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Peak Bumrah vs Peak Steyn

Who is the better test bowler at their peak?

  • Total voters
    18
Johan

Johan

International Captain
Athlai said:
The 4-5 good teams thing is way too simplistic and just outright wrong imo. Some teams are good at home and tour poorly, some are good at batting and bad at bowling, some rise and fall within the space of a few years. The 2010s and 2020s definitely have more than 4 or 5 good teams.
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and units differ from team to team, W/L rate isn't a linear system that shows the potency of every part of a team, for example, Sri Lanka has a pretty great batting with two emerging talents and an entire line of high 30s/low 40s averaging batters while South African batting is completely undercooked yet most would rate South Africa as a better team as they seemingly have an endless reserve of great seamers while Sri Lankan bowling is quite ordinary, that shows it takes more nuance than just W/L rate
 
T

Thala_0710

State Vice-Captain
DrWolverine said:
Between 2006-2015, he was an outlier.

No fast bowler had an average below 25.

No fast bowler had a strike rate below 25.

Dale Steyn took 398 wickets or 90% of his career wickets during that period at an average of 21.9 and unbelievable strike rate of 41.0. In my opinion, he is probably the closest a cricketer came to being an outlier in the last 80 years of test cricket.



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Mcgrath's record against top teams away from is much better though. Mcgrath thus ahead for me by a decent margin
 
R

Randomfan

U19 Debutant
Athlai said:
The 2010s and 2020s definitely have more than 4 or 5 good teams.
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You have a draw a line some where out of 8 non-minnows teams. Quality keeps going down and some time you can see clear gap in qualiy just looking at W/L wihtout having watched single game. I do watch games and my observation about most periods not having more than 4-5 good teams is based on watching games.

Just take one your your cited periods,

There is a big drop in W/L when you go outside of 5. Now if you want to make a case that Pakistan, SL and WI have been good teams in 2020s then we just have to agree to disagree on what makes a good team.


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Athlai

Athlai

Not Terrible
Randomfan said:
You have a draw a line some where out of 8 non-minnows teams. Quality keeps going down and some time you can see clear gap in qualiy just looking at W/L wihtout having watched single game. I do watch games and my observation about most periods not having more than 4-5 good teams is based on watching games.

Just take one your your cited periods,

There is a big drop in W/L when you go outside of 5. Now if you want to make a case that Pakistan, SL and WI have been good teams in 2020s then we just have to agree to disagree on what makes a good team cut off.


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Bangladesh at home are good. You're just blowing out a whole lot of hot air by throwing a lot of energy at arbitrary lines in non-existent sand you've drawn for yourself.
 
R

Randomfan

U19 Debutant
Athlai said:
Bangladesh at home are good. You're just blowing out a whole lot of hot air by throwing a lot of energy at arbitrary lines in non-existent sand you've drawn for yourself.
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It's perfectly fine if you rate visitor's perfomance in BD and in Ind at the same level. Whatever works for you.
 
R

Randomfan

U19 Debutant
Athlai said:
It's the kind of analysis you'd be able to make if you didn't arbitrarily exclude them.
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It's not random cut off. It's based on how teams are performing over all home and away taken together.

Based on your comment about 2020s surely having more good teams than 5 means you consider Pak/SL/WI/BD as good test teams. Most fans will disagree with that. As I said, you are free to consider them good test teams and have your detailed analysis about who did what in Pak/SL/WI/BD.
 
B

Bolo.

International Captain
subshakerz said:
It's mostly to do with circumstances around him. If Shoaib, Bond and Harris didn't have injuries and shorter careers he may not have stood out.
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Shoaib and Bond are 8 years older and express. They were never going to be peaking at the same time. Harris is also a few years older, and just wasn't making the team until way after Steyn.

It's more that Steyn would not have stood out so much if he was born at a similar time to good bowlers. And that the bowlers from his era wouldn't have looked so bad if they had not been born in an era of good bats and easy pitches.
 
R

Randomfan

U19 Debutant
Bolo. said:
It's more that Steyn would not have stood out so much if he was born at a similar time to good bowlers. And that the bowlers from his era wouldn't have looked so bad if they had not been born in an era of good bats and easy pitches.
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Yah, it's combination of many things.

Often so many good bats are seen as good bats based on high average in easier batting conditions. Not sure if all of them would have been seen as good bats if pitches were not so flat. In same flat pitches with so many 'good' bats, Steyn stood out.

I think we have lots of cricketers playing in the last 50-60 years. If you are going to stand out in any era for 10 years, we have some thing special. Steyn was special.
 
DrWolverine

DrWolverine

International Debutant
Thala_0710 said:
Mcgrath's record against top teams away from is much better though. Mcgrath thus ahead for me by a decent margin
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One can make a similar argument for McGrath.

He took 2/3rd of his career wickets till 2001 and he was just as good as Ambrose, Donald & Akram.

After that, he was easily the standout pace bowler and it could be due to two reasons : Either he was extraordinarily or other greats retired
 
T

Thala_0710

State Vice-Captain
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Not that this is everything, but a pretty substantial stat.
Steyn's whole career, he plays 21 tests in IENA with decent results for an ATG. Mcgrath in the 2000s alone just absolutely smashes everyone bar Bumrah.
 
T

Thala_0710

State Vice-Captain
Thala_0710 said:
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Not that this is everything, but a pretty substantial stat.
Steyn's whole career, he plays 21 tests in IENA with decent results for an ATG. Mcgrath in the 2000s alone just absolutely smashes everyone bar Bumrah.
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Adding Pak and SL makes it a bit worse for Steyn too. So, is prime Steyn as good away from home as Bumrah is? Definitely not. Overall? It's close, but I'll go Bumrah still.
 
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