How successful would 'The Don' be if he was playing in the current era?

[Son Of Coco]

IMO the tank practice said far more about his powers of concentration than his concentration said about the tank practice.

I think it might have helped the old hand-eye co-ordination too. I think someone that dedicated and with the natural ability would succeed in any era.

 

[Richard]

Maybe it helped encourage it to stay as sharp (where otherwise it might have wandered) but from everything I can tell what made him special wasn't the ability to survive balls others couldn't, but the irregularity with which he got himself out.
His eyes were tested sometime and were found to be no better than anyone else's.
Concentration was what made him so much better and that's the same in any era - how many good shots you can play per poor shot.
The point re: the tank was that the practice didn't improve his concentration - rather that his concentration enabled it.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Maybe it helped encourage it to stay as sharp (where otherwise it might have wandered) but from everything I can tell what made him special wasn't the ability to survive balls others couldn't, but the irregularity with which he got himself out.
His eyes were tested sometime and were found to be no better than anyone else's.
Concentration was what made him so much better and that's the same in any era - how many good shots you can play per poor shot.
The point re: the tank was that the practice didn't improve his concentration - rather that his concentration enabled it.

True, I guess your concentration would have to be pretty special in the first instance, as it would take a while to hit a golf ball with a stump consistently.

 

[Mister Wright]

Maybe it helped encourage it to stay as sharp (where otherwise it might have wandered) but from everything I can tell what made him special wasn't the ability to survive balls others couldn't, but the irregularity with which he got himself out.
His eyes were tested sometime and were found to be no better than anyone else's.
Concentration was what made him so much better and that's the same in any era - how many good shots you can play per poor shot.
The point re: the tank was that the practice didn't improve his concentration - rather that his concentration enabled it.

The quality of your vision has nothing to do with hand-eye co-ordination. Unless of course you are blind.

 

[BoyBrumby]

The quality of your vision has nothing to do with hand-eye co-ordination. Unless of course you are blind.

Or visually-impaired in anyway. I'd be f*cked playing without my contacts.

 

[Richard]

The quality of your vision has nothing to do with hand-eye co-ordination. Unless of course you are blind.

My hand-eye coordination is brilliant.
My eye is appalling. Not quite bad enough to need spectacles\contacts\laser-surgery, but easily poor enough to stop me being anything close to a batsman of any standard whatsoever.

 

[Mister Wright]

My hand-eye coordination is brilliant.
My eye is appalling. Not quite bad enough to need spectacles\contacts\laser-surgery, but easily poor enough to stop me being anything close to a batsman of any standard whatsoever.

Haha. Don't blame your poor eyesight on your lack of batting ability.

 

[veeru300]

Don

He would have struggled to have the same average in tests. Bowling standards and scientific studies will have led to this. In onedayers he would have been close to Tendulkar.

 

[Tony Blade]

That is correct

 

[Tom Halsey]

I still see nothing that suggests he would have averaged less than he did - although I don't think he woukd have averaged any more.

 

[Swervy]

My hand-eye coordination is brilliant.
My eye is appalling. Not quite bad enough to need spectacles\contacts\laser-surgery, but easily poor enough to stop me being anything close to a batsman of any standard whatsoever.

Of course whether a batsman has a good eye or not is not entirely dependent on how good his eye sight is...for one,King Viv actually had a lot of eye problems and yet probably had the best 'eye' for batting of anyone of the last 30 years...in that he had the un-nerving abilty to pick up the flight of the ball faster than most and compute that information and respond with the appropriate shot (a shot that most people wouldnt even dream of playing)...players with a good eye appear to have all the time in the world for that reason

 

[Son Of Coco]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the Don's average of 99 came about in a period where wickets were largely uncovered etc etc. Personally, I think he would have gone pretty well in this day and age especially on the batsmens strips prepared today.

 

[C_C]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the Don's average of 99 came about in a period where wickets were largely uncovered etc etc. Personally, I think he would have gone pretty well in this day and age especially on the batsmens strips prepared today.

give me an uncovered wicket any day of the week with lamby pamby players with sunday league attitude any day of the week over a pancake-flat Antigua wicket with professional hardnosed opposition.

That is the biggest factor- professionalism.
Which is why you have players like Graeme Hick ,Carl Hooper etc- who are the equivalent of the Tendulkars and Laras in a less professional and intense arena but go MIA on the big stage.

 

[Tom Halsey]

That is the biggest factor- professionalism.
Which is why you have players like Graeme Hick ,Carl Hooper etc- who are the equivalent of the Tendulkars and Laras in a less professional and intense arena but go MIA on the big stage.

Yes but if the other players are more proffesional nowadays, then so would he be too, and he'd be even better equpied to deal with it.

 

[C_C]

Yes but if the other players are more proffesional nowadays, then so would he be too, and he'd be even better equpied to deal with it.

Sir Don was already known for his highly professional attitude.
In a sense he was ahead by a century.......its akin to having a modern day player in the days of amatuer cricket.
However, he too would become more professional. I am not denying that.
What i am saying is, Sir Don was highly professional in a very unprofessional setting.
If he played today, he would be a highly proffessional player in a highly professional setting...therefore the gap between him and his adversaries would close considerably.

Its like the difference between 9 and 7 and the difference between 9 and 5.

Nine is still nine...but the difference is bigger in the latter case....
Your record is a product of how good you are AND how good the opposition is.
Don's greatness doesnt change- he would still be the best damn batsman ever.
But the opposition's quality changes drastically. Therefore, i dont think he would average more than 65-70.

 

[Richard]

give me an uncovered wicket any day of the week with lamby pamby players with sunday league attitude any day of the week over a pancake-flat Antigua wicket with professional hardnosed opposition.

That is the biggest factor- professionalism.
Which is why you have players like Graeme Hick ,Carl Hooper etc- who are the equivalent of the Tendulkars and Laras in a less professional and intense arena but go MIA on the big stage.

Rubbish, to say Hick and Hooper are equal of Tendulkar and Lara is totally ridiculous. It's not even correct to say that their records are as good as Tendulkar at the domestic-First-Class level.
Maybe they might look as good to the unwary but if you think either are really as good then you're deluding yourself.

 

[Richard]

Sir Don was already known for his highly professional attitude.
In a sense he was ahead by a century.......its akin to having a modern day player in the days of amatuer cricket.
However, he too would become more professional. I am not denying that.
What i am saying is, Sir Don was highly professional in a very unprofessional setting.

I'd love to know where you get this idea from.

 

[Richard]

Haha. Don't blame your poor eyesight on your lack of batting ability.

I don't - I blame them the other way around.

 

[Richard]

Sports is rife with examples of 'supermen' players in their embryonic stages - Babe Ruth, Don Bradman, Bill Tillden, Rod Laver, Greg Norman etc....
primarily because the field was subpar and a few oddball players managed to reach 'peak efficiency' .

Something I forgot to mention here is that Bradman's days were actually part of the modern-era in cricket, not the embryonic stages.
If you take the rule-making as 0 and today as 100, Bradman's career would be 75.

 

[Son Of Coco]

give me an uncovered wicket any day of the week with lamby pamby players with sunday league attitude any day of the week over a pancake-flat Antigua wicket with professional hardnosed opposition.

That is the biggest factor- professionalism.
Which is why you have players like Graeme Hick ,Carl Hooper etc- who are the equivalent of the Tendulkars and Laras in a less professional and intense arena but go MIA on the big stage.

I don't think all the players in that day and age were 'lamby pamby'. I think you'd still rather face someone of pace on a flat wicket than a damp one that's doing everything.