Players whose reputation during their career was an inaccurate reflection of how good they really were

[SteveNZ]

But he's actually rated very highly by pundits and peers so does he qualify for this thread?

Because I believe he deserves to be mentioned in the highest tiers of batsmen of all time. His run output doesn't match those of his peers, but at his peak - and there were a few - he was incredible. A combination of starting so young, injuries etc means his numbers aren't better. But a genius cricketer as a whole.

 

[peterhrt]

incidentally, there were more than 900 1st class players in England in the 1860s. that seems a huge number?

In 1860 in England, 40 first-class matches were played.
In 1864, 46 matches.
In 1871, 52 matches.

 

[Brook's side]

In 1860 in England, 40 first-class matches were played.
In 1864, 46 matches.
In 1871, 52 matches.

So let's say average of 45.
Everyone plays each other once.

So an average of 7 or 8 teams.

say average 7.5 teams.
each season say 15 players per team needed

say 100 players in a season.

average career 5 years.

so you need probably 200 people in a decade.

so, why the **** were there 900????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Coronis]

We'll never know, but I just don't see it.

I'd guess that the front foot thing was just because his debut co-incided with overarm bowling.
I can't believe there were many who played off the back foot to full pitched straight balls.

The pool of players was so small then as well, so being head and shoulders over everyone didn't necessarily mean much.

If you send Kevin Pietersen back in time, to take on WG, I know who my money's going to be on.
I'm sure the bats were ****, but KP's not going to play 20 tests against representative sides of part timers and only have 1 6 to his name.

If a pitch never saw a roller or a mower, then it shows how completely different the sport was to the modern version.

So you agree, Grace would destroy KP on those pitches? KP couldn’t even be best of his own time on flat pitches.

 

[ataraxia]

Putting WG Grace after Bradman is just bizzare to me.
I can't imagine him scoring a run against modern attacks

I'm going to go WG Grace - over rated

I don't think that was his job.

 

[kyear2]

I want to make it clear.

Grace, all the rest of them deserve respect for what they did and built. He was a master of his time and a great of the game.

I just believe that they should be ranked and selected among themselves from that era, not disrespect.

 

[Brook's side]

I don't think that was his job.

True, but if for the sake of demonstration there was a Grace 50 years earlier who completely dominated all the underarm bowling with his curved bat (apologies if historically inaccurate) and outscored the next best player by 5 to 1, that wouldn't in my view make him the 2nd or 3rd best batsman of all time. He wouldn't be likely to be a empirically better batsman than Viv Richards or Everton Weekes or Joe Root.

He was playing in a different sport. And so, albeit to a lesser extent, was Grace.

Let's say for sake of argument that cricket had evolved out of lawn bowls. You couldn't go back to lawn bowls and say Arty Chucker had the most dominant record of all time therefore he's the greatest bowler. You couldn't put him up against Marshall, or even Devon Malcolm.

It's the same principle. People here have said to all intents and purposes that it's a sure thing that if Grace was born in the 1980s, he'd have been carting Murali and Steyn out of the ground, or at least working them around with ease. The reality is that there is nothing at all on which to base such a proposition. This was a guy who was far far better than anyone else was in his era, where everything was different including methods of coaching, methods of training, time devoted to the game, pitches, the laws of the game etc.

That doesn't translate to being the 2nd greatest at the art of batting.

Look, I can see you can argue points either way.

I just don't see - when you have great players from the best part a century whose individual game we are able to examine, as well as the nature of the version of the sport that they played in - how you can say that someone from the 19th century is the 2nd greatest batsman ever.
He was relatively brilliant at the game that was played back then. That's all you can say.

 

[ataraxia]

True, but if for the sake of demonstration there was a Grace 50 years earlier who completely dominated all the underarm bowling with his curved bat (apologies if historically inaccurate) and outscored the next best player by 5 to 1, that wouldn't in my view make him the 2nd or 3rd best batsman of all time. He wouldn't be likely to be a empirically better batsman than Viv Richards or Everton Weekes or Joe Root.

He was playing in a different sport. And so, albeit to a lesser extent, was Grace.

Let's say for sake of argument that cricket had evolved out of lawn bowls. You couldn't go back to lawn bowls and say Arty Chucker had the most dominant record of all time therefore he's the greatest bowler. You couldn't put him up against Marshall, or even Devon Malcolm.

It's the same principle. People here have said to all intents and purposes that it's a sure thing that if Grace was born in the 1980s, he'd have been carting Murali and Steyn out of the ground, or at least working them around with ease. The reality is that there is nothing at all on which to base such a proposition. This was a guy who was far far better than anyone else was in his era, where everything was different including methods of coaching, methods of training, time devoted to the game, pitches, the laws of the game etc.

That doesn't translate to being the 2nd greatest at the art of batting.

Look, I can see you can argue points either way.

I just don't see - when you have great players from the best part a century whose individual game we are able to examine, as well as the nature of the version of the sport that they played in - how you can say that someone from the 19th century is the 2nd greatest batsman ever.
He was relatively brilliant at the game that was played back then. That's all you can say.

Apologies, I had interpreted your initial post as saying (1) you thought Grace was overrated to a quantifiable degree as opposed to (2) discounting him altogether based on the era he played in. (2) makes much more sense.

 

[Midwinter]

Perhaps you should define the era in which you want to compare players.

Grace's reputation during his career was that he was "The Champion" and as people have pointed out statistically he was the best batsman of his era.
Therefore his reputation was deserved

HTH

 

[peterhrt]

So let's say average of 45.
Everyone plays each other once.

So an average of 7 or 8 teams.

say average 7.5 teams.
each season say 15 players per team needed

say 100 players in a season.

average career 5 years.

so you need probably 200 people in a decade.

so, why the **** were there 900????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In 1864 there were 46 first-class matches in England. 24 different teams. Some only played one match, such as Gentlemen of Kent, Players of South, The England XI and The United England XI.

Surrey played most matches, 11, and used 18 different players. Sussex used 22, Middlesex 26 and Kent 28. Other counties: Cambridgeshire 3 matches, 16 players; Hampshire 9 matches, 21 players; Nottinghamshire 7 matches, 17 players; Yorkshire 7 matches, 20 players. That's 168 players from 8 county teams alone. Actually 167 as John Lillywhite represented both Middlesex and Sussex.

MCC played 7 games, Oxford University 5 and Cambridge University 3. Occasionally cricketers represented more than one team. That happened more often once MCC expanded its fixture list.

235 players appeared in total that year, of whom 72 made their final first-class appearance.

By 1871 three additional counties were playing first-class cricket: Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Lancashire. Hampshire had dropped out.

240 different players appeared that year. Of the 52 matches staged, Grace appeared in 25, Jupp 24 and Pooley 22. Grace scored 2739 runs, average 78. Next best aggregate was Jupp with 1068 @ 24. Next best average 37 by Daft. Grace scored 10 centuries, nobody else more than one.

All-time career averages at the end of the 1871 season saw Grace averaging 59, with Daft next on 28. Grace had hit 26 hundreds. Jupp was next with 8, having played 185 matches to Grace's 85. Most appearances to date was by John Dean of Sussex: 305 matches between 1835 and 1861.

Seven bowlers had taken 1000 wickets at this point, William Lillywhite leading with 1576. Grace passed Lillywhite's total eleven years later when he was then the third leading wicket-taker after Alfred Shaw and James Southerton.

 

[Brook's side]

In 1864 there were 46 first-class matches in England. 24 different teams. Some only played one match, such as Gentlemen of Kent, Players of South, The England XI and The United England XI.

Surrey played most matches, 11, and used 18 different players. Sussex used 22, Middlesex 26 and Kent 28. Other counties: Cambridgeshire 3 matches, 16 players; Hampshire 9 matches, 21 players; Nottinghamshire 7 matches, 17 players; Yorkshire 7 matches, 20 players. That's 168 players from 8 county teams alone. Actually 167 as John Lillywhite represented both Middlesex and Sussex.

MCC played 7 games, Oxford University 5 and Cambridge University 3. Occasionally cricketers represented more than one team. That happened more often once MCC expanded its fixture list.

235 players appeared in total that year, of whom 72 made their final first-class appearance.

By 1871 three additional counties were playing first-class cricket: Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Lancashire. Hampshire had dropped out.

240 different players appeared that year. Of the 52 matches staged, Grace appeared in 25, Jupp 24 and Pooley 22. Grace scored 2739 runs, average 78. Next best aggregate was Jupp with 1068 @ 24. Next best average 37 by Daft. Grace scored 10 centuries, nobody else more than one.

All-time career averages at the end of the 1871 season saw Grace averaging 59, with Daft next on 28. Grace had hit 26 hundreds. Jupp was next with 8, having played 185 matches to Grace's 85. Most appearances to date was by John Dean of Sussex: 305 matches between 1835 and 1861.

Seven bowlers had taken 1000 wickets at this point, William Lillywhite leading with 1576. Grace passed Lillywhite's total eleven years later when he was then the third leading wicket-taker after Alfred Shaw and James Southerton.

Firstly, you obviously know an enormous amount about cricket in this era. Huge respect for that.

Secondly, I acknowledge that Grace was head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of batting in the mid-late 19th century version of the sport.

Thirdly, and with regards to the issue I raised on the number of players, I think it's interesting to note that:
-in 1864 counties used an average of 21 players per season (for between 7 and 11 matches)
-in 1864 almost 1 in 3 players made their debut
-(as noted in my post) between 1861 and 1870, more than 900 players were involved, around 4 times as many as played in 1864 alone, suggesting an average career span of around 2.5 years per county player.

 

[peterhrt]

Firstly, you obviously know an enormous amount about cricket in this era. Huge respect for that.

Secondly, I acknowledge that Grace was head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of batting in the mid-late 19th century version of the sport.

Thirdly, and with regards to the issue I raised on the number of players, I think it's interesting to note that:
-in 1864 counties used an average of 21 players per season
-in 1864 almost 1 in 3 players made their debut
-(as not in my post) between 1861 and 1870, more than 900 players were involved, around 4 times as many as played in 1864 alone, suggesting an average career span of around 2.5 years per county player.

Yes the overall numbers are slightly skewed because 84 of the 235 men appearing in 1864 played only one game. Teams sometimes looked for men to make up the numbers at the last minute. One of the reasons the county championship was set up (and the Football League) was to standardise fixtures as matches cancelled by clubs not raising a side were causing spectators to lose interest.

 

[Brook's side]

Now Cato, we are getting somewhere.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Putting WG Grace after Bradman is just bizzare to me.
I can't imagine him scoring a run against modern attacks

I'm going to go WG Grace - over rated

How is he overrated? Just because he is from a long time ago?

Older philosophers, artists, writers, politicians etc. are generally miles better than those of today. Why can't a cricketer from the 1870s-1890s be better than those from a hundred+ years later?

 

[Brook's side]

How is he overrated? Just because he is from a long time ago?

Philosophers, artists, writers, politicians etc. are generally miles better than those of today. Why can't a cricketer from the 1870s-1890s be better than those from a hundred+ years later?

I agree with you on politicians (but then who on earth would be mad enough to be a politician in this day and age of media scrutiny??).
I would have to think about artists, but my first thought is that I'm not sure that I agree with you on that.
Philosophers and writers I don't know.

What I know is music and films.
And the peak of film production and movie making was the 1960s.
Music has seen a decline in the 21st century.

Also, standards in the professions have undoubtedly declined in recent decades.

I tend to agree strongly with you, that focus on quality has declined in general in the last half century.

I don't believe however that that means that WG Grace is the 2nd best batsman who ever lived.
As we've seen, first class teams in Grace's time would find players on the day to make up the sides. There simply wasn't the depth in quality to measure against, and it goes without saying that standards of coaching and training have improved out of sight since the 19th century.

 

[Brook's side]

I respect both arguments, which I'm sure have been discussed at length previously. It's been interesting to run through it anyway, especially thanks to peterhrt's incredible insight.

 

[Pant Kameez]

Hammond

 

[Brook's side]

Perhaps you should define the era in which you want to compare players.

Grace's reputation during his career was that he was "The Champion" and as people have pointed out statistically he was the best batsman of his era.
Therefore his reputation was deserved

HTH

Tbh, after all that, the discussion was largely off topic!

It came about because somebody listed who they thought were the greatest ever batters and bowlers (not the topic), and put Grace as the 2nd greatest batsman. It was that which I took issue with, rather than his reputation during his playing career (which is what the thread is actually supposed to be about).

 

[Pant Kameez]

How is he overrated? Just because he is from a long time ago?

Philosophers, artists, writers, politicians etc. are generally miles better than those of today. Why can't a cricketer from the 1870s-1890s be better than those from a hundred+ years later?

You forgot boxers. Boxers of the 20th century are generally rated higher than 21st century boxers by both pundits and boxers themselves.

And I think it's a better comparison because they are both sports.

 

[Brook's side]

Hammond

especially as an all rounder!