On Mike Hussey...

[Matt79]

Think Trumper was/is so highly rated for the very simple reason that his best was, in distinct periods, startlingly brillant, and streets ahead of what anyone else had produced to date. He was a blazing comet rather than a fixture in the constellations, and nobody who saw him ever forgot it. Something like Botham's 81 or Flintoff's '05 Ashes campaign has been the modern day equivalent.

So its a different category really from "best batsman in terms of sustained excellence" that people like Bradman and Tendulkar have really excelled in. Whether one category or the other is more important to people is a matter of personal opinion, but the inability to separate the two as distinct criteria is why some might be surprised that Trumper's average is merely quite good (by the standards of his day) rather than brilliant. Someone looking only at Botham and Flintoff's career averages would question why people talk about how good they were as well.

Might also explain the relative lack of Hussey rating as well. I think to really capture the public imagination as a giant of the game, you need both sustained periods of great performance coupled with times where you've absolutely demolished a series or been the rock for your team while all around you have faltered. Hussey, through no real fault of his own, has never done this. He's been very good in all of his series without absolutely destroying a series, but there's at the same time been Ponting, Clarke, and Hayden doing their parts and at times surpassing his contributions in specific series.

 

[Uppercut]

See what you're saying and if you were designing an experiment where you had to decide how many matches in one country is 'fair', probably not. However, as so often with real-world data, you're often not there at the start of an experiment, especially in a longitudinal 'study' like the career of a batsman. Excuse the nerdery (and apologies if you've seen all this before)......


.....This is why a cricketer's average, for me, is merely a guide and arguing over % points in deciding who's better is a waste of time for all involved. We're talking really basic experimental techniques here; arguing over averages is just completely wrong. Could write about this for days, really......

Agree with that, too (and find it interesting, although i fear i'm the only one).

 

[Matt79]

Yeah, good stuff from TC - the sensible ones know it, but he's explained it very clearly and very well there.

 

[Richard]

Think Trumper was/is so highly rated for the very simple reason that his best was, in distinct periods, startlingly brillant, and streets ahead of what anyone else had produced to date. He was a blazing comet rather than a fixture in the constellations, and nobody who saw him ever forgot it. Something like Botham's 81 or Flintoff's '05 Ashes campaign has been the modern day equivalent.

So its a different category really from "best batsman in terms of sustained excellence" that people like Bradman and Tendulkar have really excelled in. Whether one category or the other is more important to people is a matter of personal opinion, but the inability to separate the two as distinct criteria is why some might be surprised that Trumper's average is merely quite good (by the standards of his day) rather than brilliant. Someone looking only at Botham and Flintoff's career averages would question why people talk about how good they were as well.

Trumper wasn't short on longevity. What I'm about to post is an over-simplification of a complex issue but...

In Australia, for NSW, between 1898/99 and 1912/13 (that's 14 years - though he played just 62 games) Trumper averaged 57.31. For his time, that is a phenomenal record. Heck, it's on par with the Michael Husseys, Ricky Pontings and Darren Lehmanns. And these batsmen didn't have to cope with uncovered wickets (which in Australia could be lethal, almost life-threatening indeed).

 

[Matt79]

Sure, but wasn't saying that he lacked longevity, I'm saying that he's remembered and rated for his peaks, moreso than his years of consistent production. Like Botham or Freddy, neither of whom (Botham especially) lacked longevity either.

You make a very good point there as well in terms of people only looking at his test figures and not realising that in that era, FC performances meant a hell of a lot more to the public than is now the case.

 

[aussie]

Sure, but wasn't saying that he lacked longevity, I'm saying that he's remembered and rated for his peaks, moreso than his years of consistent production. Like Botham or Freddy, neither of whom (Botham especially) lacked longevity either.

You make a very good point there as well in terms of people only looking at his test figures and not realising that in that era, FC performances meant a hell of a lot more to the public than is now the case.

Word out, that why for me its so hard for me to rate Trumper highly in the legacy in Australian openers. Thats why personally in my All-time Australian XI i put Simpson/Hayden to face the imaginary new-ball.

 

[Richard]

Hayden against an all-time opening attack of any team is a recipe for one-down before long.

 

[aussie]

Well, of course you would think so.

 

[SJS]

Word out, that why for me its so hard for me to rate Trumper highly in the legacy in Australian openers. .

Just out of curiosity, why do you not rate Trumper highly ?

 

[aussie]

Just out of curiosity, why do you not rate Trumper highly ?

Well i do acutally its just picking him as a definite one of two openers for in an Australian All-time XI is a no for me, for the reason Matt79 pointed out.

The fact (that i've been aware of for a long time), that back in his day FC performances where rated higher than test match one's so him average 39 (or whatever it is) isn't a true reflection of Trumper. Same thing could be said about Wilfred Rhodes who never fully was the spin-bowling all-rounder for England that he was for Yorkshire.

Back to Trumper... So based on that when picking an All-time openers for Australia when you got Ponsford, Simpson, Morris, Lawry, Hayden, Langer, Taylor, McDonald all with fairly good cases, and with better averages againts some of the games best bowlers.

Really can't bring myself for Trumper to start. Personal duo for a while now (after long deliberation with myself of course) has been Simpson/Hayden.

 

[DaRick]

Highest Test Averages Since Hussey's Debut
Yousuf - 2498 runs @ 78.06
Hussey - 2471 runs @ 70.60
Ponting - 2813 runs @ 70.30
Sangakkara - 2658 runs @ 68.15
Jayawardene - 2706 runs @ 64.42
McKenzie - 960 runs @ 64.00
Younis - 2051 runs @ 56.97
Clarke - 1175 runs @ 55.95
Chanderpaul - 1932 runs @ 55.20
Hayden - 2015 runs @ 54.45
Kallis - 2341 runs @ 50.89
Pietersen - 3417 runs @ 50.25

Do these stats include Bangladesh or exclude them?

 

[Prince EWS]

Do these stats include Bangladesh or exclude them?

They include them. If you exclude them, Sangakkara and Jayawardene's stats drop off to the low 60s and McKenzie disappears but the point essentially remains the same so I didn't bother.

 

[SJS]

Well i do acutally its just picking him as a definite one of two openers for in an Australian All-time XI is a no for me, for the reason Matt79 pointed out.

The fact (that i've been aware of for a long time), that back in his day FC performances where rated higher than test match one's so him average 39 (or whatever it is) isn't a true reflection of Trumper. Same thing could be said about Wilfred Rhodes who never fully was the spin-bowling all-rounder for England that he was for Yorkshire.

Back to Trumper... So based on that when picking an All-time openers for Australia when you got Ponsford, Simpson, Morris, Lawry, Hayden, Langer, Taylor, McDonald all with fairly good cases, and with better averages againts some of the games best bowlers.

Really can't bring myself for Trumper to start. Personal duo for a while now (after long deliberation with myself of course) has been Simpson/Hayden.

Are you aware that he was universally accepted as the greatest batsman ever produced in Australia until Bradman scored all those runs. Even then many, who had watched Trumper and were still around rated Trumper higher. This is not to say that Trumper was a better batsman than Bradman but to highlight how great a champion he was.

By the way, he was more a middle order batsman than an opener.

Most people haven't seen much of Trumper in action. Copyright violations prevent me from putting here the two dozen odd action photographs of Trumper compiled by cricketer turned photographer George Beldam in The Great Batsmen - there methods at a glance. When you see those pictures you will be stunned by the beauty and grace in this man's strokes - every single stroke that you can imagine, trust me.

To put Hayden and Simpson above Trumper is your prerogative but its pretty painful for someone like me to hear and read,

In forty odd years of watching Test cricket I have seen many batsmen better than those two and yet those who saw every single batsman in the world for half a century felt he was the greatest in the world. Thus one can only conclude that your assumption is that the standard of the game was much lower in the first Golden age of cricket than it is today.

 

[Richard]

Are you aware that he was universally accepted as the greatest batsman ever produced in Australia until Bradman scored all those runs. Even then many, who had watched Trumper and were still around rated Trumper higher. This is not to say that Trumper was a better batsman than Bradman but to highlight how great a champion he was.

Well, it also demonstrates (as I've mentioned) the fact that Bradman was inherently despised by some people, and that some such people clung to the idea that a man who fitted the archetype of what an "Australian should be" so much better, was also in fact a better batsman. The theory that Trumper's batting (in terms of runmaking rather than aesthetics, of course) was superior to Bradman's has precisely nothing going for it.

photographs of Trumper compiled by cricketer turned photographer George Beldam in The Great Batsmen - there methods at a glance.

TBF, it was The Great Batsmen - Their Methods At A Glance.

When you see those pictures you will be stunned by the beauty and grace in this man's strokes - every single stroke that you can imagine, trust me.

Trumper's ability to make stroke obviously fabulous even in a grainy black-and-white still is truly extraordinary.

 

[aussie]

Are you aware that he was universally accepted as the greatest batsman ever produced in Australia until Bradman scored all those runs. Even then many, who had watched Trumper and were still around rated Trumper higher. This is not to say that Trumper was a better batsman than Bradman but to highlight how great a champion he was.

By the way, he was more a middle order batsman than an opener.

Most people haven't seen much of Trumper in action. Copyright violations prevent me from putting here the two dozen odd action photographs of Trumper compiled by cricketer turned photographer George Beldam in The Great Batsmen - there methods at a glance. When you see those pictures you will be stunned by the beauty and grace in this man's strokes - every single stroke that you can imagine, trust me.

To put Hayden and Simpson above Trumper is your prerogative but its pretty painful for someone like me to hear and read,

In forty odd years of watching Test cricket I have seen many batsmen better than those two and yet those who saw every single batsman in the world for half a century felt he was the greatest in the world. Thus one can only conclude that your assumption is that the standard of the game was much lower in the first Golden age of cricket than it is today.

No i wouldn't say that, i fully understand & respect what Victor Trumper was all about no doubt, have seen clips of him bat in DVD's Story of the Ashes & yea his technique was lovely & looks like very much like any modern bat.

Its just simply the criteria i feel one should have in All-time XI. For me when picking the best XI for each test nation i always feel we should pick two XI's:

- A Hall of Fame XI:, where its an XI, basically XI of the most naturally talented with the greatest legacies to represent a side not worrying about a potential match situation. i.e an Australia Hall of Fame would be:

Trumper
Simpson
Bradman
Chappell
Harvey
Miller
Gilchrist
Lindwall
Warne
Lillee
McGrath

All-time playing XI:, Where to only difference now is to imagine them facing other truly fantastic All-time bowling attacks. So Australia would have 2 simple changes IMO.

Hayden for Trumper: Simply because i honestly feel that although Trumper legacy is great, yea he scored runs againts the bowlers who where in front of him, but i always feel its a bit of stretch to presume he would handle of wiles of Marshall, Trueman, Imran given that he never faced the standard of express pace from Larwood right down. Would you say the Kortwrights, Kotze, Cotter, McDonald where of the same quality as them?

Waugh for Harvey: Because well can't have too many flair players in the middle order, Waugh in an actual playing XI is one of the best #5 in the games history. The perfect man to come in if The Don & Chappell get out too quickly.


Other worldwide example would be India with Merchant in the Hall of Fame, but Sehwag in the actual playing XI.

New Zealand with Dempster in HOF & John Wright to start along with Donnelly/Andrew Jones

England have disreguard my own rule with Hobbs given his record is tooooooo god to pass up. But in the ENG team i picked a few pages up of:

Hobbs
Hutton
May
Hammond
Compton
Stewart
Botham
Rhodes
Trueman
Snow
Statham

Ames & Barnes would be instead of Stewart/Snow in the Hall of Fame.

South Africa, Pakistan, West Indies have no such issues for obvious reasons.

 

[Richard]

No i wouldn't say that, i fully understand & respect what Victor Trumper was all about no doubt, have seen clips of him bat in DVD's Story of the Ashes & yea his technique was lovely & looks like very much like any modern bat.

I'm interested as to how you've seen him bat TBH as the only clip featuring him in that particular DVD series (and as far as I'm aware the only motion footage that exists of him with bat in hand) features some idiot messing around and rolling the ball on the ground.

Says a fair bit that he manages to make even a back-cut at a ball he never had any hope of hitting look pretty damn good mind.

Hobbs
Hutton
May
Hammond
Compton
Stewart
Botham
Rhodes
Trueman
Snow
Statham

Am truly baffled as to how May is supposed to be better than Sutcliffe, BTW. Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Hutton may all have been openers but they're simply too good to leave-out, so you have to bat one of them at three (it's pretty immaterial which for mine - I tend to habitually go for Hutton as Hobbs-Sutcliffe is a pairing etched in my head irrevocably and I struggle to think of one without the other).

All are quite clearly superior batsmen to May, and I'd have little hesitation putting Compton above May either.

 

[zaremba]

Am truly baffled as to how May is supposed to be better than Sutcliffe, BTW...All are quite clearly superior batsmen to May, and I'd have little hesitation putting Compton above May either.

I'm baffled at your bafflement, Richard.

May was the best batsman in England at a time when England was the best team in the world. John Woodcock, writing in Wisden in 1971, put it this way:

"Ask those who played with or against him between 1955 and 1960, or who watched him play, and they will tell you that Peter Barker Howard May was England's finest post-war batsman."

In other words, finer than Compton, and finer than Hutton. He played in a different era from Sutcliffe and meaningful comparisons are therefore pretty difficult. Of course Hutton, Sutcliffe and Compton each have a good case to be included, perhaps ahead of May, but I can't say I'm "baffled" that some might think May worth a place in the side.

(Obviously Dexter, Sheppard, Ranji, Fry and Neil Lenham are also worth a shout too imo.)

 

[Richard]

Barrington isn't sans-case IMO.

As I've said before, I've seen a few bits and pieces of this May-finest-batsman-since-such-and-such, and I've never understood it. Nothing - but nothing - will convince me that May was a better batsman than Hutton, and if people can call him better than Hutton I've always thought the same people calling him better than Compton and various others needed to be taken equally with a pinch of salt.

The Barrington-vs-May stuff I can quite understand as most of the comparisons are made by people based more on Surrey than England and May's Surrey record is vastly superior to Barrington's. But with players like Hutton and Compton, I've never got it in the slightest.

See, it's just not good enough to me that so-and-so thought he was better than batsman X. I have to know why before I can take such testimony with great seriousness, and I've never actually found-out why - in any case. All I've ever had is people telling me that they did, never why they did.

 

[fredfertang]

Peter May was retired at 33 - he had achieved much more than Hobbs had at 33

 

[zaremba]

Barrington isn't sans-case IMO.

As I've said before, I've seen a few bits and pieces of this May-finest-batsman-since-such-and-such, and I've never understood it. Nothing - but nothing - will convince me that May was a better batsman than Hutton, and if people can call him better than Hutton I've always thought the same people calling him better than Compton and various others needed to be taken equally with a pinch of salt.

The Barrington-vs-May stuff I can quite understand as most of the comparisons are made by people based more on Surrey than England and May's Surrey record is vastly superior to Barrington's. But with players like Hutton and Compton, I've never got it in the slightest.

See, it's just not good enough to me that so-and-so thought he was better than batsman X. I have to know why before I can take such testimony with great seriousness, and I've never actually found-out why - in any case. All I've ever had is people telling me that they did, never why they did.

I daresay people who actually watched those players play are in a better position to judge their respective merits. Ask yourself this: have I ever had the advantage of ever watching a single innings by May, or Hutton, or Sutcliffe? And in light of that question, ask yourself whether saying that you take the opinion of someone like John Woodcock with "a pinch of salt" might just be a tiny bit arrogant. Sometimes we have to defer to people who were actually in a position to make some sort of properly informed judgment.

Now I'm not saying that May was better than Compton or Hutton. I'm just saying that there is a respectable case to be made along those lines. And moreover there's certainly a case for May's inclusion in the team.