And that is one of the most illogical responses that I have ever seen. It's nothing worse then comparing Warne & Murali in the subcontient against India & Pakistan, despite the fact that Murali learnt his tricks in Sri Lanka (which is in the subcontient), which is what I was responding to.
The new KaZoH0lic more like.
Ben is not a total idiot, tbf, just been dragged into a few unfortunate debates.
Martin Donnelly was a key figure in NZ cricket history - his wisden obituary records CB Fry's assessment that "Donnelly was as good a left-hander as any he had seen, including Clem Hill and Frank Woolley." Check out his cricinfo pen portrait which gives the full obituary. However whether he's a Top 100 cricketer of all time is, of course, debateable. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the Kiwi CWers about him, and about whether he stands higher in NZ cricket history than Martin Crowe.
you are talking about a guy with 30 test centuries and another one with two triple centuries against quality attacks and who will, in all likelihood, end up with 25 test centuries.
Yes - and that's why they have a chance of getting into my top 100 cricketers of all time.
Really? Ian Chappell is certainly not among the top 30-40 batsmen of all-time, but I'd say considering his captaincy (one of the best Australian captains ever and the only man I'd put definitively ahead of him, Richie Benaud, considers him THE best) and his relative revolutionary-ness (far more than that who is often considered, so wrongly, a revolutionary - Kerry Packer) he'd certainly be at worst a contender for any top-100 I did (I'd do such a thing very reluctantly, obviously). Certainly a very significant figure in cricket history.
Yeah I get all that but
...and Ryan Campbell used to scoop the ball over the wicket-keeper for six. One shot does not make a great player.
He didn't average 50 in Test Cricket though, did he?
I believe you missed my point. You are justifying a great batsman based on a unique shot he can play.
One good shot never makes a player special. Considering KP, he later became bitch of the very bowler he reverse swept for six. Steve Waugh is miles ahead of KP as even a batsman, because KP never faced wrath of Donald, Ambrose, Walsh, Waqar or Wasim in full flight. Waugh, took them head on, and came good. Kp would have been less successful if he had to play such bowling, considering that KP is an egoistic character, and these were bowlers who step up their speed 10k when some body decids to talk to them
I don't want to get sucked into a slightly bizarre "is KP better than Steve Waugh" argument, but I don't think that you can be sure that KP wouldn't have shone against those great bowlers. He tends to up his game when the spotlight is on him, and he's had notable success against Murali, Warne and McGrath, who are all all-time greats of the game.
My favourite comment in the thread - I think a lot of people are underestimating just how mind-disintegratingly good a cricketer has to be to even warrant consideration for a shortlist for the all time top 100, let alone actually be included in the final selection. I reckon that if all of us were asked to, without counting, list the players we think would be worthy of a top 100 spot we'd probably come up with about 300 names.