If Headley and G Pollock are considered ATGS, does Adam Voges have an argument?

[mr_mister]

20 tests for Voges averaging 61.88
23 tests for Pollock averaging 60.97
22 tests for Headley averaging 60.83



In terms of opposition, yes Voges went to town on a depleted Windies, but the NZ side he dominated were test class. Did Pollock and Headley face much better? Off the top of my head I can't think of many ATG bowlers Pollock would have faced, Davidson was done and Lille hadn't began so Australia had McKenzie leading the attack in the 60s, it was before the Windies pace battery and just looking at his England matches he only faced Snow and Statham in one test each and never Trueman.

Headley never faced Larwood and only had the one series against Australia with Grimett but before O'Reilly. And he only averaged 37 in the series.


So... does Voges record deserve some more love?

 

[Slifer]

If I'm not mistaken, in Headleys last two full series vs England, he faced their full strength teams and therefore their best attacks. If Larwood or whomever were missing, not his fault. He made runs vs the best on offer. He did face Verity, Bill Bowes etc And don't underestimate how difficult it also was to play on uncovered wickets. I know next to nothing about Pollock I will admit.

 

[mr_mister]

Fair enough, he did do very well against Verity

and yeah it looks like for most of his tests Pollock faced mainly scrub bowlers

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Adam Voges ?

 

[mr_mister]

Maybe Eddie Paynter deserves ATG status as well for his very similar test record. And his resume definitely included some really famous innings against good attacks

 

[OverratedSanity]

If Headley and Pollock's record was across an 18 month period instead of 7 years or so they'd have way more detractors.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Tl;dr - "No."

Reason 1) Their number of Tests may be similar, but their career spans weren't. Pollock compiled his record over 7 years. Headley played across decades. Adam Voges's Test career was less than 18 months long, start to finish and he played nicely. There have been many purple patches as good or better than have lasted 18 months though.

Reason 2) Headley and Pollock have ATG first class records that support their Test success. Adam Voges has a FC record of a good FC cricketer

Reason 3) Quite a lot of people saw these players play and two were deemed to be greats by all those who watched them. Adam Voges was alright.

 

[Migara]

Fair enough, he did do very well against Verity

and yeah it looks like for most of his tests Pollock faced mainly scrub bowlers

Pollock did make some good runs against rebel WI side, but one or two occasions was manhadled by short stuff. To be fair to Pollock he was done by then. If a man in late 30s can play that well against Sylvester Clarke, Franklyn Stepheson and Ezra Mosely, I'd say he's ****ing good.

 

[Migara]

Tl;dr - "No."

Reason 1) Their number of Tests may be similar, but their career spans weren't. Pollock compiled his record over 7 years. Headley played across decades. Adam Voges's Test career was less than 18 months long, start to finish and he played nicely. There have been many purple patches as good or better than have lasted 18 months though.

Reason 2) Headley and Pollock have ATG first class records that support their Test success. Adam Voges has a FC record of a good FC cricketer

Reason 3) Quite a lot of people saw these players play and two were deemed to be greats by all those who watched them. Adam Voges was alright.

A very dangerous hypthesis. There are guys like Sangakkara who average late 30s in FC, but piled when they played tests.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

Just watch Pollock bat

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Mike Procter played 16 official and unofficial tests against strong test teams.
Scored 700 runs at 33.33
And took 70 wickets at 17.14

 

[Bijed]

A very dangerous hypthesis. There are guys like Sangakkara who average late 30s in FC, but piled when they played tests.

I don't think he's at all suggesting he'd disqualify someone from ATG status based on their non-test FC record if their test accompishments were in Sangakkara's ballpark, just for cases where there's arguably not enough information to tell if someone's test numbers are actually a fair representation of them as a test cricketer.

Fwiw, if a player with a fantastic FC record is in that situation then I personally don't like to consider them ATG test cricketers, more like (and this will sound very pedantic) they're ATG FC cricketers who also did exceptionally well in the tests they played. Longevity is both under- and over-rated depending on the context and I wouldn't put a stupidly high threshold for ATG status in terms of number of tests, but imo 20-odd isn't enough to definitively claim ATG status in that format. I mean, if Pollock and Headley played say 60-70 tests each, I'd be pretty confident in them coming out with ATG numbers but I don't like to give points for what you'd probably could have done given the chance if the question isn't specifically 'what if'

 

[Daemon]

There’s also the small matter that none of these guys other than Voges went through a period of looking shithouse before being dropped.

 

[AndrewB]

Off the top of my head I can't think of many ATG bowlers Pollock would have faced, Davidson was done and Lille hadn't began so Australia had McKenzie leading the attack in the 60s, it was before the Windies pace battery

The last is hardly relevant: SA only played against Australia, England and NZ back then.

Also, I don't know if Sangakkara's FC average was late 30s at some point, but it was 52 at the end of his career.

 

[Daemon]

The last is hardly relevant: SA only played against Australia, England and NZ back then.

Also, I don't know if Sangakkara's FC average was late 30s at some point, but it was 52 at the end of his career.

I think he meant non-Test FC (which is still higher than late 30s tbf)

 

[ataraxia]

and SL FC is hardly the standard we're talking about when you look at Pollock and Headley's FC averages. It was also in an era where FC cricket actually mattered for test locks.

 

[Spikey]

what the ****

 

[Fuller Pilch]

For sure. Put Voges in an time Australian XI. He's clearly better than pretenders like Border, Steve Waugh, and Greg Chappell none of whom averaged over 54.

In fact put him in an all-time World XI. Who wants mediocrity like Lara, Tendulkar, Hammond, and co. when you can pick Vogesy?

 

[ankitj]

Just watch Pollock bat

Yeah, absolutely love his batting footage. Minimalist footwork used to great effect to play his strokes.

 

[harsh.ag]

Just watch Pollock bat

But this doesn't apply to Barry Richards somehow because Mark Waugh