****OFFICIAL**** Imran Khan vs Botham Debate Thread

[Swervy]

Bowling- overreliant on outswingers was eventually exposed.His vulnerability against sustained pace was exposed as well.
Not to mention, he was easily thrown off rythm when carted a bit- Botham was one of the luckiest bowlers i've seen- he picked up more wickets with absolute pies than anyone i've ever seen.

Oh so it took 5 years for the cricketing world to realise he bowled outswingers...

He had no more a vunerability against pace than anyone else bar a few players back then.

Hey,. I will admit that I saw Botham bowl some real tripe, but I do hope you realise that Botham was one of the most aggressive bowlers you will ever get to see, and was will to try all sorts of things to get wickets , even if it meant going for runs. On a few occasions, I saw Botham, in the middle of a great spell of bowling just throw in a slow long hop just on the off chance the batsman would get a bit overexcited, and throw his wicket away...it happened quite a lot...He also got wickets from throwing them wide outside off stump...MOST of the time it was to a plan..some times it wasnt...but that is the nature of a naturally aggressive player

 

[Swervy]

Plus people have to remember that while botham was handed the captaincy at the relatively young age of 25, Khan started his reign at the age of 30.

Whether Botham being handed the captaincy at 30 would have made any difference i don't know.

actually he may well have been 24 at the time (June 1980), he had been playing test cricket for three seasons, and was thrust into captaincy against arguably one of the top 5 teams of all time....as he has always said, he felt the slump in his performance was due to the inevitable loss of form (he had played probably as well as anyone had ever played for England solidly for 3 years at that point) as opposed to being captain

And in fact when Imran was first made captain, there was plenty of criticism of his tactical awareness

 

[Autobahn]

Bowling- overreliant on outswingers was eventually exposed.His vulnerability against sustained pace was exposed as well.
Not to mention, he was easily thrown off rythm when carted a bit- Botham was one of the luckiest bowlers i've seen- he picked up more wickets with absolute pies than anyone i've ever seen.

Well to be fair he actually scored more runs against WI than Imran did and the batting average isn't as different as it might of been thought (botham's 21.40 to Imran's 27.67) and the WI where the best dealers of pace during that era.

Plus wasn't Botham a big user of little variations on his bowling i.e. the little offspinner?

 

[C_C]

Well to be fair he actually scored more runs against WI than Imran did and the batting average isn't as different as it might of been thought (botham's 21.40 to Imran's 27.67) and the WI where the best dealers of pace during that era.

Plus wasn't Botham a big user of little variations on his bowling i.e. the little offspinner?

21 and 27 are fairly wide apart in batting average stakes. One is categorically better.

I also find it a categoric misrepresentation that Imran wasnt a better bat than Botham- just about the only thing Botham has over Imran is more centuries. Whopee ding!
Scoring more centuries alone doesnt make you a better batsman-especially when you flop against the highest quality opposition.
And infact, Imran's defensive technique WAS superior to Botham's. It is evident to anyone who's seen them bat in a few innings. Botham's defensive technique was pretty ordinary while Imran played very straight most of the time.

 

[Autobahn]

21 and 27 are fairly wide apart in batting average stakes. One is categorically better.

I also find it a categoric misrepresentation that Imran wasnt a better bat than Botham- just about the only thing Botham has over Imran is more centuries. Whopee ding!
Scoring more centuries alone doesnt make you a better batsman-especially when you flop against the highest quality opposition.
And infact, Imran's defensive technique WAS superior to Botham's. It is evident to anyone who's seen them bat in a few innings. Botham's defensive technique was pretty ordinary while Imran played very straight most of the time.

But yet botham scored more runs against the West Indies.

 

[Swervy]

21 and 27 are fairly wide apart in batting average stakes. One is categorically better.

I also find it a categoric misrepresentation that Imran wasnt a better bat than Botham- just about the only thing Botham has over Imran is more centuries. Whopee ding!
Scoring more centuries alone doesnt make you a better batsman-especially when you flop against the highest quality opposition.
And infact, Imran's defensive technique WAS superior to Botham's. It is evident to anyone who's seen them bat in a few innings. Botham's defensive technique was pretty ordinary while Imran played very straight most of the time.

I dont know where you get this idea that Imran was so vastly better as a batsman than Botham. Imrans defensive technique was no better than Bothams, which is a compliment to Imran really, because Bothams defense was absolutely sound...Bothams problem was his natural agressiveness, so sometimes he started going after the bowling a touch too early...that isnt technique, that is temprement, which we all know, Botham had a fiery aggressive temprement.

The thing with Imran, he was great at getting runs when it didnt really make an effect on the match.(i.e. his hundred vs England in 87, nice innings and all that, but it didnt push the game on in anyway, and that on a flat track against bowling which was struggling) Probably throughout his career, he made about 7 or 8 innings that genuinely contributed to Pakistan winning a game, or saving a game when defeat looked likely, or at least when Pakistan were in a bit of trouble. Bothams batting on several occasions changed the course of a session, day ,match or series.(not only attacking but also in defense as well)

Bothams batting (irrespective of how many hundreds he scored) won games much more than Imrans did, and if not winning games, it altered the course of play...Imrans simply didnt have that ability

 

[C_C]

I dont know where you get this idea that Imran was so vastly better as a batsman than Botham. Imrans defensive technique was no better than Bothams, which is a compliment to Imran really, because Bothams defense was absolutely sound...Bothams problem was his natural agressiveness, so sometimes he started going after the bowling a touch too early...that isnt technique, that is temprement, which we all know, Botham had a fiery aggressive temprement.

The thing with Imran, he was great at getting runs when it didnt really make an effect on the match.(i.e. his hundred vs England in 87, nice innings and all that, but it didnt push the game on in anyway, and that on a flat track against bowling which was struggling) Probably throughout his career, he made about 7 or 8 innings that genuinely contributed to Pakistan winning a game, or saving a game when defeat looked likely, or at least when Pakistan were in a bit of trouble. Bothams batting on several occasions changed the course of a session, day ,match or series.(not only attacking but also in defense as well)

Bothams batting (irrespective of how many hundreds he scored) won games much more than Imrans did, and if not winning games, it altered the course of play...Imrans simply didnt have that ability

I've seen Imran and Botham play (perhaps not their entire careers but atleast a dozen instances each, if not more, from the 80s) and Imran's defensive technique was better than Botham's, which was ordinary. i am not talking temperament here(which Imran also had better than Botham) but actual technique- Imran played straight while Botham swiped across the line too much ( what was he thinking ? that he was Viv Richards?!?).
And 7-8 innings ? Thats more than sufficient and you'd be disingenious to suggest that Botham has 'changed the match' in much more innings- hell, even alltime greats like Richards, Tendulkar, Lara, etc. have played a dozen and half or so innings in their entire careers that changed matches. It is utterly disingenious to say that Imran didnt have that ability- that Imran did significantly better against top level bowling ( the WI) is a testament to the fact that at the highest level, Botham's skills fell short- or atleast, shorter than Imran's.
you can make 'n' number of excuses but it still doesnt change the fact that sporting excellence is measured against the best and performance against the best seperates the alltime greats from the merely good ones. Botham didnt,Imran did and that alone is enough ( coupled with overall career superiority) for me to rate Imran as a superior batsman than Botham. Kapil too for the same reasons.

 

[bagapath]

it still doesnt change the fact that sporting excellence is measured against the best and performance against the best seperates the alltime greats from the merely good ones.

oh, come on man! you cant sell this half baked theory of yours to me.

take a look at this.

Australia is the best team in the world. and here are the stats of three current batsmen against them.

VVS Laxman 16 1457 281 52.03
Rahul Dravid 19 1503 233 48.48
Inzamam 14 785 118 31.40

if i buy your argument i would end up believing laxman to be a superior batsman compared to inzy and dravid, which is not at all true.

if u want to prove that botham was way inferior to imran u will have to work harder than repeating one point. so pl stop using this "avg against windies" as though it is a killer blow that would settle this argument.

i dont mean to sound rude. just being blunt. that's all.
cheers

 

[silentstriker]

oh, come on man! you cant sell this half baked theory of yours to me.

take a look at this.

Australia is the best team in the world. and here are the stats of three current batsmen against them.

VVS Laxman 16 1457 281 52.03
Rahul Dravid 19 1503 233 48.48
Inzamam 14 785 118 31.40

if i buy your argument i would end up believing laxman to be a superior batsman compared to inzy and dravid, which is not at all true.

if u want to prove that botham was way inferior to imran u will have to work harder than repeating one point. so pl stop using this "avg against windies" as though it is a killer blow that would settle this argument.

i dont mean to sound rude. just being blunt. that's all.
cheers

Measuring someone against the best is a large part of your judgement -- but no one said it was the only one. Regardless, there is not much difference between 48 and 51. As for Inzamam; it does work against him that he averages only 31 against Australia.


Lets say you are comparing two players:

Player 1: 10,000 runs, at an average of 60. But he scores at an average of 30 against the best.
Player 2: 10,000 runs, at an average of 54. But he scores at an average of 54 against the best.

Now 54 to 60 is a decent difference (not huge but sizeable), but I'll always rate the player 2 higher because he played better against the best.


Here is the criteria (in order) that I use to evaluate a player:

1) Performances against the best
2) Performances on a consistent basis
3) Performances away from home

Obviously, there are other criteria, but these three are the main.

 

[Goughy]

Here is the criteria (in order) that I use to evaluate a player:

1) Performances against the best
2) Performances on a consistent basis
3) Performances away from home

Obviously, there are other criteria, but these three are the main.

Obviously I disagree. I find it overly simplistic and set criteria like this narrows the pool dangerously, quality players are left out and anomalies thrown up. Its a weak system and Ive still no idea why performing well against the best team in games you will probably lose (ie less pressure) is more important than performing well in high pressure games against equally matched teams where your performance could easily be the difference between winning and losing.

I prefer looking at
- Ability of change games
- Be dominent
- Perform well in against a cross section of talent and challenges
- Outstanding individual statistical highlights
- How good they were at their peaks (an average long career is no competition for short lived yet consistent genius in terms of analysing ability)
- Ability to repeat special performances

Using your criteria I announce that Allan Border and Narendra Hirwani are the greatest spinners of the 1980s. In fact, applying your system, they are both far greater than Warne and Murali have been in their careers.

Good system!!

 

[C_C]

Using your criteria I announce that Allan Border and Narendra Hirwani are the greatest spinners of the 1980s. In fact, applying your system, they are both far greater than Warne and Murali have been in their careers.

No they are not because Hirwani didnt play much and that is a factor too. Border is already acknowledged as one of the alltime great batsmen , in the same league as Gavaskar, Richards, Miandad, Tendy,Lara, etc. so i dont see how that would be an extremely funny idea.
Your criteria 'ability to change a game' is just about as ambiguous as it gets- sometimes a vital 30 is gamechanging and sometimes 100 scored isnt.
Performance against the best of the best sure is a benchmark and if you havnt performed for whatsoever reason ( eg, you are in Hayden's shoes and havnt faced much great/good bowling attacks or if you bolloxed up like Kallis), you dont get rated in that criteria and thus you get rated lower.
It is all about meeting the criterias and special cases would have to be justified in very special ways.

 

[Goughy]

Border is already acknowledged as one of the alltime great batsmen , in the same league as Gavaskar, Richards, Miandad, Tendy,Lara, etc. so i dont see how that would be an extremely funny idea.

What has his batting go to do with the fact that I was commenting on him as a SPINNER? Bowling is different to batting you know.

And whether they played a lot of cricket is not mentioned in the criteria. It was how they perform against the best and both Border and Hirwani have better Best Bowling figures against the West Indies than Kapil and Botham and both have better bowling averages and have massive differences between their career average and their average against the West Indies..

I would certainly say they saved their best for the best and therefore thay must go down in the annals of bowling greats!

Its called following the criteria.

 

[C_C]

What has his batting go to do with the fact that I was commenting on him as a SPINNER? Bowling is different to batting you know.

And whether they played a lot of cricket is not mentioned in the criteria. It was how they perform against the best and both Border and Hirwani have better Best Bowling figures against the West Indies than Kapil and Botham and both have better bowling averages and have massive differences between their career average and their average against the West Indies..

I would certainly say they saved their best for the best and therefore thay must go down in the annals of bowling greats!

Its called following the criteria.

Oh- you were commenting on Border being a spinner. My apologies. Then it falls in the same ballpark as Hirwani- the lack of consistency and overall career performance suggests that it is a one-off. You are trying to be disingenious to twist a valid criteria ( performance against the best) for fulltime bowlers/batsmen by applying it to one-off parttimers or people with 3-4 tests under their name simply because your hero failed the ultimate test.
All evaluations are subject to minimum criterias - for a modern player, it would be atleast 30-40 tests and/or 3000-4000 runs and 150-200 wickets in the kitty.
For old-timers, i'd reduce the benchmark to 20-25 tests and 100 wickets but it stays at that level for anyone who's played in the last 80-90 years.

 

[silentstriker]

Obviously I disagree. I find it overly simplistic and set criteria like this narrows the pool dangerously, quality players are left out and anomalies thrown up.

Yes, I did not say those were the only criteria. Just that when I begin to evaluate a player, thats what I look for first, and what I weigh the most.

Its a weak system and Ive still no idea why performing well against the best team in games you will probably lose (ie less pressure) is more important than performing well in high pressure games against equally matched teams where your performance could easily be the difference between winning and losing.

Because you are facing higher quality opponents.

I prefer looking at
- Ability of change games
- Be dominent
- Perform well in against a cross section of talent and challenges
- Outstanding individual statistical highlights
- How good they were at their peaks (an average long career is no competition for short lived yet consistent genius in terms of analysing ability)
- Ability to repeat special performances

I agree with everything except your #5. I would much rather take a great consistant performer over a brilliant short lived performer. Unless of course the difference was ridiculously high.


And as for Border and Hirwani - they didn't bowl enough to be considered consistent or inconsitent.

 

[adharcric]

- Ability of change games

Makes sense. As mentioned earlier, it's very ambiguous. Many roles are played in a cricket match: the century-scorer, the grafter, the support bowler at the other end, the attacking bowler, the one who comes in every match and scores a fifty without getting a big one ... they all change the game quite a bit without getting the stats or the acclaim.

- Be dominant

Yes. Again, it's subjective. I consider Dravid very dominant because he totally shuts down attacks and doesn't let them penetrate his defense. Tendulkar is dominant in his own way. Dhoni literally dominates the attacks by destroying them in a short span.

- Perform well in against a cross section of talent and challenges

That's similar to silentstriker's away record, record against the best and consistency.

- Outstanding individual statistical highlights
- How good they were at their peaks (an average long career is no competition for short lived yet consistent genius in terms of analysing ability)
- Ability to repeat special performances

Short-lived yet consistent?? What do you mean? By that standard, Dhoni and Pathan can already call themselves among the greatest one-day cricketers of all-time.

Using your criteria I announce that Allan Border and Narendra Hirwani are the greatest spinners of the 1980s. In fact, applying your system, they are both far greater than Warne and Murali have been in their careers.

Good system!!

That was a pretty simple system and you're just making criticisms for the hell of it now. Consistency and longevity is an accepted standard for statistical analyses, and you bringing up Hirwani and Border just kills the seriousness of your argument.

 

[Goughy]

That was a pretty simple system and you're just making criticisms for the hell of it now. Consistency and longevity is an accepted standard for statistical analyses, and you bringing up Hirwani and Border just kills the seriousness of your argument.

No Im not. Im making criticisms because I do not rate the system.

And as for what I wrote, you accuse it of being both ambiguous AND simple. It is unlikely to be both.

I include ambiguous statements as I do not think defining a player by a simple criteria is acceptable. It is a rather complicated endevour that when overly simplified produces watereddown results.

Hirwani and Border were me being facetious and irrelevant to my arguement. It does still hold that they fulfill the main criteria. As I explained in a previous post they fulfill the criteria perfectly and once you start talking about games against a certain Country then the sample size for many cricketers will be small.

If you want a decent sample size (eg 25 tests) against the best in the world then you suddenly start talking about very few players being able to qualify.

This is why the 'best in the world' thing bothers me. Few people really play enough Tests to make the sample size big enough and as they are spread out over periods of years they are subject to countless variables.

It is a deceptive and unreliable statistic, and hence again I think it is a poor and flawed system

 

[adharcric]

I was pretty much referring in annoyance to your Hirwani and Border remarks; I called SS's system simple and yours ambiguous (not necessarily wrong though). You're right, simple criteria can't always be used when assessing or comparing cricketers. As far as performing against the best is concerned, it certainly does matter but it shouldn't be taken in isolation and common sense should also be applied. The former condition refers to the case of a Laxman; doing well against the best certainly counts, but you should do well against the rest as well. It's about consistency. The latter refers to the useless cases you've brought up of Hirwani and Border and the argument that was floating around earlier of Lillee's subcontinental failures. Longevity and a relatively large sample space is obviously necessary for one's record against the best or one's away record to be considered seriously. This is common sense and accepted as the basic rule when broad comparisons or assessments are made. When I compare Dhoni and Gilchrist as keepers, I won't bring up away record or record against the best because the sample size is weak for Dhoni; but I will bring up consistency over time, which is where Gilchrist sweeps it clean.
All three criteria that SS listed (away record, record against the best, consistent performance) all boil down to one thing: consistency.
It can be consistency in various conditions, consistency against various oppositions, consistency from year to year in your career.

 

[bagapath]

You are trying to be disingenious to twist a valid criteria ( performance against the best)

CC! If you are still going to stick to this line of arguing, are you going to rate laxman above dravid and inzy based on their performances against australia as i pointed out earlier?

 

[Swervy]

CC! If you are still going to stick to this line of arguing, are you going to rate laxman above dravid and inzy based on their performances against australia as i pointed out earlier?

hey...but at least we know for a fact that Mike Gatting(ave 15 vs WI) was a worse batsman than Botham (21), Imran (27), Dev(30),Gower (32), and Allan lamb (34)...but then again, Rod Marsh must have been a better batsman than Botham , Gatting and Imran, and not too far behind Gower, (as he averaged 29 vs WI).....oh and Javed Miandad was obviously only of about Kapil Dev and Rod Marsh standard as a batsman, as he only averaged 29 vs the best, you simply have to forget that he averaged 57 vs all other teams in the world and is widely considered one of the greatest batsmen of the last 30 years

 

[adharcric]

CC! If you are still going to stick to this line of arguing, are you going to rate laxman above dravid and inzy based on their performances against australia as i pointed out earlier?

Is it that impossible to understand that while performance against the best is a valid criterion, it's not the only one ...