Modern-day batsmen and flat pitches

[Uppercut]

See- I define quality in a batsman, or indeed in any sportsman, as the ability to help his side win matches. Isn't that what all sport is about? The aim is always to win. To call how much your input helps your side win "secondary" makes my head spin.

 

[Furball]

See- I define quality in a batsman, or indeed in any sportsman, as the ability to help his side win matches. Isn't that what all sport is about? The aim is always to win. To call how much your input helps your side win "secondary" makes my head spin.

Cricket's a different beast though.

Obviously the aim is to win, but let's say I could transport myself back to the 80s and score big runs regularly against the West Indies quartet of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts. If the rest of my team is utterly useless and can't handle them, that shouldn't devalue my individual contribution one bit.

 

[Ikki]

See- I define quality in a batsman, or indeed in any sportsman, as the ability to help his side win matches. Isn't that what all sport is about? The aim is always to win. To call how much your input helps your side win "secondary" makes my head spin.

I think there are two distinct differences here, where we rate players. The importance of runs, and the difficulty of runs. Often, they are aligned, but not always.

In terms of winning, it may be more important for a Bangladeshi batsman to perform against the weakest side it has a chance of beating, whereas the hardest thing said batsman can do is make runs against the best side - irrespective of probable result.

When I compare players, I do take into account the importance of the runs made. On the other hand, if I try to rank players I want the one with most skill and the ones with most skill score the runs against the best opposing players.

 

[Ikki]

Cricket's a different beast though.

Obviously the aim is to win, but let's say I could transport myself back to the 80s and score big runs regularly against the West Indies quartet of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts. If the rest of my team is utterly useless and can't handle them, that shouldn't devalue my individual contribution one bit.

In fact, it seems that way for team sports in general - where the result does not significantly rest on one player's contribution.

 

[Uppercut]

Cricket's a different beast though.

Obviously the aim is to win, but let's say I could transport myself back to the 80s and score big runs regularly against the West Indies quartet of Holding, Marshall, Garner and Roberts. If the rest of my team is utterly useless and can't handle them, that shouldn't devalue my individual contribution one bit.

Absolutely not.

But what if you then faced 80s Australia in a match your team genuinely had a chance of winning and found their array of sub-standard bowling impossible to score a run off. Would you be a better batsman than had your ability to face bowling been the other way around?

Given the aim of playing cricket is to win, I'd suggest not. My conclusion is just that all runs help your side win cricket matches, and to what extent can't really be defined, hence all runs should be considered equally.

Except runs against Bangladesh. Bangladesh are so bad they transcend the whole concept.

 

[Uppercut]

On the other hand, if I try to rank players I want the one with most skill and the ones with most skill score the runs against the best opposing players.

Do they?

Is, for example, the ability to score off Garner and Holding more skilful than the ability to score off Mills and Southee? It's a rarer ability, that's for sure. Is that the same thing?

 

[Ikki]

Do they?

Is, for example, the ability to score off Garner and Holding more skilful than the ability to score off Mills and Southee? It's a rarer ability, that's for sure. Is that the same thing?

Again, you use the word 'useful'. That only matters if you care about the result. The difficulty facing you is there regardless of the result. It requires more skill to score runs off Garner and Holding than Mills and Southee; so the player that does score runs against them needs greater skill to do so against the former pair than the latter pair.

 

[Uppercut]

Again, you use the word 'useful'. That only matters if you care about the result. The difficulty facing you is there regardless of the result. It requires more skill to score runs off Garner and Holding than Mills and Southee; so the player that does score runs against them needs greater skill to do so against the former pair than the latter pair.

But facing Garner isn't necessarily more difficult than facing Mills. It just depends on the batsman's preference. Some of them love a bit of pace on the ball and feast on back-of-a-length bowling, while they can't stand wobbly medium-fast swing bowlers nipping it around. Which type of bowling is more difficult to face is entirely down to personal preference.

Granted, most would say Mills is easier to face, making the ability to play against Garner a rarer skill. It doesn't necessarily make it a more difficult skill though, that's all down to what the batsman's good at.

Reducing it to the absurd isn't helping matters at all here, so maybe you'd prefer to replace Garner with Murali and Mills with Harbhajan and consider the case of Ricky Ponting. Facing Harbhajan is much more difficult for Ponting, evidently. So how can you count runs he scored against Murali more heavily on the grounds that they're more difficult?

 

[Ikki]

But facing Garner isn't necessarily more difficult than facing Mills. It just depends on the batsman's preference. Some of them love a bit of pace on the ball and feast on back-of-a-length bowling, while they can't stand wobbly medium-fast swing bowlers nipping it around. Which type of bowling is more difficult to face is entirely down to personal preference.

Granted, most would say Mills is easier to face, making the ability to play against Garner a rarer skill. It doesn't necessarily make it a more difficult skill though, that's all down to what the batsman's good at.

Reducing it to the absurd isn't helping matters at all here, so maybe you'd prefer to replace Garner with Murali and Mills with Harbhajan and consider the case of Ricky Ponting. Facing Harbhajan is much more difficult for Ponting, evidently. So how can you count runs he scored against Murali more heavily on the grounds that they're more difficult?

Again, when I mention difficulty, I talk about it terms of the more global reference.

I think Tendulkar didn't like facing Cronje (or some part-timer) but getting into personal preferences is not only tedious, it makes a mockery as it suggests all bowlers are equally likely to cause different batsmen trouble and hence all runs are equal.

As for your Ponting example, I do it, and do it comfortably. He has, for some reason, just not done well in India against the Indian bowlers. He has faced better caliber spinners and succeeded. Things don't happen in an idealistic linear fashion. Just because A is better than B, doesn't mean batsman X will always, or should always, succeed against bowler B because he has done so against A.

 

[Uppercut]

So essentially, Tendulkar's ability to score runs against the top-class Aussie attack was valued so highly because it was rarer than the ability to score runs against the Kiwi attack?

 

[aussie]

But facing Garner isn't necessarily more difficult than facing Mills. It just depends on the batsman's preference. Some of them love a bit of pace on the ball and feast on back-of-a-length bowling, while they can't stand wobbly medium-fast swing bowlers nipping it around. Which type of bowling is more difficult to face is entirely down to personal preference.

Or rather its the batsman having an utter disdain for less challenging bowlers. Look a KP, his batting againts Warne & Murali was some of the best batting againts quality spin you ever likely to see.

But for some odd reason he found himself getting out stupidy to jokers like Harris, Yuvraj, Benn, Hauritz in recent times.

But i would tend to think if the situation demanded & ENG needed KP to play a blinder/match-winnig/matc-saving innings, he could very well & FOCUS againts those joke bowlers & dominant them like how he did Warne, Murali..

 

[Ikki]

So essentially, Tendulkar's ability to score runs against the top-class Aussie attack was valued so highly because it was rarer than the ability to score runs against the Kiwi attack?

Yes, I think that's more accurate.

 

[Furball]

Or rather its the batsman having an utter disdain for less challenging bowlers. Look a KP, his batting againts Warne & Murali was some of the best batting againts quality spin you ever likely to see.

But for some odd reason he found himself getting out stupidy to jokers like Harris, Yuvraj, Benn, Hauritz in recent times.

But i would tend to think if the situation demanded & ENG needed KP to play a blinder/match-winnig/matc-saving innings, he could very well & FOCUS againts those joke bowlers & dominant them like how he did Warne, Murali..

For once, aussie actually makes an excellent point.

To use your 80s WI and Australia analogy, you'd have to be switched on against the Windies pace quartet, because to not do so would be extremely dangerous for you. It's not outwith the realms of possibility that some players really rise to the toughest challenges - again looking at KP, his record against South Africa in Tests and ODIs to date would suggest that Pietersen gives an extra 10% that he doesn't have against other teams. Similarly, his excellent batting in both full Ashes series he's played in.

 

[Uppercut]

Yes, I think that's more accurate.

Surely you can't rate someone higher than someone else just because their skillset was rarer than someone with a comparable level of output?

For once, aussie actually makes an excellent point.

To use your 80s WI and Australia analogy, you'd have to be switched on against the Windies pace quartet, because to not do so would be extremely dangerous for you. It's not outwith the realms of possibility that some players really rise to the toughest challenges - again looking at KP, his record against South Africa in Tests and ODIs to date would suggest that Pietersen gives an extra 10% that he doesn't have against other teams. Similarly, his excellent batting in both full Ashes series he's played in.

Of course he does. My question is- is that best for the team? Consider that he'd failed against New Zealand in the second test last winter- England would probably have lost the series. Could something like, "KP doesn't perform at his best unless the going is tough" be used in his defence then?

I'm trying to transcend this specific example, because in KP's case, he does score runs when his side need them (as opposed to scoring them against good attacks but never against poor ones).

 

[Black_Warrior]

Absolutely not.

But what if you then faced 80s Australia in a match your team genuinely had a chance of winning and found their array of sub-standard bowling impossible to score a run off. Would you be a better batsman than had your ability to face bowling been the other way around?

Given the aim of playing cricket is to win, I'd suggest not. My conclusion is just that all runs help your side win cricket matches, and to what extent can't really be defined, hence all runs should be considered equally.

Except runs against Bangladesh. Bangladesh are so bad they transcend the whole concept.

You know while reading the posts on this thread, I realized that you cant make a generalised distinction like "scoring against australia is more important than scoring against New Zealand because they are a superior side" simply because in the context of the match, sometimes the superior side is not really being superior while the inferior side is playing out of its skin.
I have two examples to illustrate my point. Inzamam scored a 138 against Bangladesh in 2003 and Gilchrist scored a century against Bangladesh in 2006. Now if you are going to dismiss all runs scored against an opponent like Bangladesh, then you are being unfair to both Inzamam and Gilchrist because those knocks came at a time when their sides were not playing like they should and had actually handed Bangladesh the upper hand. Instead of devaluing those performances, we should hail them considering the context of the match.
So all that should matter is the context of the match, not the strength of the opposition.

 

[marc71178]

Ah, but isn't the point that those runs didn't matter because the team were going to win regardless?

Oh, I see what you've done now - completely disproved the theory.

 

[Ikki]

Surely you can't rate someone higher than someone else just because their skillset was rarer than someone with a comparable level of output?

I think saying that their skillset is "rarer" also misses the point. Their skillset is more complete and advanced, that is why it is rarer. That's the whole point: to be better than others.

 

[Uppercut]

Ah, but isn't the point that those runs didn't matter because the team were going to win regardless?

Oh, I see what you've done now - completely disproved the theory.

Well it's hardly a given Bangladesh would have won either match anyway. It's not like they're strangers to collapsing in a heap on the finish line.

But yes, there are a tiny minority of cases where an innings made a clear difference. Still. W 0 L 52.

 

[Uppercut]

You know while reading the posts on this thread, I realized that you cant make a generalised distinction like "scoring against australia is more important than scoring against New Zealand because they are a superior side" simply because in the context of the match, sometimes the superior side is not really being superior while the inferior side is playing out of its skin.

Yes! Nicely put.

I have two examples to illustrate my point. Inzamam scored a 138 against Bangladesh in 2003 and Gilchrist scored a century against Bangladesh in 2006. Now if you are going to dismiss all runs scored against an opponent like Bangladesh, then you are being unfair to both Inzamam and Gilchrist because those knocks came at a time when their sides were not playing like they should and had actually handed Bangladesh the upper hand. Instead of devaluing those performances, we should hail them considering the context of the match.
So all that should matter is the context of the match, not the strength of the opposition.

Yeah, alright, it's not a theory I intend people to take too literally. But if you were to somehow judge how useful runs against Bangladesh were in comparison to runs against other teams, they'd be worth such a tiny fraction... I think you get a better number by cleaving the stats than you do from the whole thing.

 

[honestbharani]

Well it's hardly a given Bangladesh would have won either match anyway. It's not like they're strangers to collapsing in a heap on the finish line.

But yes, there are a tiny minority of cases where an innings made a clear difference. Still. W 0 L 52.

given that they were one wicket away against Pakistan and the last wicket had to get like 40 odd runs, I would think they were at least even favourites for that match...