Match-Ups Made in Heaven

[vic_orthdox]

I think you are being deliberately stupid here.....

I think he meant something of the pre-95 Waqar (before his major back injury)

Something like this

YORKERS FROM HELL - WAQAR YOUNIS COMPILATION OF DOOM - YouTube

WAQAR YOUNIS painful yorker from hell - YouTube

Uh, they're Ponting's stats, against attacks featuring those players mentioned by AN.

Didn't Ponting's average increase after Wasim, Waqar, Ambrose, Donald etc had retired?

It's a commonly repeated mantra about some players who excelled in the 2000s, but it doesn't particularly apply to Ponting.

EDIT: to be fair, nor is it a massive amount of innings in the first place.

 

[Jager]

They span the ball a mile on any pitch and were excruciatingly accurate to boot. The batsmen you're talking about probably never played spinners near as good as them.

I listed a bunch of genius spinners on the first page, and considering their records and the legends surrounding them, I do not see how they can not be ranked next to Warne/Muralitharan at the very least, considering the calibre of the batsmen they played.

 

[smash84]

Waqar did bugger all here, pre-or-post 1995.

yes but IIRC Waqar never got to tour Aus b/w 1989 and 1994 did he?

He could have gotten owned but he would have definitely done much better than what he did later on.

 

[Burgey]

I think he toured here in 89-90. We toured there in 94 and lost 1-0 iirc.

Edit: Just looked it up, it pains me to say. He averaged 56 with the ball here in 89, and 25 in Pakistan in 94-95.

He toured in 95-96 and averaged 32. In 99-00 he only played one test and took 2/80 for the match.

 

[silentstriker]

Warne and/ or Murali bowling to Bradman of course, would be amazing.

Neither Warne nor Murali did all that well overall against the two best players of their era (Lara and Tendulkar) - usually I don't put much stock in the 'old timey legends' but Bradman was too much of an outlier - I think he would have done just fine.

However, I think overall both Warne and Murali would have had even better records overall if they played back then, especially considering the uncovered pitches.

Definitely agree on the Harvey comparison- I think Murali and Warne were never consistently attacked, which is where they got a lot of their success from. The batsmen I listed would have attacked them relentlessly (for the most part).

Yes, I'm sure they would have attacked at a blistering pace of 30 runs per 100 balls.

Harry Enfield - Arsenal('33) Vs Liverpool('91) - YouTube

 

[Burgey]

Neither Warne nor Murali did all that well overall against the two best players of their era (Lara and Tendulkar) - usually I don't put much stock in the 'old timey legends' but Bradman was too much of an outlier - I think he would have done just fine.

However, I think overall both Warne and Murali would have had even better records overall if they played back then, especially considering the uncovered pitches.



Yes, I'm sure they would have attacked at a blistering pace of 30 runs per 100 balls.

Harry Enfield - Arsenal('33) Vs Liverpool('91) - YouTube

I don't know if Warne and Murali regularly went for many more than about 3 rpo in the modern game, did they?

 

[silentstriker]

No, and 3 RPO would have been considered attacking back then. I think people might be surprised at Neil Harvey and co.'s definition of 'attacking strokeplay'. Dravid might have been known as the crazy risk taking stroke player.

 

[Jager]

No, and 3 RPO would have been considered attacking back then. I think people might be surprised at Neil Harvey and co.'s definition of 'attacking strokeplay'. Dravid might have been known as the crazy risk taking stroke player.

It is very interesting to look at the strike rates of old.

Players of note (SR)*
Bradman: 58.61
Hutton: 37.47
Hobbs: 46.54
Trumper: 69.45
Macartney: 69.18
Hammond: 38.07
Richards: 69.28
Compton: 38.95
Harvey: 43.51
Ponsford: 44.77
Miller: 50.49
Imran: 47.52
Ames: 39.78
Sutcliffe: 34.59

*Approximations from the data available.

If you want to check it out, here is the link
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[silentstriker]

That seems about right.

 

[smash84]

I think he toured here in 89-90. We toured there in 94 and lost 1-0 iirc.

Edit: Just looked it up, it pains me to say. He averaged 56 with the ball here in 89, and 25 in Pakistan in 94-95.

He toured in 95-96 and averaged 32. In 99-00 he only played one test and took 2/80 for the match.

hmmm....facing Bradman might not be such a great idea for Waqar then

 

[weldone]

Warne was attacked a lot by the Indian top and middle-order (more specifically Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Sidhu, Laxman - and Ganguly to an extent, too).

Muralitharan was attacked a lot by Azharuddin (and Lara too) - Azhar played quite a few great innings against Murali. Off the top of my head, I can recollect 3 attacking test centuries that he scored against Murali. There must have been quite a few more. Muralitharan, after retirement, ranked the best batsmen he bowled to as follows: 1. Brian Lara, 2. Mohammad Azharuddin, 3. Sachin Tendulkar.

 

[weldone]

It is very interesting to look at the strike rates of old.

Players of note (SR)*
Bradman: 58.61
Hutton: 37.47
Hobbs: 46.54
Trumper: 69.45
Macartney: 69.18
Hammond: 38.07
Richards: 69.28
Compton: 38.95
Harvey: 43.51
Ponsford: 44.77
Miller: 50.49
Imran: 47.52
Ames: 39.78
Sutcliffe: 34.59

*Approximations from the data available.

If you want to check it out, here is the link
Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Heard Compton to be much much more aggressive than that. From that SR though, he was slower than Gavaskar - which is a big surprise to me

 

[Son Of Coco]

That reason being that modern batsmen can't play spin? (Obviously there are a few notable exceptions)

Yes, that's exactly it. That's why they got more wickets than any other spinners in the modern game. Guys years ago would've been galloping down the wicket, taking the drift and spin in their stride, and larroping it into the stands all around the ground.

When you can land it consistently on a 5c piece, get good drift, and turn it a lot you'll probably cause a few problems.

 

[smash84]

Yes, that's exactly it. That's why they got more wickets than any other spinners in the modern game. Guys years ago would've been galloping down the wicket, taking the drift and spin in their stride, and larroping it into the stands all around the ground.
.

 

[kyear2]

Heard Compton to be much much more aggressive than that. From that SR though, he was slower than Gavaskar - which is a big surprise to me

Barrington's was probably even slower, and both are held in quite high regard here.
Hammond's was the one that really shocked me though, this and his not stellar record vs. real pace and he drops a bit for me.

 

[watson]

Barrington's was probably even slower, and both are held in quite high regard here.
Hammond's was the one that really shocked me though, this and his not stellar record vs. real pace and he drops a bit for me.

Hammond's greatest innings was probably his 240 against Australia at Lords in 1938. It was made off 394 balls which gives a strike rate of 60.91.

Let's not be too rigid with those SRs. Some of them are only best guesses

 

[weldone]

Barrington's was probably even slower, and both are held in quite high regard here.

From what I have heard of them, they were quite opposite of each other. While Barrington was the Boycott-type, Compton was a superb strokemaker (say Viv Richards-type). There are stories about Compton that he was a fearless risk-taker and he didn't really value his wicket, and he could be a much better batsman if he put a higher price on his wicket.

His SR of 38 shocks me for that reason.

 

[kyear2]

Hammond's greatest innings was probably his 240 against Australia at Lords in 1938. It was made off 394 balls which gives a strike rate of 60.91.

Let's not be too rigid with those SRs. Some of them are only best guesses

Didn't say he was awful, still top 10 middle order bats for me. In that top tier, Bradman aside, they are all quite close.

 

[Jager]

Honestly, devaluing a player because of their strike rate is ridiculous. Sure, in the case of Trumper and Macartney, their wonderfully quick strike rates make them near-superhuman in comparison to their peers, but that's going in the opposite direction. Back in those days, the bats were toothpicks and the boundaries were longer, plus batsmen actually had to worry about personal safety unlike the walking suits of armour of today. I usually add 10-15 runs per 100 balls to their strike rates when I imagine how they'd fare today.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

@ Vic, I genuinely didn't know about Ponting pre 2000 and post 2000 when all the greats had retired, so I wasn't repeating the same old mantra but asking if anyone knew. And thanks for letting me know.