kyear2
Hall of Fame Member
How do the pitches from the '30's and 40's compare to those of the 90's?Bradman's average is hampered by wet pitches, they don't exist anymore, so probably more.
How does the attacks of Wasim and Waqar, McWarne, Donald and Pollock compare to the pacers of the day.
To disregard all of that is missing quite a bit of context.
There've been plenty of material where it's referenced that Hobbs and Bradman were held in equal esteem in particular because of the pitches.
After he retired the pitches around the world, outside of the WI or course we're intentionally livened up.
But what happens when Weekes and Walcott were less than God like away from the Caribbean? They were and are seen as HTB's. Those were the same types of tracks that Bradman had everywhere, not to add bowling squads that were light years ahead of what Bradman faced. Lindwall, Miller and that crew, Statham and Trueman.
Of all the batsmen in the top 14 or so, Bradman was the only one to face almost no pitches conducive to fast bowling, and no ATG pacers. The one time he faced anything close to resembling what subsequent batsmen had to face, it sparked an international incident. Though when it was repeated not too long after, the blowback wasn't nearly quite the same.
Sachin isn't revered for what he did in the 2000's, it's for what he did in the 90's.
No one quite had the perfect storm that Bradman did, and to his eternal credit, he capitalized on them like possibly no one would. But as @peterhrt has consistently said, runs from the late 20's started to be devalued, and for good reason.
For all of his average, Sutcliffe was never seen to be close to being on par with Hobbs or Hutton. Both openers both pre and post their respective wars faced far more significant challenges.
The period and it's level of non responsiveness from the pitches is a large reason why O'Reilly is rated as highly as he is.
Bradman is the best, the greatest, all of that. No one's even questioning that.
But to believe he's somehow twice as good as everyone else is something that wasn't even beloved when he played and even a decade after he retired.
Hobbs was very much on his heels of not seen to be his equal by many.
The literature is there.
In any event, I don't rate him to be twice as good as any of the batsmen in my BAB category. Not close.