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Battle of the Test Innings

Jono

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
FaaipDeOiad said:
For me, it does matter. There is a big difference between doing enough and doing not quite enough in terms of the impact it has on the quality of the knock. Ponting getting out for 156 meant that the last pair had to face four overs, and if one of them had gotten out it would have meant that Ponting didn't do enough to save the game. As it is, he did. Tendulkar didn't, and Lara did. It might seem unfair to judge a player on the quality of his support, but really, that's what a batsman tries to do - score enough runs to win the game. If everyone else fails and the team falls short, unless that batsman is not out, you have to say they didn't do enough.
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But what if one batsman was facing much tougher circumstances, and frankly a bigger lost cause than another. The situation Gavaskar was in was a little bit tougher than Ponting's IMO (not that I'm saying Gavaskar's was a better knock, this is one factor of judging a knock), yet because Ponting's last 2 batsman were able to stay in, his knock is immediately better?

Secondly, your instance is a lot easier in 4th innings totals. What about Laxman? What if Harbhajan didn't turn it on on day 5? His knock would have not been any different, still one of the greatest ever, and he could have done nothing different to change the result. He just had good support.
 
FaaipDeOiad

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
Jono said:
But what if one batsman was facing much tougher circumstances, and frankly a bigger lost cause than another. The situation Gavaskar was in was a little bit tougher than Ponting's IMO (not that I'm saying Gavaskar's was a better knock, this is one factor of judging a knock), yet because Ponting's last 2 batsman were able to stay in, his knock is immediately better?

Secondly, your instance is a lot easier in 4th innings totals. What about Laxman? What if Harbhajan didn't turn it on on day 5? His knock would have not been any different, still one of the greatest ever, and he could have done nothing different to change the result. He just had good support.
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Laxman I think couldn't be faulted even if India hadn't won, because time constraints among other things meant he couldn't really have done any more than he did. The only possible criticism of Laxman if Harbhajan didn't do the job would be that he didn't score quick enough, which under the circumstances probably wouldn't be fair, but it might be relevant in other innings of a similar nature.

The point is really that when one is determining the value of a performance with the bat (or ball, even), the result of the match is relevant because it speaks about the situation the game was left in when the innings ended. If McGrath had been bowled in the final over at Old Trafford, Ponting's innings would be less valuable than it was. If Gavaskar had made an extra 10-15 runs and won the game, his innings would be a better one, but equally if he got out for the same score one batsman earlier and the last two had made the runs, his innings would be better then too. The only way it could be unfair to judge an innings this way is if two batsmen in the exact same situation played the same innings and got out at the same point, and one had enough support to win the game and the other didn't. Obviously this isn't going to happen much, and otherwise a batsman in a losing or failed cause could always have done a bit more, and made their innings better in the process. The reason Lara's 153 is one of the best fourth innings knocks of all time and Tendulkar's isn't, in my opinion, is that Tendulkar could have done a bit more, while Lara did everything required. That's not saying Tendulkar's innings wasn't a classic, but it wasn't enough to win the game, when it could have been.

However, this doesn't mean (as you suggested) that any innings in a winning cause is automatically better. I don't think Ponting's 150 is better than Gavaskar's 96 only because the game was saved, but in my opinion it is a significant victory for Ponting's knock when you are comparing the two. It's one criteria among many, of course, but I consider it a fairly important one when you are comparing two knocks which are in the absolute top eschelon of test innings.
 
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silentstriker

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
FaaipDeOiad said:
Laxman I think couldn't be faulted even if India hadn't won, because time constraints among other things meant he couldn't really have done any more than he did. The only possible criticism of Laxman if Harbhajan didn't do the job would be that he didn't score quick enough, which under the circumstances probably wouldn't be fair, but it might be relevant in other innings of a similar nature.

The point is really that when one is determining the value of a performance with the bat (or ball, even), the result of the match is relevant because it speaks about the situation the game was left in when the innings ended. If McGrath had been bowled in the final over at Old Trafford, Ponting's innings would be less valuable than it was. If Gavaskar had made an extra 10-15 runs and won the game, his innings would be a better one, but equally if he got out for the same score one batsman earlier and the last two had made the runs, his innings would be better then too. The only way it could be unfair to judge an innings this way is if two batsmen in the exact same situation played the same innings and got out at the same point, and one had enough support to win the game and the other didn't. Obviously this isn't going to happen much, and otherwise a batsman in a losing or failed cause could always have done a bit more, and made their innings better in the process. The reason Lara's 153 is one of the best fourth innings knocks of all time and Tendulkar's isn't, in my opinion, is that Tendulkar could have done a bit more, while Lara did everything required. That's not saying Tendulkar's innings wasn't a classic, but it wasn't enough to win the game, when it could have been.

However, this doesn't mean (as you suggested) that any innings in a winning cause is automatically better. I don't think Ponting's 150 is better than Gavaskar's 96 only because the game was saved, but in my opinion it is a significant victory for Ponting's knock when you are comparing the two. It's one criteria among many, of course, but I consider it a fairly important one when you are comparing two knocks which are in the absolute top eschelon of test innings.
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But I think that this criteria penalizes great batsman from poor teams while rewarding the merely good batsman from great teams. Since great teams win a lot more than bad ones, even 'OK' knocks would become 'matchwinning', whereas if they were just born in a different country and played the same exact knock, it would be unnoticed.

If Bradman had been from Bangladesh, how many of his knocks would have made it? THey still would have lost virtually every match (might have won a couple more), but even an average of 100 per innings wouldn't be enough to stave off defeat. And then you could accuse Bradman of not being a matchwinner. Granted, this is an extreme example, but your criteria puts too much importance on the other ten men.

If this thread were titled 'Most valuble Test Innings', then you may be right....but I take that as a different thing altogether. In in that thread, by definition, all knocks that did not result in a win, or at least a draw, would be automatically disqualified. Furthuremore, a great knock that saved a game would automatically be inferior to an average knock that was part of a winning team. Regardless of all other criteria. So Ponting's knock of 156 in the Ashes would automatically become less valuble than 200* from Gillespie, since one was a win while the other was a loss.
 
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C

casey

Cricket Spectator
I seem to remember Mark Ramprakash hitting 154 against the Windies back in '98. A great innings from an under achieving batsman.
 
FaaipDeOiad

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
silentstriker said:
But I think that this criteria penalizes great batsman from poor teams while rewarding the merely good batsman from great teams. Since great teams win a lot more than bad ones, even 'OK' knocks would become 'matchwinning', whereas if they were just born in a different country and played the same exact knock, it would be unnoticed.
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Obviously that depends on how you look at it. If Lara's team had played better in general against Australia in '99, he might not have had the chance to play that matchwinning innings, because it simply wouldn't have been necessary. How many times in the last 5 or 6 years have Australian batsmen played backs to the wall innings that won or saved tests? There's been a few, but a lot of the time the opportunities have been limited because of the overall strength of the team. You can hardly play a matchwinner when you bowl the opposition out for 200 in both innings, hold all your catches and have support from several other high class batsmen. The reason that, say, Allan Border or Sunil Gavaskar played so many great innings against the odds was partially because their team were often in bad situations where it was needed.

I don't think it is unfair on players from weak teams at all, aside from perhaps extremely weak teams that never win, like Bangladesh. And in those cases, it's not as though the rule is set in any absolute manner - it's perfectly possible to use subjective judgement when comparing innings from different circumstances. And also, as I said, it's far from the only criteria, it is just one.
 
BoyBrumby

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Think I'll have to go with Bannerman too, the magnitude of it will probably never be bested. It would be a very interesting knock to see, impossible as that obviously is.
 
andyc

andyc

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Am going for Bannerman.

I saw Lara's innings just yesterday on youtube (search 'cricket australia' and it's on about the third page, only 3 out of 4 parts though), and it looked like a hell of a knock, but it's pretty hard to go past the longest standing record in tests.
 
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