zinzan12 said:
I actually stated that the reality is that history judges a test cricketer on their Full career stats.
Hmm... not sure about that. Most people don't hesitate to judge Gibbs on his early form, rather than his wholly ordinary later stuff.
No, definately not one year, though.
Although you make a decent argument , your examples were awful IMO
I'd take Brett Lee's bowling over Flintoff in a test match anyday of the week -so i disagree with you there. And i'm a not an Aussie fan.
As stated elsewhere, I'm flabbergasted at that.
Your describing Oram is an "absolutely terrible bowler" is a tad harsh given Jacob's have similar injury problems as flintoff had early in his career. For the record I believe Oram is better test bat than Flintoff. I'm sure most who witnessed his amazing 127 n.o in the brisbane test against the best bowlers in the world will testify to that, not to mention his test average over 40. I will concede Flintoff a better test bowler than Oram at the moment even though Orams average is a lot better. That doesn't make Oram an "absolutely terrible bowler" though, just one that has been struggling for fitness for the last year. And you are right that his bowling has declined since the start of his career.
I've not once mentioned Oram the batsman, I think he's unquestionably a very good batsman who, on present form, is good enough to play Test-cricket purely on his batting (good thing too - as we'll come to).
Oram started his Test-career with two matches on pitches about as seamer-friendly as you could possibly dream of. Since then he's taken his wickets at 47.45 - which, even with the (only slight) mitigation of the odd injury, is still terrible, no two ways about it. These two early matches are so exceptional (and form less than 1\7th of the current total) that they can essentially be written-off, and judgement formed on the more significant, far larger, most recent part.
All right, maybe "absolutely terrible" is an exaggeration (he's at least far more accurate than most bowlers in the current age - a very good ER of 2.6-an-over) but his SR of 109.4 can qualify him as nothing other than extremely poor when you consider that Test-cricket is primarily about wicket-taking.
But as you've said yourself, cricketers have Lows and highs.
As far as Mcgill goes..Exactly why do think he's so overrated. Next you'll be suggesting that you'd rather have Giles than Mcgill.
The reason I think MacGill is overrated:
First 10 Tests - 53 wickets at 21.67.
Next 20 Tests - 82 wickets at 37.47 (even with the most recent game it's still only 90 wickets at 36.03)
The latter figures - which include only 1 particularly good game before the Pakistan SCG 2005 one (Bridgetown 2003) show quite clearly that here is a very ordinary bowler.
As far as Giles is concerned - yes, on a turning pitch I would not hesitate to pick him first, he's proven time and again that he's a World-class operative on a pitch that's turning (whereas MacGill is far more likely to waste the surface by spraying it all over everywhere). Like any fingerspinner, though, he's not much use on a non-turner. MacGill isn't either, of course, and ideally I'd pick neither but if I had to have one I'd take MacGill because, in the incredibly unlikely event that he got it right he'd pose a huge threat that no fingerspinner could dream of.
Overall I agree that a players Full career record is not always the "be all and end all". But i still think it does mean a lot.
Why is Bradman rated as the undisputed best bat of all-time?? Because his record is so Amazing!!
Whilst you are correct in saying that a lot a factors must be taken into consideration as opposed to just glancing at a record.Flintoff is simply not good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the current great test cricketers in the world. I'm talking the likes of Mcgrath, Warne, Lara , Tendulkar, Kallis, Dravid, Ponting, Inzi, Gilchrist.
What Flintoff's current test record shows me is that he is improving a lot, however it also shows me that he hasn't yet proven that as a test cricketer of the very top bracket. ie the names above.
If he continues his form and averages 40 with the bat and 25 with the ball, in the up and coming Ashes (against the best oppositions) and then for the next 2 years or so (as Cairn's did in the 2nd half of his career) then I will be the first to say I'm wrong. And I'ms ure it would change my current view that Flintoff is the most overated and overhyped cricketer of all time.
Personally I've never claimed Flintoff is amongst the current best cricketers in The World (TBF hardly anyone else has either - there was one bizarre claim that he was better with both disciplines than Kallis a while back - but that was rightly shot down) but it is quite clear that he has gone from incredibly mediocre batsman to one capable of batting at Test-level (albeit not, I don't think, in the extraordinary manner that he showed for much of the summers of 2003 and 2004).
As far as his bowling's concerned, I don't really believe there's been a massive improvement, I just think he's got far, far more poor strokes since Galle 2003\04 than he did in the preceding 2 years. Most people don't understand that Test-match bowling-averages can flatter, though.
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