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Better Test bowler: Anderson vs Willis.

James Anderson or Bob Willis in Tests?

  • Anderson

    Votes: 25 78.1%
  • Willis

    Votes: 7 21.9%

  • Total voters
    32

ZK$

U19 Cricketer
Anderson has done enough for me to put him in the same tier as guys like Pollock and Walsh.

Most great fast bowlers have test careers around 10-13 years, so Andersons record before 2010 isn’t too important to me.
 

trundler

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Nah, even at his best he's not been as good as those guys away over an extended period. Anderson is a very good containing bowler now but he still caps out at 3/70 type match figures away. Had that 6fa in Lanka though.
no-balls previously not counting against a fast bowler's stats is a revolutionary discovery for me
Shocker
 

Gob

International Coach
Nah, even at his best he's not been as good as those guys away over an extended period. Anderson is a very good containing bowler now but he still caps out at 3/70 type match figures away. Had that 6fa in Lanka though.

Shocker
He was great in 10/11
Pretty good in India 2012 when they won
There was a great series in SL when he owned Sangakkara from memory

What else?
 

ZK$

U19 Cricketer
Nah, even at his best he's not been as good as those guys away over an extended period. Anderson is a very good containing bowler now but he still caps out at 3/70 type match figures away. Had that 6fa in Lanka though.
His strike rate(wicket taking ability) away from home since 2010 is about the same as Pollocks. His average away from home since 2010 is slightly worse but that’s mainly due to having to play the top teams a lot more than Pollock.
 

TheJediBrah

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He was great in 10/11
Pretty good in India 2012 when they won
There was a great series in SL when he owned Sangakkara from memory

What else?
When you've played for 20 years, naming a handful of good away performances isn't really proof of anything tbf
 

_00_deathscar

International Regular
Anderson has done enough for me to put him in the same tier as guys like Pollock and Walsh.

Most great fast bowlers have test careers around 10-13 years, so Andersons record before 2010 isn’t too important to me.
But then his next 10 year record falls apart at WPM despite not having amazing competition for wickets, great overall average for that period aside. It doesn’t line up with peaks (or even careers in some cases) for others.

He’s still comfortably below someone like Walsh for me.
 

ZK$

U19 Cricketer
But then his next 10 year record falls apart at WPM despite not having amazing competition for wickets, great overall average for that period aside. It doesn’t line up with peaks (or even careers in some cases) for others.

He’s still comfortably below someone like Walsh for me.
His overall average and strike rate in that timeframe(which is longer than Pollocks entire career) lineups pretty well with Pollocks entire career who is usually rated in the same tier as Walsh. His away stats are slightly worse but that’s largely due to having to play stronger teams like Australia more often. I’m not arguing that he’s as good or better than them though, just in the same tier.
 
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TheJediBrah

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Rating Anderson higher for that reason is just rewarding him for having no life and wanting to keep playing cricket when everyone else retires because they have better things to do
 

OverratedSanity

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It did not before some point in the 80s. See also: back foot no ball rule.
Surprised this isn't common knowledge on CW. Should always be brought up when people try to compare modern bowlers to ones from the 70s/80s and try to make the bowling average the sole point in one guy's favour.

The exact date it fully came into effect isn't clear though. There are plenty of official scorecards well into the late 80s/early 90s which don't show the number of wides/no-balls for individual bowlers so it's not clear whether they counted against the bowlers in the run tally.
 

TheJediBrah

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Surprised this isn't common knowledge on CW. Should always be brought up when people try to compare modern bowlers to ones from the 70s/80s and try to make the bowling average the sole point in one guy's favour.
Eh not really. Only really a factor if the old guy bowled a lot of no-balls. There would be plenty of bowlers who rarely did and it wouldn't affect their averages
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Can we just be clear, was the rule no extra run for a no-ball or just that it didn’t go on the bowler’s figures?

The article Pothas linked to suggested it was an extra ball but not an extra run.
 

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