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

[JBH001]

It may also be worthwhile to assess the impact that the captaincy had on Botham's career. Especially, iirc, that a substantial proportion of his tests against the vaunted WI (admittedly a blot on his copybook) involved him assuming the captaincy too.

 

[bagapath]

Following Imran’s career was like watching a classy thriller. The start is low-key but very serious and promising. Slowly the great looking hero starts bashing up villains. High octane action sequences follow one after the other. Then suddenly, when the going is great, sudden drama and anxiety engulfs the fans that the hero might be finished for good. But, he makes a comeback with his guns blazing. Spectacular climax. Hero finishes on top of the world against all odds.

Botham’s career was more like an Indiana Jones film; an out and out fantasy with lots of fun and mischief featuring a swashbuckling hero; a one man army. Bad guys try to knock him out - but fail miserably. The risk loving hero whips his way out of trouble every time; smiling with disdain at his detractors and making them look stupid. You are taken on an adventure ride every school boy dreams of. Only in the last act Jerry Lewis replaces Harrison Ford.

I think it is a good time to chip in with an all-time all-rounders XI.

Mankad---------31
Rhodes----------31
Faulkner--------40
Kallis------------56
Sobers-----------57
Gilchrist +------48
Miller------------37
Botham----------33
Imran------------37
Kapil-------------31
Benaud *--------24
Total------------425

 

[Swervy]

It annoys me when people make out that Botham didnt have a decent batting technique, especially in defense. Its rubbish....Botham was in fact a technically correct batsman even in defense.
For me there is no doubt, Botham was a better batsman than Imran.

On the bowling side of things, Botham at his peak (pre-83) was as effective as Imran .

Botham of 1978-1982 in my mind was miles ahead of Imran as an allrounder, obviously later on it changed

 

[Xuhaib]

Following Imran’s career was like watching a classy thriller. The start is low-key but very serious and promising. Slowly the great looking hero starts bashing up villains. High octane action sequences follow one after the other. Then suddenly, when the going is great, sudden drama and anxiety engulfs the fans that the hero might be finished for good. But, he makes a comeback with his guns blazing. Spectacular climax. Hero finishes on top of the world against all odds.

Botham’s career was more like an Indiana Jones film; an out and out fantasy with lots of fun and mischief featuring a swashbuckling hero; a one man army. Bad guys try to knock him out - but fail miserably. The risk loving hero whips his way out of trouble every time; smiling with disdain at his detractors and making them look stupid. You are taken on an adventure ride every school boy dreams of. Only in the last act Jerry Lewis replaces Harrison Ford.

Well put bagapath that Jerry Lewis part was cracking .

I feel comparing these two is like comparing Wasim and Waqar. Botham better if you compare their peaks Imraan the more consistent throughout but both all-time greats definatley.

 

[SJS]

It annoys me when people make out that Botham didnt have a decent batting technique, especially in defense. Its rubbish....Botham was in fact a technically correct batsman even in defense.
For me there is no doubt, Botham was a better batsman than Imran.

On the bowling side of things, Botham at his peak (pre-83) was as effective as Imran .

Botham of 1978-1982 in my mind was miles ahead of Imran as an allrounder, obviously later on it changed

Botham played each and every stroke in the book and played them as specified in the book. The fact that he was aggressive drove so hard and high too (so did Viv Richards and so do Tendulkar and Lara) does not caste any doubts about his technique. He did not slog (generally) as do some of the regular batsmen in todays context. To hint that his technique was faulty is to show that one cant see the difference between aggressive batting and slogging.

He started as an outstanding bowler but faded out and manged to get wickets with bluff and bluster as I have mentioned before. But early in his career he bowled superb outswing, brought the ball back shorply and could bowl a very mean bouncer. I remember very clearly discussing with cricketer friends "how can someone be so good at everything". He was a world class batsman and a world class bowler and a world class fielder for that early period.

No one in my forty five years of watching the game has looked all three at the same time except Sobers but he never looked a lead bowler in his side.

Imran did bloom late and was a truly great fast bowler but he was no batting great. His batting flowered towards the end of his career but by then he was bowling well but wasnt at his best. I dont remember thinking of Imran as one of the worlds best bowlers (which he was for long) AND a world class batsman at the same time. Botham WAS that for a few years. Thats the difference between them.

PLUS Botham was one of the greatest fielders of all time. Imran was average.

 

[Goughy]

SJS, very similar to what I have posted about the 2 guys. Good to see that we agree.

However, what got me in trouble was my comments about Kapil compared to Botham (Tests only I dont pay any attention to ODIs). What is your take?

Fingers crossed you agree with me at least a bit as your opinion will probably garner more respect. However, if you don't thats fine as well, we can agree to differ.

 

[SJS]

SJS, very similar to what I have posted about the 2 guys. Good to see that we agree.

However, what got me in trouble was my comments about Kapil compared to Botham (Tests only I dont pay any attention to ODIs). What is your take?

Fingers crossed you agree with me at least a bit as your opinion will probably garner more respect. However, if you don't thats fine as well, we can agree to differ.

Kapil was a very fine all rounder and clearly India's best ever (though Vinoo Mankad has a very good record too. But Kapil wasnt Botham's equal as an all rounder. No comparison in test matches.

In one dayers Kapil could be a very good containment bowler. I remember he came on to bowl the last over. in a county game when the opposition neded two to win and one to tie if my memory erves me right and bowled a maiden.

Botham was a far superior bastman not just to him but most others discussed here and to a lot of pure batsmen though I feel his bowling declined consideravbly in the second half of his career.

I also feel Botham was greatly affected by his captaincy fiasco and later by his problems with Somerset. He became a bit non-serious as a cricketer and neglected his game considerably.

I have always ranked Botham the best of the four all rounders of the 80's. Kapil and Imran tied in the second spot of whom I would prefer Kapil in one dayers and Imran in tests. Hadlee wasnt in the same league as an all rounder.

Hadlee was really like Shaun Pollock. In fact, Pollock is a bit under rated. I intend to do a comparison of modern day all rounders soon.

 

[SJS]

I tried to compare the modern day all rounders and picked up five, namely, Kallis, Pollock, Chairns, Flintoff and Jayasuriya.

I decided to discard averages as the stat to compare since they can be pretty misleading when we are comparing the performances over a fixed number of matches each.

To illustrate, the batting avearge difference between Flintoff and Shaun Pollock is merely 2.3 per innings. Not what you think when yopu mentally line up the two as batsmen. Similarly the bowling averages of Jayasuriya is merely 1.6 runs oer wicket better than Flintoff's at the end of 60 tests. Again surprising when you consider that one is England's mainline attack bowler and the other Sri Lanka's third spinner !!

I decioded to take cumukative figures and immidiately the perspective is clearer. Flintoff's 3114 runs are almost 1.5 times as many as Pollock's 2114 and his 178 wickets are 3.5 times as many as Jayasuriyas 54 in 60 tests.

I must confess that cumulative charts also look neater than criss crossing average charts

So here they are. The batting, bowling and fielding of the five all rounders at the end of 60 tests each.

I am not drawing any conclusions.

 

[SJS]

Statistical Comparison of the 80's all rounders

Batting

Attached is the "cumulative runs" chart of Botham, Imran, Kapil and Hadlee over their first 80 test matches.

Clearly and as expected, Botham is head and shoulders above the other three leading all the way with none of the others making a serious attempt to catch up. This was as mentioned earlier.

Imran and Kapil are at second spot again as mentioed earlier but 1000 runs behind Botham at the end. Kapil leads the way till the 65th test and then Imran's batting became more serious as his role as a strike bowler declined and he catches up.

Hadlee brings up the rear, again as mentioed before 1500 runs behind Botham at the end. He ran close to Imran till the 60th test and then as Imran broke free to catch up with Kapil who was clear second till then, Hadlee was left bringing up the rear.

No surprises here and just a confirmation that Botham was in a different league as a batsman.

Ranking : Botham no. 1, Imran and Kapil joint second and Hadlee fourth

 

[SJS]

Bowling

Botham has a big lead till the 30th test with other three close together. Then Imran and Hadlee took off in a different league to Kapil who never caught up after that.

Imran and Hadlee caught up with Botham and after a decade of parallel running, Hadlee's surge contimued right till the end of his career while Imran slowed down. Thus Hadlee ends up way above (61 wickets above Imran) at the end of the 80th test. Botham is keeping Imran close company till this stage.

Clearly Imran and Hadlee appear better bowlers over the entire period which is what I felt without having checked figures but Hadlee's continuous improvement till the very end takes him ahead of Imran who definitely slowed down after his burst in the middle.

So Hadlee number 1, Imran and Botham jopint second and Kapil 4.

 

[SJS]

Catching

Figures Speak. Botham in a league of his own. I am a bit surprised by Hadlee's positive figures. Imran brings up the rear.

 

[Anil]

Botham played each and every stroke in the book and played them as specified in the book. The fact that he was aggressive drove so hard and high too (so did Viv Richards and so do Tendulkar and Lara) does not caste any doubts about his technique. He did not slog (generally) as do some of the regular batsmen in todays context. To hint that his technique was faulty is to show that one cant see the difference between aggressive batting and slogging.

botham was a very good batsman but was he all that good against fast bowling? he used to play the medium pacers and the spinners of the time pretty well but against the west indian fast bowling, he wasn't all that hot...i agree that not a lot of players did well against them during that time and i am not reducing botham to a mere slogger, i know he was far better than that, but he wasn't that great a batsman as well...i agree that imran wasn't as explosive or never had as much instant match-winning potential with the bat as botham but towards the latter part of his career, he developed into a fine middle order bat and was technically very well equipped in terms of handling any sort of bowling, (and i have seen him handling all sorts of bowling), much more than botham ever was....in my opinion of course....one thing i would agree...imran never put it all together(batting, bowling, fielding) at the same time the way botham did for a span of his career....he excelled at different disciplines at different phases of his career....

 

[Hurst_Hattrick]

Ill take that as an apology for the accusation that I did not qualify my statements about Botham when I clearly and obviously did.

I forgive you.

Good to see the big man stand by his 'discount' comment. And, no, you're mistaken.

 

[JBH001]

Fantastic posts SJS.

Not just the first summary of Imran and Botham but the subsequent one about Kapil, and those cool charts too. You must have put some work into those.
It really clarified things for me and made me more sure of my own intuition that Botham was the superior all-rounder in the proper definition of the term.

World class batsman, bowler and fielder at one and the same time.

 

[bagapath]

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/osm/story/0,,1807219,00.html

Imran's interview in Guardian. Includes his opinion on Botham!

 

[SJS]

Fantastic posts SJS.

Not just the first summary of Imran and Botham but the subsequent one about Kapil, and those cool charts too. You must have put some work into those.
It really clarified things for me and made me more sure of my own intuition that Botham was the superior all-rounder in the proper definition of the term.

World class batsman, bowler and fielder at one and the same time.

Thanks yes it took some time but I thought it was needed the way some people went after Goughy. I thought finally nothing works with people better than stats though my first summary was written right off the top of my head without any stats.

 

[IndianByHeart]

We have compared bowling batting and fielding of these players, now how about comparing them on the basis of leadership.I know that Imran,Kapil and Bothom led their teams, not certain about hadlee though, would be good to see how they fared as a leader.

 

[Swervy]

botham was a very good batsman but was he all that good against fast bowling? he used to play the medium pacers and the spinners of the time pretty well but against the west indian fast bowling, he wasn't all that hot...i agree that not a lot of players did well against them during that time and i am not reducing botham to a mere slogger, i know he was far better than that, but he wasn't that great a batsman as well...i agree that imran wasn't as explosive or never had as much instant match-winning potential with the bat as botham but towards the latter part of his career, he developed into a fine middle order bat and was technically very well equipped in terms of handling any sort of bowling, (and i have seen him handling all sorts of bowling), much more than botham ever was....in my opinion of course....one thing i would agree...imran never put it all together(batting, bowling, fielding) at the same time the way botham did for a span of his career....he excelled at different disciplines at different phases of his career....

But in fact Botham was probably Englands second best batsman in the 1984 WI series, Botham also scored runs vs th likes of Imran, Hadlee, Lillee etc. It simply not true that Botham couldnt play fast bowling

 

[bagapath]

Thanks yes it took some time but I thought it was needed the way some people went after Goughy. I thought finally nothing works with people better than stats though my first summary was written right off the top of my head without any stats.

it was great fun reading your analysis sjs. thanks for spending time on it. what do u think of the all-rounders XI i've posted in this thread?

 

[Fusion]

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/osm/story/0,,1807219,00.html

Imran's interview in Guardian. Includes his opinion on Botham!

I know I'm veering off topic here, but Imran the politician never quite appealed to me. I wish he had never entered politics and devoted his life solely to the admirable efforts of running the only free cancer hospital in Pakistan.
By the way, I like the subtle jab he takes at Botham's lack of dedication in the article!