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

[C_C]

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?

What part of ' performance against the best is a big criteria, not the sole one' dont you understand ?
Botham is pretty close to Kapil in overall stakes and therefore, my 'deadlock-breaker' is the performance against the best rather than airy fairy notions of dominance( btw, Kapil was a significantly faster scoring 'dominating' batsman than Botham- just about every single hundred or 50+ score of his is scored at near run-a-ball pace)

 

[SJS]

Permanent solution to all rating problems !!

I told a Sri Lankan friend of mine that we were discussing that performance against the best bowling side (Windies) in the 80's was a good criteria to compare batsmen and he was furious. "Why not Sri Lanka?", he thundered. Why not indeed. Even the mighty Australians have conceded that Sri Lanka IN Sri Lanka are a cookie of the toughest kind. Ask Mark Waugh!

Just to please him I decided to compare the batting of the four all rounders of the 80's being sp passionately discussed here, against an attack comprisning, VB John, Kaluperuma, JR Ratnayake, D DeSilva, Warnaweera, DeMwl, Ahangama, Ranatunga, Anusiri, a budding Muralitharan, Gurusinha et al at home soil.

I was very unpleasantly shocked. Al my analysis about Botham being the best batsman of the four and Hadlee the worst were thrown to the winds.

It showed clearly that Botham and Imran were the pits wheb playing the 'best' in the 'best' conditions with 'best' of home umpires. These two worthies average an ignoble 13 and 12 each with not a single fifty between them in five innings !!

Kapil is moderate as everyone seems to have agreed by now at 23.8.

But it is our bowling all rounder Sir Richards who is the dazzling star in the difficult conditions prevailing in the emarald islands averaging an astounding 56.5 with a highest score of 151 not out !! Even Bradman hasnt done that you know !!

Even Mark Waugh is not a patch on our Kiwi knight. In 6 test matches(ten innings) Mark averaged a pitiable 9.0 !!

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I think this is a fantastic criteria.

So who is the best legspinner ever. Naturally the one who bowls well against the team that plays leg spinners best. We all knows what that translates into - India of course.

So who is the greatest leg spinner of all times? Grimmet and Orielly and all those who came before them rule themselves out since they never displayed there wares against the might of the Indian willow. I made out a list of leg spinners who bowled against India. This may not be a comprehensive list but it covers most of them I think.

Benaud, Simpson, Warne and Macgill from Australia, Qadir, Mushtaq Mohammad, Mushtaq Ahmed and Afridi from Pakistan and...and... I gave up since I couldnt think of more

Anyway this wonderful theory allows me to rank these great legspinners of the last fifty years as per their caliber which is so easily determined by this simple and effective tool given to us. Here is the ranking in the order of bowling average though, as you can see, by the two other criteria also the ranking doesnt change much.
No. Player.......Avg ....S/R....E/R

1. Benaud........18.38....56.79....1.94
2. Simpson......28.13....70.61....2.39
3. Afridi............33.07....64.07....3.1
4. Mushtaq A....37.5......76.5....2.94
5. Mushtaq M...41.17......81......3.05
6. Warne.........47.19....91.28....3.1
7. MacGill........50.79....83.43....3.65
8. Qadir...........51.52....94.78....3.26

Boy. Am I glad to have put this upstart Warne in his place ! Just because has taken 8 or 9 hundred test wickets doesnt mean he is the best. He fails OUR criteria AND HOW !!

Oh yes. I forgot. Afridi is now officially Pakistam's greatest all rounder ever since he is a better bowler than Warne and averages 38.9 with the bat over all !!!!

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I think we have solved all our ranking problems for good. For each era find the best batting side and the best bowling side. Rate al batsmen against the bowling champs and all bowlers against the champs of the willow and just one look at their averages will give you the best batsmen and bowlers of the world...simple !!

What did you say? How to rate the batsmen and bowlers of the best batting and best bowling sides respectively?

Hah! There you have me.

I suppose since we are calling them the best batting side in the world we must rate all their batsmen above all others in the world and same for bowlers from the bowling side...simple see.

Its not very difficult once you decide you are going to use statistics to come to definitive conclusions. Once you are determined its not very difficult

 

[silentstriker]

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

He is still one of the better batsman of the last 30 years because of his other records, but he drops severely because of his record against the best. If he averaged anywhere close to 57 against the best, he'd up way up there in my all time list.


Just like no one is saying Botham or whomever is rubbish. They are obviously one of the best players ever. However, when doing comparisons against fellow players of similar stature, they fall because of their performances against the best.

 

[SJS]

So the best against West Indies (based on batting averages in the career) of our fiur all rounders were, in order :-
1. Hadlee.....32.42
2. Kapil........30.83
3. Imran.......27.68
4. Botham....21.41

Oh!! So Imran and Botham are really competing for the crumbs after it is well established that Hadlee and Kapil are ranked above thyem. Hmmmmm.

By the way how does scoring against West Indies make you a better batsman? I am a bit confused. What if you couldnt tell an off break from a backhand drop volley ??

West Indies werent known for spinners of any merit were they? So how does that make anyone's performance agaisnt them anything except a performance against a very good FAST bowling side. Agreed??

Thanks. I knew you guys would see reason.

So we are not yet finished. We must now establish how these guys fared against spinners.

Now which was the best spinners side in their time? I would say from 1965 to 1979 it was India. Bedi and Chandra retired in 79, Prasanna in 78 and Venkit in 83. So how did our 'greats' fare against an Indian side that had at least two of these guys playing in a test?

Botham played four tests in 1979 against an Indian squad that includrd Bedi, Chandra and Venkit in the touring side. Three times out of four he got out to a spinner (venkit) and once he was run out for NOUGHT. He averaged 48 per innings. Before he was run out for ZERO in the last innings he scored 33, 36, 137 and 38 getting out thrice to Venkitraghvan.

Hadlee played 5 test over two series in 1975-76 & 1976-77 and averaged 13.1 !! In the next series with a second string of spinners such as Yadav and Shastri he averaged 7.5 !!!!! His scores were 33, 12, 17, 7, 0, 10, 21, 5. getting out to the spinners in each of the last six innings.

Imran played one series of three tests in 1978-79 and averaged 52. Wait a minute. His highest score in the series was 32. His scores read 32, 9not out, 32 and 31 not out. Decent show but the average is just a bit misleading. BTW, the two innings when he was out he went to Chandrashekhar.

Kapil cant be rated against India. He played Sri Lanka (with Murali in the side) in four tests and averaged 42 per innings with one fifty and another score in the forties out of four innings. He got out to Murali once.

He played an Australian side that included Warne only three times scoring 0, 56 and 5 and falling to Merv Hughes every time.

Form your own opinion as to who played spin better - if you can

 

[silentstriker]

So the best against West Indies (based on batting averages in the career) of our fiur all rounders were, in order :-
1. Hadlee.....32.42
2. Kapil........30.83
3. Imran.......27.68
4. Botham....21.41

Not much difference in 3 points. Six points..thats a bit of a difference. But like I said, its the most important criteria, and not the only one. How many times are you going to make me say that?

Oh!! So Imran and Botham are really competing for the crumbs after it is well established that Hadlee and Kapil are ranked above thyem. Hmmmmm.

Yay for strawman attacks.

 

[marc71178]

What part of ' performance against the best is a big criteria, not the sole one' dont you understand ?
Botham is pretty close to Kapil in overall stakes and therefore, my 'deadlock-breaker' is the performance against the best rather than airy fairy notions of dominance( btw, Kapil was a significantly faster scoring 'dominating' batsman than Botham- just about every single hundred or 50+ score of his is scored at near run-a-ball pace)

And incidentally just about every score of 50 he made came in rather high scoring circumstances, and the majority when we was coming in after a very good platform had been laid...

 

[silentstriker]

Just because your favorite player does badly, people automatically try to villify the criteria. If you are going to argue against my criteria (i.e my opinion), you could at least argue against what I'm actually proposing...instead of misrepresenting what I say and arguing against the misrepresentation.

My criteria is obviously not perfect, and its only my opinion (duh!), and its just something I look for when judging a player. Your criteria might be different, and thats all good...but if I try to argue against what you propose, I'll at least do you the courtesy to understanding your criteria first.

I've said at least three times that while its the most important criteria, its not the only one...yet people are stuck on that. In fact, when I posted the top three things I look for....I said right then and there, and there are other criteria...but just that those are most important. Obviously, when even comparing two players, their stature has to be similar...you can't compare Warne to Sehwag when comparing spinners because Sehwag will never bowl enough overs to merit a comparison. I thought that was obvious, but apparently its easier to attack something when you have nothing else to say.


Whatever, I'm done with this thread.


And people also seem to forget that I rated:

1) Imran
2) Bothamn





3) Kapil / Hadlee

in terms of all rounders. But apparently, because I did not rank Botham #1...well it must be wrong.

 

[SJS]

Not much difference in 3 points. Six points..thats a bit of a difference. But like I said, its the most important criteria, and not the only one. How many times are you going to make me say that?
.

It was not about the numbers my dear. You missed the entire point.

It was about how we can draw our own conclusions by using different criteria. I was being sarcastic all through.

Yes I totally agree it IS an important criteria but NOT the only one. When did I say I was adressing your posts or this (But like I said, its the most important criteria, and not the only one. How many times are you going to make me say that?) statement of yours. Arent you being presumptuous?

 

[SJS]

Just because your favorite player does badly, people automatically try to villify the criteria.

In case you are adressing me, would you like to say who you think is my favourite amongst these four all rounders?

 

[Goughy]

Just because your favorite player does badly, people automatically try to villify the criteria. If you are going to argue against my criteria (i.e my opinion), you could at least argue against what I'm actually proposing...instead of misrepresenting what I say and arguing against the misrepresentation.

And if you are addressing me, then you have not listened to what I have said.

I DO NOT like Botham. He has never been one of my favourite players and I am not a fan at all. Im doing the opposite of what you suggest.

Im taking personal feelings out of it and judging people fairly rather than inconsistently applying a criteria (as others have posted the conclusions that can be drawn using that system).

I try to live my life without bias and Im not particularly happy that I see Botham as the best. It wouldnt bother me in the slightest if he was the worst. Its just that it is not the case.

 

[Swervy]

.

My criteria is obviously not perfect, and its only my opinion (duh!), and its just something I look for when judging a player. Your criteria might be different, and thats all good...but if I try to argue against what you propose, I'll at least do you the courtesy to understanding your criteria first.

.

You are right it is opinion...however, there are so many people who actually saw Botham play who would consider him to be the greatest allrounder bar Sobers, despite what the statistics suggest, it doesnt come down to whatever criteria it comes down to watching how a player plays...this is something CC doent really understand, you watch a player , you get a feeling of how good he is...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...when i play cricket on a weekend, it means nothing to me what a players average is, however if I know a player has the ability to change a game, then I start to worry about getting him out , even if he average jack ****....this is what people dont seem to realise about the game..AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...just because Botham didnt score big too often against WI doesnt mean WI werent worried about him as a batsman, in fact I would absolutely tell you that the WI bowlers of the early 80s were very concerned about his ability, more so than most batsmen in the world...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING

 

[silentstriker]

You are right it is opinion...however, there are so many people who actually saw Botham play who would consider him to be the greatest allrounder bar Sobers, despite what the statistics suggest, it doesnt come down to whatever criteria it comes down to watching how a player plays...this is something CC doent really understand, you watch a player , you get a feeling of how good he is...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...when i play cricket on a weekend, it means nothing to me what a players average is, however if I know a player has the ability to change a game, then I start to worry about getting him out , even if he average jack ****....this is what people dont seem to realise about the game..AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...just because Botham didnt score big too often against WI doesnt mean WI werent worried about him as a batsman, in fact I would absolutely tell you that the WI bowlers of the early 80s were very concerned about his ability, more so than most batsmen in the world...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING

Averages mean a lot actually. If you have a low average, then you are inconsistent or just plain bad. It doesn't matter if you 'turn the game around', because your average says you don't do it often enough, or do it well.

You can have your player who averages 20 and 'turns the game around once every 10 matches', while I have a player that averages 50 every time....and I'll take mine every time.

 

[silentstriker]

saw Botham play who would consider him to be the greatest allrounder bar Sobers, despite what the statistics suggest, it doesnt come down to whatever criteria it comes down to watching how a player plays...

And he was probably the third greatest all rounder of all time. And thats not too shabby.

 

[Anil]

You are right it is opinion...however, there are so many people who actually saw Botham play who would consider him to be the greatest allrounder bar Sobers, despite what the statistics suggest, it doesnt come down to whatever criteria it comes down to watching how a player plays...this is something CC doent really understand, you watch a player , you get a feeling of how good he is...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...when i play cricket on a weekend, it means nothing to me what a players average is, however if I know a player has the ability to change a game, then I start to worry about getting him out , even if he average jack ****....this is what people dont seem to realise about the game..AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...just because Botham didnt score big too often against WI doesnt mean WI werent worried about him as a batsman, in fact I would absolutely tell you that the WI bowlers of the early 80s were very concerned about his ability, more so than most batsmen in the world...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING

that is ridiculous, man....i can completely understand "averages don't mean everything"....you have to take into context the state of the game, pitch, opposition bowling, batting, fielding & captaincy, atmospheric conditions, pressure situations, your team strength, so many other factors that go into deciding a good or a bad performance, but shouting "averages mean nothing" several times doesn't make it so....they do mean a lot in judging whether a player has had a good or bad overall career or whether they have performed against a particular team or not......botham's bowling was taken apart several times by the great west indian batting lineups(viv richards in particular loved his friend's bowling and took to it with rare relish) and his batting was most of the time not up to scratch against them....and it is correctly reflected in his batting(21.40) and bowling(35.18) averages against them....they might have talked highly about his all-round abilities at the start of series but their performance on the field against him clearly showed that those great windies teams did not consider him much of a threat....i remember three or four very good players of express pace in those teams, might have been more, don't remember right now, gooch, boycott, lamb and robin smith.....of these gooch and boycott were the only exceptional players....ian terence botham was not one of them....

 

[Dasa]

I suppose Shahid Afridi > Rahul Dravid then?

After all, averages mean nothing, and I'm sure many bowlers are concerned that he can take them apart.

 

[Jono]

You are right it is opinion...however, there are so many people who actually saw Botham play who would consider him to be the greatest allrounder bar Sobers, despite what the statistics suggest, it doesnt come down to whatever criteria it comes down to watching how a player plays...this is something CC doent really understand, you watch a player , you get a feeling of how good he is...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...when i play cricket on a weekend, it means nothing to me what a players average is, however if I know a player has the ability to change a game, then I start to worry about getting him out , even if he average jack ****....this is what people dont seem to realise about the game..AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING...just because Botham didnt score big too often against WI doesnt mean WI werent worried about him as a batsman, in fact I would absolutely tell you that the WI bowlers of the early 80s were very concerned about his ability, more so than most batsmen in the world...AVERAGES MEAN NOTHING

I haven't really taken sides on this Imran/Botham issue because it doesn't bother me much, but looking at this post in isolation, Swervy you're a lot smarter than that and you should re-read this and see you've jumped from one side of a pole to another just to prove your point. Its stupid.

Averages don't mean everything, but they are often a good reflection of how good a batsman is (particularly in tests, they can be misleading in ODIs eg. Jayasuriya, as its a different game). But there's no way you could argue that (using Dasa's excellent comparison) Afridi is a better test batsman than Dravid because he has the ability to turn a game and put fear in the bowler's eyes more than Dravid can. Every Tom, **** and Harry knows Dravid is the far far superior batsman. Averages say that too.

 

[Jono]

LOL @ the sensor of 'Richard' in my cliche. Didn't even notice it.

 

[Swervy]

I haven't really taken sides on this Imran/Botham issue because it doesn't bother me much, but looking at this post in isolation, Swervy you're a lot smarter than that and you should re-read this and see you've jumped from one side of a pole to another just to prove your point. Its stupid.

Averages don't mean everything, but they are often a good reflection of how good a batsman is (particularly in tests, they can be misleading in ODIs eg. Jayasuriya, as its a different game). But there's no way you could argue that (using Dasa's excellent comparison) Afridi is a better test batsman than Dravid because he has the ability to turn a game and put fear in the bowler's eyes more than Dravid can. Every Tom, **** and Harry knows Dravid is the far far superior batsman. Averages say that too.

Thats ok when we are talking about one of the greatest batsmen of all time(Dravid) compared to Afridi, but when you are talking about players where opinion on a players ability is split, it is absurd to talk about the difference in two players batting averages vs one team and use that as some sort of valid arguement about who was the better player.

Maybe I just see averages differently than most people. A players average is a point of interest and can be a useful tool, but averages arent going to win you games. That is what the point of cricket is...it is to win. I would rather have a team of players who will win you a game and average 30, than a team of players who cant dig deep down and win games and average 40.

Botham was an absolute matchwiner with both bat and ball in those early years...and really Imran wasnt a matchwinner with the bat pretty much all the way through his career, he only rarely produced innings when they were really needed. So despite Imran having an average of 27 compared to 21 vs WI, and despite Imrans batting average pipping past Bothams very late in his career....if I was going to pick either one of them for batting alone, I would pick Botham.

And so I will still stick with the Averages mean nothing line, because ultimately they dont when comparing to players of fairly equal worth

 

[Swervy]

I suppose Shahid Afridi > Rahul Dravid then?

depending on what the circumstances are

 

[Swervy]

Averages mean a lot actually. If you have a low average, then you are inconsistent or just plain bad. It doesn't matter if you 'turn the game around', because your average says you don't do it often enough, or do it well.

You can have your player who averages 20 and 'turns the game around once every 10 matches', while I have a player that averages 50 every time....and I'll take mine every time.

but when you are comparing two players whose averages are both in the mid 30s, give me the player who wins games with the batting as opposed to the one who doesnt