Greater cricketer-W.G Grace or Gary sobers?

[Nikhil99.99]

Grace or Sobers?This comparison includes every level of the game the two played.

 

[ataraxia]

Sobers gets a big downgrade for his ODI exploits.

 

[trundler]

Test cricket - Sobers
County cricket - Grace.

 

[ataraxia]

But seriously, has to be Grace. Similar bowler and much better bat (for his time ofc)

 

[OverratedSanity]

Pre war cricket was too different to make any sense of these comparisons.

 

[Nikhil99.99]

Pre war cricket was too different to make any sense of these comparisons.

Thats why I used the word greater instead of better.We can only compare on what players achieved during their time.W.G did everything one could have done in his time.
A champion in one era would always have been a great in another and W.G was the undisputed champion before Don arrived.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Grace's numbers did stand out as levels above his peers in a way Sobers' didn't. Might still be partly due to how young the sport was but it's still astonishing to see those stats. Grace overall if that's your definition of greatness.

 

[Nikhil99.99]

Grace's numbers did stand out as levels above his peers in a way Sobers' didn't. Might still be partly due to how young the sport was but it's still astonishing to see those stats. Grace overall if that's your definition of greatness.

Depends on how you define greatness. Different people have different way of defining greatness.
I have Sobers and Grace domination in the same level.Despite Grace dominating more,Sobers did it against better players.Though W.G totally changing the game,being the man who created modern cricket edges Sobers for me.Although its really close.

 

[ankitj]

Tough one.

In 1st edition of cw50 cricketers rating, Grace was #3 behind Bradman and Sobers.

 

[Himannv]

But seriously, has to be Grace. Similar bowler and much better bat (for his time ofc)

Indeed. Also Grace never put a foot wrong in limited overs.

 

[Line and Length]

Grace had the greater influence on cricket (and the greater girth).
Sobers was an ATG Test cricketer.

We can only imagine how Sobers would have performed in Grace's era.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Simple answer. Don't know.

 

[a massive zebra]

But seriously, has to be Grace. Similar bowler and much better bat (for his time ofc)

It's not really possible to be a much better bat than Sobers, unless your name is Don Bradman. Grace was a much more dominant bat, but that is primarily because he pretty much invented modern batting. The techniques of Grace's early contemporaries were primitive and undeveloped in comparison to Sobers peers.

 

[HookShot]

It's not really possible to be a much better bat than Sobers, unless your name is Don Bradman. Grace was a much more dominant bat, but that is primarily because he pretty much invented modern batting. The techniques of Grace's early contemporaries were primitive and undeveloped in comparison to Sobers peers.

Charles Turner saw Grace, Trumper and Bradman bat and never thought that the techniques of Grace and Trumper were ‘primitive and undeveloped in comparison’.

Only in recent generations have we formed the opinion that Golden Age batsman didn’t know how to bat properly.

Here’s an interview with Turner in the Sydney Morning Herald, 1932....

Seventy Not Out
VETERAN TEST PLAYER

Interview with Charles Turner

Major-General J. M. Antill, C .B., C. M. G., writes in Sydney Morning Herald

28 November 1932

On the 16th of this month the veteran International crickter C. T. B. Turner (called by the man in the streer "The Terror") passed his 70th milestone. On the eve of his aniversary of his natal day, in his charming home in Manly, over a glass and pipe, the old cricketer revived the tales of his memory, and gave one or two of his friends some reminiscences of aforetime battles and of the players his era - friend and foe - extending back as far as 53 years......

Asked about his first meeting with Jack Ferris, Turner went on: "It was in '86 - the first occasion for a number of years when N. S. Wales beat Victoria in Melbourne - that I became associated with Jack Ferris. For many years after we bowled in combination, he at one end, I at the other. In this match I did the "hat trick" (Palmer, Horan and J. W. Trumble).

Ferris, a left-hander, bowled a medium ball with flight and break into the slips to the right-hand batsman. I bowled a fast-medium with an off-break to a right-handed batsman. And it was through the difference in delivery, pace, spin, and break that we synchronised so well in combination......

"Well", I remarked, "you ought to be a competent judge of bowling with so large an experience, and I feel sure that people interested in the game would welcome your opinion of the bowling in Australia today, in comparison with that of your period. What do you think about it?"

Turner after thinking for a minute or so, went on: "You will appreciate that I feel some diffidence in making comparisons. But it appears to me that the bowling of today is more erratic in character than in the past; that it is also wanting combination (if you understand me), and that there is a lack of really first-class medium spin bowlers. In the coming series I fear that our attack is somewhat weak.

Asked his opinion of all the batsman that he has played with, against and seen, who of them would he place in the premier position? Turner did not hesitate.

"No doubt, Grace for England - Trumper for Australia."

"But what about Bradman?"

"Yes undoubtedly Bradman is a wonderful batsman, and a phenomenal run-getter - the greatest scoring machine cricket has known, and he seems to have developed the extraordinary versatility with brilliant unorthodoxy of which Trumper was the author and master. Trumper was at home equally on all wickets and conditions. I prefer not to compare them. But it must not be overlooked that the bowling which Trumper had to tackle was, in my judgement, of a higher standard than that which Bradman has had to face. At least, so I think.".......

Of the old time wicketkeepers Turner had no hesitation in placing Blackham first, followed by Pilling of Lancashire, while A. C. Jarvis was the equal of any of them on his day. Of the latter generation he gives the palm to Oldfield.

We then discussed the "allrounders", and after a careful review of the numbers he had played with and against and seen, he said: "This is a difficult question, but I cannot place anyone ahead of M. A. Noble in batsman, bowler, fieldsman, and captain. But we cannot forget George Giffen and Harry Trott here, and W. G. Grace and F. S. Jackson of England.

Harking back to the bowlers, Turner's pick of the fast ones are Tom Richardson of Surrey, and Ernest Jones of South Australia.

He remarked that the "googly" bowlers were not so seriously regarded in former days as now, and that the "Bosie" leg action with off-break was unknown.
As a last soliloquy, the old veteran, with a far away look in his eye remarked.......

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173327825?searchTerm=Cricket%20charles%20turner&searchLimits=

 

[HookShot]

Jack Hobbs played against WG Grace in a ‘Surrey V Gentleman of England’ game in 1905. The encounter is later recalled in his autography ‘My Cricket Memories’ (1924), chapter 3, ‘I play for Surrey and Meet WG’......

‘But that day I was too bucked with my 88 to worry about details. The match was eventually drawn, “WG” getting 32 in the second innings, and Mr Townend 51 not out.

This meeting with Dr Grace was a red-letter day for me. I never saw him at his very greatest, but I have no doubt whatever that he stands out by himself above all other cricketers.’

Even if we allow for some hero-worshiping by Jack Hobbs it’s still pretty clear that WG Grace was a pretty fine cricketer and no ordinary batsman.

As good as Jack Hobbs himself? Possibly.

 

[a massive zebra]

Charles Turner saw Grace, Trumper and Bradman bat and never thought that the techniques of Grace and Trumper were ‘primitive and undeveloped in comparison’.

Only in recent generations have we formed the opinion that Golden Age batsman didn’t know how to bat properly.

Here’s an interview with Turner in the Sydney Morning Herald, 1932....

I wasn't talking about Grace or the best players of the next generation like Trumper. I'm talking about Grace's peers in the 1870s, where he was consistently averaging 50+ and scoring 8 to 10 centuries a year, whilst the next best batsman averaged mid 20s and made only one.

My point was that Grace dominated more than Sobers because of the primitive techniques of his colleagues, not because he was necessarily a better batsman.

K.S. Ranjitsinhji on W.G. Grace in The Jubile Book of Cricket:

"He revolutionised cricket, turning it from an accomplishment into a science; he united in his masterly self all the good points of all the good players and made utility the criterion of style... He turned the old one-stringed instrument into a many chorded lyre, a wand. But in addition he made his execution equal his invention. Possibly Grace's most far reaching achievement was to master both forward and back play and draw on both with equal dexterity. Until his time, a man was either a back player like Carpenter or a forward player like Pilch, a hitter like E.H. Budd or a sticker like Harry Jupp. But W.G. Grace was each and all at once."

If we look at the batsmen who had scored over 5,000 runs in first class cricket at an average of over 20 up to the end of the 1873 season, we do indeed see a crazy discrepancy of much greater than Bradmanesque proportions:

W.G. Grace 10,669 runs @ 61.51 with 38 centuries.
Harry Jupp 9,987 runs @ 24.53 with 8 centuries
William Beldham 7,043 runs @ 21.47 with 3 centuries
George Parr 6,626 runs @ 20.20 with 1 century
Richard Daft 6,427 runs @ 29.48 with 6 centuries
Lord Frederick Beauclerk 5,442 runs @ 24.96 with 5 centuries
Bob Carpenter 5,184 runs @ 24.80 with 4 centuries

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

WG >>> Sobers > Bradman

Comparing Sobers / Bradman to Grace, is like comparing Lara to Sobers / Bradman.

 

[srbhkshk]

WG >>> Sobers > Bradman

Comparing Sobers / Bradman to Grace, is like comparing Lara to Sobers / Bradman.

Is Jadeja > WG or >>> WG?

 

[Son Of Coco]

Sobers. Grace, like many of his countrymen since, was a cheat. I have no doubt he used Murray Mints.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I have to confess to coming very close there to Googling Murray Mints to see if they were available in the 1870’s.