 86/87 that entire period and a crazy number of successive series averaging sub 20, including in Aus, Eng and WI.

 

[subshakerz]

Bumrah. The Australian teams he's dominated in Australia is better than any batting lineup Imran ever faced. And Bumrah is doing it in a time of neutral umpires and without any ball tampering controversies. He may be having the best peak of any pace bowler of all time. Sucks that his body lets him down thiugh

The 70s early 80s Aus and 80s WI sides that faced were better than the teams Bumrah faced in Aus. The 2018 series didn't even have Smith or Warner.

And Imran was better away in his peak than Bumrah.

 

[Randomfan]

Can you do the same for Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting? What is his peak away record vs top teams?I think for Lara, it won’t paint a really good picture especially his record in 90s and even Ponting also in 2000s.

I really feel we are going too much into this home away disparity especially because this is the case with numerous other greats of the game such as Lara, Ponting, Sangakkara, Root, Rabada, Cummins, Waqar, Donald, Wasim, Pollock. You remove home record and then minnow record and that’s a lot of players whose stats take a hit.

It takes long time try to find the best stretch for all players. I did it for pacers because I played at good level as pacer and love pace bowling. I have less interest in batsmen to spend that much time. Feel free to start a thread with your initial work for batsmen and we all can contribute.

It's perfectly fine to take a hit in record. It's expected to take a hit. You are likely to do better against top teams when compared to minnows. You are likely to do better in home conditions versus away involving all kinds of different conditions. You are likely to do well in easier tours than tougher tours. All players are likely to take a hit in their record. Tougher the situation, harder its going to be. Sure, there will be exceptions, but there are very good reasons for having dime and dozen HTBs in history of cricket but a lot less bullys in away conditions.

Smith can average 62 in Aus and 52 away. A large hit, but it's not important. I am seeing if Smith did well in toughest job in test cricket and that is tough tours. He did and that's why me, you and many others rate him high. If you are simply focused on finding the 50 best bowlers or batsmen, you can ignore home and away difference. You can ignore what percentrage of their aggreagge runs/wickets is due to minnow bashing. You may not bother to see if they stepped up in tough tours. But if you are going to make a list of top 5 or top 10, you are going to start seeing how they did away, how they did against top teams, how they did in tough tours. That's what separates top 5-10 from others.

Look at Ambrose, Marshall, Hadlee, Mcgrath, Steyn etc... What is common? They had ability to do well in different conditions and ability to do well against top teams. No surprise that they appear near the top when most of us compile the best pacers list. If all they had was pretty career avg based on minnow bashing and going missing on tough tours then very few would rate them near the top in history.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

The 70s early 80s Aus and 80s WI sides that faced were better than the teams Bumrah faced in Aus. The 2018 series didn't even have Smith or Warner.

And Imran was better away in his peak than Bumrah.

The most recent Australia series had Bumrah playing Usman, Smith, Marnus and Head that's a pretty handy lineup. That's as good as any from the 80s barring the WI. My mistake, I forgot about the WI.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

And Konstas of course

 

[Randomfan]

Now you are just lying because the stars aren't in your favor. Please check his away record ....

Entire away test by test record of IK is presented below for cherrypicked period when he was in good phase. Go ahead pick the best stretch out of it. Just looking at it and trying a bit I couldn't find stretch comparable to other greats. The greatest peak should have great aggregate away stretch.

I shared it for many others. I took cut off of 25 awsy tests against non-minnows but most top 5-7 pacers have had longer stretches. You can do lower than 25 tests and find the best stretch and share rather than accusing me of lying.

 

[Randomfan]

The most recent Australia series had Bumrah playing Usman, Smith, Marnus and Head that's a pretty handy lineup. That's as good as any from the 80s barring the WI. My mistake, I forgot about the WI.

Aus is actually very strong in home grounds since Bumrah has debuted, Bumrah has picked up 60-70 wickets in Aus at avg of 17 and many start thinking that Aus must be weak that's why.

Since Bumrah debuted, if you exclude India as opposition, Aus batting has scored 45-46 runs per wickets.



Now if some posters make an argument that this 60-70 wickets against your best opposition in their den is same as picking them at home or picking them against minnows then not sure I can add much. If you step up against best oppositions in their home then I personally rate players veyr high. I don't think all wickets or runs are same. Same reason I rate Marshall, McGrath, Hadlee etc high. Not for their home dominance otherwise Jadeja will belong with them as best bowlers.