honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
Jasprit Bumrah in 2024
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Michael Holding vs Waqar Younis
- Thread starter PlayerComparisons
- Start date
I am aware of all that. I saw him live in that time. I caught a bit in late 80s and then entire 90s.
Top 5 tests teams during Waqar's peak: W/L drops drastically after that.
Pacers performance in tests involving top 5 teams during Waqar's peak:
Different bowlers have different peak period, understandable. Don't you think the greatest peak should be able to outperform peers in the exactly same period? Or at least have a sub 25 avg against better teams?
Avg of 25-26 for greatest peak cited by many. A long list of pacers have entire career better than this in tests involving top 5 sides in their career. I did see Waqar's career and loved watching his inswinging yorkers. But I feel his peak is wrongly cited and hyped by many of us. I was also guilty of it in the past. I have changed my opinion on his mythical peak. For exmaple, how is this peak better than let's say currently Bumrah's entire career? It's clearly not. Many bowlers have better entire career than Waqar's peak if you see top 5 tests sides during their career.
And After peak, Waqar was as horrible as it gets. he had Just one 5-fers in 43 tests against non-minnows.
How many pacers have played a stretch of 40-50 tests with 1 5-fer? I am hard pressed to name any,
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As far as this thread goes, it's a lopsided comparison. Holding simply had a far better output. Looking at career avg is misleading. Waqar's peak was not that great to negate his horrible 40-50 tests. Waqar did not stand out even during his peak against better test teams.
Now if we start talking about other Pakistani pacer IK, then it's worth talking/hyping. He had a quality peak.
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subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
For the record, I rate Imran, Marshall, Murali and Bumrah as better peaks.
That make sense. They all have fantastic peaks.
I think some others may have had very good peak as well, I have not looked closely for all.
Coronis
International Coach
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com
Also tho Waqar still had more 10’fers in that span than in Bumrah’s entire career
10-fers should have helped him to standout against peer group or bring his avg to sub 25 against better teams, right?Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com
stats.espncricinfo.com
Also tho Waqar still had more 10’fers in that span than in Bumrah’s entire career
10-fer is included in his over all performance during peak.
So he had 10-fer but not a peak worth hyping.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
You picked the wrong timeline for his peak btw. You should have started late 1990 since his first two series against Ind and Aus he was a very different bowler with none of the slingy reverse action we know.
You meant this period?
2 tests vs Aus and 6 tests vs WI
He had 5-6 tests versus just one top 5 test team in that period with sub 25 avg. Are we really saying that 5-6 tests are worth hyping that much when talking about high quality peak of pacers in entire history? I don't think so.
In high quality peak, pacer should be able to avg sub 25 ( mostly closer to 20 or below ) against many top teams in that period otherwise we are hyping those peaks for nothing. I did it too in the past.
Rob Wesley
School Boy/Girl Captain
SL were as good as minnow between 1990-94. They got a lot better in second half.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Stop ruining my childhood memories.
Not as good as minnow. They were minnow till mid 90s. SL did not have even 5 test vicory till mid 90s. 3-4 test victory in entire history till 1994, that's minnow by any definition.
SL really took off after that and became a good test side.
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Mine was ruined when some one younger pointed this out to me.
Anyway, still glad to see Waqar bowl in those days. It was some sight.
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I reckon everyone knows he bullied weak teams in his peak. I reckon that as quicks go, he might be the best bully since Barnes. And that is something. Performing against weak teams doesn't hold the gravitas that it does for strong teams, but it's not nothing.
I hardly got to see him at peak, but he looked unplayable by any quality of bat, and I wonder if he got a bit unlucky in terms of playing bad ones at peak.
Very well regarded in RSA at the time of his peak too, which left an impression on me. I can't remember too many newspaper articles from the era. A bunch of unclear memories about how good Donald was, or how bad Australian umpires were. Snippets about Sachin and Ambrose.
Drunk rambling and reminising incoming
The article I remember most clearly was about Waqar, talking about how he was going onto be the GOAT. It was mostly very simple stats. The kinda of stuff that you are contextualising more reasonably in this post. But if it impresses me now, it definitely did then. I was under the impression that my level of attachment to stats came way later than early 90s. But my drunk brain tonight was pinging me a bowling average of 18.36. I checked his record, and he apparently did average 18.36 at around the time I would have read the article. Holding* can get ****ed. Team Waqar all the way.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If you didn't enjoy it please ask for a refund.+
*And Bradman, cos there is no way I would have known his average down to two decimal places in 1994
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The bold part, all of us can agree. I wouldn't call it nothing. Even after injury, he did play 11 tests against BD/ZIm with sub 20 avg with 2 5-fers. I think those yorkers were hard to face for weaker teams even when he came back after injury, but due to less pace most batsmen found it easy to counter and that's why he has just 1 5-fers against minnows in 40-50 tests after injury. His skills with new ball were llimited and reverse became less effective for many reasons.
But after some one pointed out to me, I am not going to bring Waqar's peak when discussing great peaks in history. Stats wise, its up there but quality wise, it's not worth hyping. I used to do that myself. Yes, we can say that he could have played more tests against good sides before injury, but we can only go by actual results.
Eh Donald, he was a great one. I was old enough to understand finer points by the time he debuted. Very quick and made batsmen uncomfortable. He was unlucky to debute so late and yet finished with such an outstanding career only behind Mcgrath and Ambrose. I think he was 26 years old in 1992. He was good in most conditions and batsmen had trouble playing him. Anyone docking points for longevity, needs to look at his volume of first class wickets. It's way way more than most greats. Anyway, 300 plus test wickets are plenty for a high quality pacers. In ODI, he gets over looked by some fans despite him having lower avg and SR both than McGrath, Ambrose and Wasim. A top class bowler in all formats.
My level of disappointment in you for cutting off the best part of my post in your response is immeasurable. If CW doesn't serve as a vehicle for telling strangers to eat a bag of dicks, what good is it?
I get your criticism of Waqar. I disagree to some extent. Both because I think players who destroy weak opponents deserve respect. And because I think he would have done well against stronger ones in his peak. But you are definitely mostly right. I just don't like that you are. Subz talking about destroying childhood dreams just reminded me of why I don't like it.
Ya, Donald was a top test player, especially in the late 90s. I was mostly reminising about the mid 90s though, when he was hogging news more because he was South African than because of how good he was. I don't remember people rating him as high as Waqar (or Ambrose) early career. I don't rate him at a level commensurate with his average in ODIs. He stopped looking so good to me after he started bowling with Pollock.
Coronis
International Coach
Mid 90s was only 2-3 years of SA readmission and it took Donald couple of years before he started hitting his peak. It would have been hard to get hyped too much compared to peer group till mid 90s for him. He was averaging 25+ in the first 2-3 years. But the next 5-6 years, he was as good as anyone. In ODI, he wasn't as good as Pollock. Pollck was very hard to hit for runs.
Since we were talking about peak, earlier.
Here is high quality peak by Donald, avg against all sides was sub 25 and mostly clustered around 20.
.