Jayasuriya v Ponting in odi as cricketers

[hang on]

ponting's fielding and batting might certainly beat out jayasuriya's, but the addition of jaya's bowling more than makes up for the 'deficit'.

on the subject of fielding alone, it seems surprising that the incomparable colin bland has not been mentioned. by far the best fielder of them all. at their very, very best, perhaps sobers, harper, rhodes and randall could approach bland's prowess.

of course, as far as close in catching is concerned, it has to be solkar.

 

[G.I.Joe]

At least he could score in India..

Unlike Brian Lara

 

[vcs]

Ponting's ODI captaincy should not be pooh-poohed away. Was just watching some highlights of Australia-England from WC '03 today, and after Trescothick and Knight got off to a flier, he stationed a wide slip, where 2 catches were promptly taken.

 

[Spark]

I honestly can't say much about Ponting's captaincy, mostly because at an ODI level I've only started paying attention to it fairly recently (past few months to a year)... during which time Ponting has barely played an ODI.

What I did see though was good, was much more willing to try things than he is in Tests.

 

[Debris]

I am sorry but no one is on Jonty's lvl. The guy was a superman.
When ppl hit the bowl towards him, they though twice, no three times may be more before running.

The greatness of Jonty Rhodes as a fielder is one of the great myths of cricket. He was a phenomonal ground fielder at point/cover but the rest of his fielding was pretty average. He was not a very good catch, he had trouble hitting the stumps and his arm from the outfield was average. I think I would pick Hershelle Gibbs from the same side ahead of him, much less some of the true fielding freaks like Roger Harper and Andrew Symonds.

 

[Jono]

Jayasuriya's bowling was better than serviceable, and definitely better than Dave Hussey. He bowled at the death a lot of the time, and often his darts were very effective and hard to get under.

Still take Ponting though.

 

[honestbharani]

Unlike Brian Lara

lol.. u know he got an inning of 90 here within his first 3 tests... Unlike some others..

 

[honestbharani]

The greatness of Jonty Rhodes as a fielder is one of the great myths of cricket. He was a phenomonal ground fielder at point/cover but the rest of his fielding was pretty average. He was not a very good catch, he had trouble hitting the stumps and his arm from the outfield was average. I think I would pick Hershelle Gibbs from the same side ahead of him, much less some of the true fielding freaks like Roger Harper and Andrew Symonds.

yeah.. he didn't have a great arm coz you saw him field how many times in the deep? And yeah, he could not take close in catches coz again how many times did he field there?

 

[Maximus0723]

The greatness of Jonty Rhodes as a fielder is one of the great myths of cricket. He was a phenomonal ground fielder at point/cover but the rest of his fielding was pretty average. He was not a very good catch, he had trouble hitting the stumps and his arm from the outfield was average. I think I would pick Hershelle Gibbs from the same side ahead of him, much less some of the true fielding freaks like Roger Harper and Andrew Symonds.

lol no

 

[cnerd123]

Ponting's ODI captaincy should not be pooh-poohed away. Was just watching some highlights of Australia-England from WC '03 today, and after Trescothick and Knight got off to a flier, he stationed a wide slip, where 2 catches were promptly taken.

Question is was it his decision to put the fielder in, or was it McGrath's/Gilchrist's? Or a message from Bunchanan during a drinks break.

 

[honestbharani]

Question is was it his decision to put the fielder in, or was it McGrath's/Gilchrist's? Or a message from Bunchanan during a drinks break.

I really seriously do not think measuring good captaincy is something I would do based on stationing a wide slip.. People do it so often from the 2000s... There are more visible ways to measure captaincy and while I do not think he is even "great" as an ODI captain, he is very very good and a LOT better than he is in tests. As someone else pointed out, he just seems more willing to try out things in ODIs and seems to be a lot more confident in his own decision making in ODIs than in tests. His ODI captaincy should quite clearly be among the highlights of his career..

 

[cnerd123]

I really seriously do not think measuring good captaincy is something I would do based on stationing a wide slip.. People do it so often from the 2000s... There are more visible ways to measure captaincy and while I do not think he is even "great" as an ODI captain, he is very very good and a LOT better than he is in tests. As someone else pointed out, he just seems more willing to try out things in ODIs and seems to be a lot more confident in his own decision making in ODIs than in tests. His ODI captaincy should quite clearly be among the highlights of his career..

Really?

I haven't seen Ponting too much in ODIs, but whenever I have, his captaincy seems to be standard. Doing the same things, rotating the bowlers similarly. It has always felt to me that guys like McGrath would come up and tell Ponting when he should bowl, or that Gilchrist would be helping him set the fields, that experienced guys like Lehman, Waughs or slightly more tactically astute players like Clarke or M.Hussey were always in his ear. Never felt he was decisive with his captaincy, although I may be wrong.

As it stands I don't rate ODI captaincy that highly anyways. Some bad decisions come off and some good ones don't, and they can change a match more drastically in an ODI than in a Test match. Also ODIs are more often won by individual brilliance (as Aus often had with players like Gilchrist, Hayden, Bevan, Symonds, McGrath, Lee and Ponting the batsman and fielder in the side) than through a collective effort and good leadership. So even if Ponting was a very good ODI captain, I'd be leaning towards Jayasuriya for my team.

 

[Furball]

So how may catches you saw Jayasuriya dropping before his 37th birthday?

I'm not talking about dropped catches, I'm talking about the unquantifiable aspects of fielding.

 

[Furball]

Jayasuriya's bowling was better than serviceable, and definitely better than Dave Hussey. He bowled at the death a lot of the time, and often his darts were very effective and hard to get under.

Still take Ponting though.

Haha, reminded me of this:

YouTube - [ Funny Cricket ] Ganguly makes the commentator look like a FOOL!!

 

[Shri]

Ganguly was a left arm spinner's worst nightmare though.

 

[smash84]

Ponting was definitely a great ODI captain. He knew the strengths of his players well enough to use them at the right times.

 

[TT Boy]

The greatness of Jonty Rhodes as a fielder is one of the great myths of cricket. He was a phenomonal ground fielder at point/cover but the rest of his fielding was pretty average. He was not a very good catch, he had trouble hitting the stumps and his arm from the outfield was average. I think I would pick Hershelle Gibbs from the same side ahead of him, much less some of the true fielding freaks like Roger Harper and Andrew Symonds.

Hardcore revisionism.

 

[Burgey]

Hardcore revisionism.

I actually agree with him to an extent. Rhodes was a brilliant fieldsman, but I wouldn't say he was in the "never saw him drop one" category. His ground fielding was wonderful though - was worth going to a game to watch him.

 

[Debris]

My post was in response to someone who said no-one was on his level. I would say that Symonds, for instance, was as good in the covers, had a fantastic arm from the outfield, better at hitting the stumps and a better catch. Not saying that Jonty was not a superb cover fieldsman on the ground but shouldn't he be judged by all areas of his fielding? Herschelle might not have been quite up to his standard in the covers but a much superior catch.

 

[smash84]

My post was in response to someone who said no-one was on his level. I would say that Symonds, for instance, was as good in the covers, had a fantastic arm from the outfield, better at hitting the stumps and a better catch. Not saying that Jonty was not a superb cover fieldsman on the ground but shouldn't he be judged by all areas of his fielding? Herschelle might not have been quite up to his standard in the covers but a much superior catch.

You are saying Symonds was a better catch than Jhonty????