Rank your 5 best bats from Australia post-Bradman

[ZK$]

The time Ponting declined was over a third of his career and nearly 60 tests, averaging 38, which is way too long a period to ignore. You cant struggle that long and not have that affect your standing.

Your issue is that you assume a player should just be judged based on their best years, as opposed to those years when they struggle too. I think both need to be assessed together.

I don’t think a player should be judged based on their best years. If I did think that, I would just cherry pick Ponting’s 5 year peak when comparing him to other players. I think that a player shouldn’t be penalized for playing longer and helping his team instead of retiring around his peak. I wouldn’t rate Ponting any differently than I do right now if he decided to retire around 2007.

Ponting’s last couple years are definitely relevant for me when comparing him to players with similar or longer careers. It’s why I rate Tendulkar and Sobers much higher than him. They aren’t relavent for me when comparing him to players with significantly shorter careers though. Ponting and Hayden average about the same but I don’t consider them to be in the same tier.

 

[ZK$]

Short career and easy era. Ponting, Dravid etc averaged 60 after a decade too. I think he's retrospectively overrated if anything. Him over Dravid or Younis doesn't compute to me.

I agree with this. He’s pretty overrated. He only really had a 9 year career and still only managed an average of 34 against the West Indies who were arguably the best bowling attack during his career. He did very well against Australia and South Africa though. I wonder what conditions were like in England at the time since that’s where he struggled against the West Indies.

 

[BazBall21]

I agree with this. He’s pretty overrated. He only really had a 9 year career and still only managed an average of 34 against the West Indies who arguably the best bowling attack during his career. He did very well against Australia and South Africa though. I wonder what conditions were like in England at the time since that’s where he struggled against the West Indies.

Definitely a lot more challenging than WI which was probably the most batsman-friendly place at the time.

 

[BazBall21]

Think Ponting was bad enough in India to not be rated ahead of Tendulkar even if he avoided
the late collapse.

 

[Burgey]

I wonder what conditions were like in England at the time

Probably pretty bleak and grim

 

[Shady Slim]

Ponting's post-peak phase was nearly half his career, while Viv's post-peak phase was 60% of his career. So of course they need to be part of how they are assessed overall.

How a player handles their aging years when they lost their pace, their strength, their reflexes, their sharp sightedness is one of the great challenges in cricket and part of most career paths. Judging their post-peak phase as part of their overall career then makes total sense.

i suppose it depends on how you conceive of achievements though

eg like i see it as sort of building a castle, and playing too long quote unquote as trying to tack on a shitty art deco wing to your mighty castle, which you can sort of to my mind sever from the rest of the castle when evaluating it. others see that playing on too long is taking a demolition ball to the main part of the castle, and i don't think that's really fair

 

[Shady Slim]

So your formula is to simply compare only the same length of careers of two batsmen and just ignore all the years after?

So if I am comparing batsman A with 10 years and batsman B with 20 years, I only look at the first 10 years for batsmen B?

i mean if batsman a averaged fifty after ten years over x tests and then retired at thirty two, batsman b on the other hand averaged sixty after ten years and across x tests but retired at forty two with an average of 49, yes it wouldn't be unreasonable to rate batsman b as higher imho

 

[ZK$]

i mean if batsman a averaged fifty after ten years over x tests and then retired at thirty two, batsman b on the other hand averaged sixty after ten years and across x tests but retired at forty two with an average of 49, yes it wouldn't be unreasonable to rate batsman b as higher imho

Yep, this is the point I was making. It’s like if Kohli retired today, but Smith played for another 10 years averaging 40 and ended up averaging 50 like Kohli. I would still rate Smith much higher than Kohli.

 

[Red]

Personally I rank the Aus post Bradman middle order bats like this:

G. Chappell
Ponting
Smith
Border
Harvey
S.Waugh
Hussey
Clarke
I. Chappell
M. Waugh

Or something like that. Labuschagne might come in. Walters unlucky. Also could include Boon but I think of him more as an opener even though he may have spent more time at 3.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

Personally I rank the Aus post Bradman middle order bats like this:

G. Chappell
Ponting
Smith
Border
Harvey
S.Waugh
Hussey
Clarke
I. Chappell
M. Waugh

Or something like that. Labuschagne might come in. Walters unlucky. Also could include Boon but I think of him more as an opener even though he may have spent more time at 3.

M Waugh vs Martyn would be an interesting comparison. They are the two most aesthetically pleasing Aussie bats I've seen (up with Gower, Crowe, VVS, and MoYo for being good to watch).

 

[subshakerz]

I don’t think a player should be judged based on their best years. If I did think that, I would just cherry pick Ponting’s 5 year peak when comparing him to other players. I think that a player shouldn’t be penalized for playing longer and helping his team instead of retiring around his peak. I wouldn’t rate Ponting any differently than I do right now if he decided to retire around 2007.

This part is what I have an issue with. It's not like Ponting was going to retire in 2007 and decided not to because his team requested him to stay so Ponting is doing a special favor. He decided to play longer because he thought he could contribute and it turns out he struggled to maintain the same form as before.

I understand giving concession to players who start unusually early like Wasim or a batsman who would play in his forties. But Ponting retired at 37 which is perfectly normal, so I consider his 2007-2012 years to be as representative as 96 to 2006.

 

[subshakerz]

i mean if batsman a averaged fifty after ten years over x tests and then retired at thirty two, batsman b on the other hand averaged sixty after ten years and across x tests but retired at forty two with an average of 49, yes it wouldn't be unreasonable to rate batsman b as higher imho

And if batsman b retired with an average of 45? Would you still rate him higher based on the better peak?

 

[subshakerz]

Yep, this is the point I was making. It’s like if Kohli retired today, but Smith played for another 10 years averaging 40 and ended up averaging 50 like Kohli. I would still rate Smith much higher than Kohli.

Smith ending up averaging 50 would still be better than Kohli retiring today, so its not a good example.

If Smith retired today, how would you rate him in the top ten batsmen of all-time? And if he averaged 40 for 10 years from now, would you rate him the same? If he drops, then you would agree that late career post-peak performances do impact a player's overall standing.

 

[mr_mister]

Regardless of the India failures, if he had retired for whatever reason after 107 tests with an average of 60 or 59.99 or whatever it was, I really struggle to think Punter isn't held up as the second best after Bradman by the vast majority of CW

I know there's more to batting stats than a career average, but 60 is just so much higher than Lara, Viv's, Sachins etc that it becomes a stretch to ignore it

what's extra interesting to me with punter is halfway during the 2001 Ashes, so Post India series, he'd been in and around the test side for already 6 years, was averaging like 40 after 45 tests. He looked set for an ATVG at best. A wasted potential type career

With such a slow and long start it's crazy he managed to get that average up to 60

 

[Gob]

You guys are going in circles as always.

Playing on past there peak won't affect the opinions of people who watched the entire careers.

Generations that follows would rate them lower since they will look at the end stats

 

[subshakerz]

Regardless of the India failures, if he had retired for whatever reason after 107 tests with an average of 60 or 59.99 or whatever it was, I really struggle to think Punter isn't held up as the second best after Bradman by the vast majority of CW

I know there's more to batting stats than a career average, but 60 is just so much higher than Lara, Viv's, Sachins etc that it becomes a stretch to ignore it

Ponting minimum would be in the top five. I think his late career slump dropped him a good 6-7 places in the rankings.

 

[subshakerz]

You guys are going in circles as always.

Playing on past there peak won't affect the opinions of people who watched the entire careers.

Generations that follows would rate them lower since they will look at the end stats

I don't think that is true. I know that I rated Wasim and Waqar much more highly in the mid-90s than by the end of their careers. Same with Ponting before and after that Ashes 2007. Or Botham past the mid-80s.

If your post-peak phase is long enough it will definitely drop your standing.

 

[mr_mister]

Ponting minimum would be in the top five. I think his late career slump dropped him a good 6-7 places in the rankings.

Yeah, to really simplify it, it took him from well into the discussion of best after Bradman to definitely out of it

 

[ZK$]

Smith ending up averaging 50 would still be better than Kohli retiring today, so its not a good example.

If Smith retired today, how would you rate him in the top ten batsmen of all-time? And if he averaged 40 for 10 years from now, would you rate him the same? If he drops, then you would agree that late career post-peak performances do impact a player's overall standing.

The point is that Kohli and Smith would be close statistically, while today the difference in their averages is around 10.

If Smith retired today, I would rate him at around the same level as Viv/Lara/Ponting/Chappell. If he averages 40 for the next 10 years and ends up averaging 50, I would still consider him equal to these guys, so no my rating of him wouldn’t drop at all.

The same applies to Ponting in 2007. If he retired then, I would rate him at the same level as Viv/Lara/Chappell. I still rate him at the same level as those guys despite his last few years.

 

[Gob]

Ponting minimum would be in the top five. I think his late career slump dropped him a good 6-7 places in the rankings.

Probably. He was destined to break Tendulkar's records for most runs and hundreds (and for a while it looked a real possibility) and there were serious comparisons between the two. Those discussions were permanently put to rest not only with Ponting's decline but Tendulkar's return to form