Sir Don Bradman - Is it fair to rate him above batsmen of other eras?

[Ikki]

I think Migara is being pretty conservative in that estimate there... but 75 is still ****ing insane over the course of a career.

15 points is conservative? That's basically saying that someone like Hobbs would average as much as Michael Vaughan. It says that the average specialist bat of this era is about as good as an all-time great around Bradman's time.

Law of diminishing returns plays it's part here too. The ability and consistency required to average 10 more than someone who averages 60 would be a far more than averaging 10 more than 50.

Which would make the above comparison even worse for older ATG greats not named Bradman.

 

[Flametree]

Bradman wouldnt be test standard today and would average in the 20s

So those players who were half as good as Bradman, the likes of McCabe and Ponsford, would average 12-14 in the modern world? Bill Ponsford is as good a batsman as say, Zaheer Khan?

You, sir, can go back to worshipping at your Sachin temple and leave the rest of us to have a serious conversation.

 

[weldone]

It's not that hard to gauge. Maybe not exactly but enough so to say he'd still be far and away the best. Cricket hasn't changed that much since Bradman played. The batting/bowling averages are usually within 3 point of each other through the decades and there have been overlaps in generations of greats and players. To suggest that cricket has changed to the point where the level below Bradman (the Laras, Richards, Chappells, Tendulkars, etc) could compare to him is to suggest a different sport is being played altogether IMO - you are talking about a make-up of almost 50 points on average.

The point is if Bradman is comparable to the Laras and Richards and Tendulkars then by the same logic who would George Headley and Wally Hammond be comparable to? Marlon Samuels and Ravi Bopara respectively, maybe? (or even lower)

If we can deal with that (which I can't, frankly) then I don't find any problem with comparing Bradman to Tendulkar, for instance.

 

[Spark]

15 points is conservative? That's basically saying that someone like Hobbs would average as much as Michael Vaughan. It says that the average specialist bat of this era is about as good as an all-time great around Bradman's time.




Which would make the above comparison even worse for older ATG greats not named Bradman.

Uh yeah cross-purposes. By conservative I meant low.

 

[ganeshran]

So those players who were half as good as Bradman, the likes of McCabe and Ponsford, would average 12-14 in the modern world? Bill Ponsford is as good a batsman as say, Zaheer Khan?

You, sir, can go back to worshipping at your Sachin temple and leave the rest of us to have a serious conversation.

 

[The Sean]

I think Migara is being pretty conservative in that estimate there... but 75 is still ****ing insane over the course of a career.

Ha ha, yeah. Though I don't really understand the reasoning that now in an era where Test runscoring is pretty much as heavy as it was back in the '30s, Bradman's average would somehow unaccountably drop by 25-30 points? As Ikki has said, Test averages by decade have remained within a couple of points of each other pretty much since the first World War.

 

[ganeshran]

There is simply no way to scientifically predict the Don's performance in the current era.

In the end, the stand that we takes comes down to our internal biases.

 

[Top_Cat]

Yeah I'm not an adherent to the school of thought that play back in Bradman's time was that much worse (it's entirely arguable, I certainly wouldn't claim my position as definitive and I doubt there's a statistical solution) but, as I said, it seems an irrelevant point to me. You end up debating whether Bradman is the best by merely streets or whole countries.

 

[Ikki]

Uh yeah cross-purposes. By conservative I meant low.

Sorry mate.

Ha ha, yeah. Though I don't really understand the reasoning that now in an era where Test runscoring is pretty much as heavy as it was back in the '30s, Bradman's average would somehow unaccountably drop by 25-30 points? As Ikki has said, Test averages by decade have remained within a couple of points of each other pretty much since the first World War.

Or the converse of older greats being crap these days is the greats of now being new Bradmans. People tend to argue these days that Tendulkar is as good as Bradman or belongs in that discussion. What they fail to consider is that automatically makes guys like Kallis, Ponting, Lara, et al comparable too. It's just as preposterous, really.

 

[Ruckus]

Yeah I'm not an adherent to the school of thought that play back in Bradman's time was that much worse (it's entirely arguable, I certainly wouldn't claim my position as definitive and I doubt there's a statistical solution) but, as I said, it seems an irrelevant point to me. You end up debating whether Bradman is the best by merely streets or whole countries.

From the footage I've seen I'm pretty confident it was. Purists will disagree, but let's get real here. I'm fully aware that back then you would need to make technical adjustments with your batting to adapt to the different conditions etc., but nevertheless, on the whole, I think if today's batting techniques were applied back then it would reap rewards, but not vice versa. Whilst certain aspects have simply changed, many have actually improved in almost every area (bowling, batting and fielding) imo. None of that denigrates the achievements of players back then though. You are only a product of your times. I really don't think it effects this current debate either. Bradman was also product of his times, and yet he coped far better than everyone else. If his success laid in the fact was somehow far superior technically to everyone else then I'd be open to the idea that he might not be that dominant in an era like this. However, from what I've seen, he simply wasn't. Some aspects of his technique were slightly unorthodox, however I really doubt that alone could explain his success. Bradman was definately a case of there being more than simply meets the eye imo.

 

[Top_Cat]

Footage can really give you the wrong impression, though. In this footage, for example, you'd think Brad Haddin had an aneurism live on TV and that's just flat out wrong.

 

[weldone]

Absolutely. According to the subjective opinions I formed watching footages I think if a helmet-less Brian Lara was told to face an angry Harold Larwood and an angry Michael Holding with no limits on bouncers and a leg-theory field championed by Jardine, the fate of his life insurance nominee would turn rather quickly!

 

[vic_orthdox]

You connect the batsmen through to Bradman - from Hutton through to Sobers, Gavaskar, Richards, etc.

The game evolves, but no-one has done anything like it. Was Sobers so much greater than Hutton? If he was that much greater, then why couldn't he do in his era what Bradman did in his?

 

[andyc]

Ya, and so has been grade cricket, school cricket and FC cricket.

And so has been the GCE A?L and O?L mathematics papers. Printed on paper, written on an answer script and geomatry was done using the same instruments. But the quality is different. There has been many a argument about this. But Bradman fanatics just even don't want do consider that game in '30s was different to that of today, yet alone admitting that it is of a lower quality.

In my view Bradman is still the best, but not as 4-5 standard deviations shown in the graph. In my SUBJECTIVE opinion would have averaged 70-75, away from 1 SD from the next best, making him less of a superhuman. Highly debatable, but I think I am more sane than Bradman fanatics.

You don't have to be a 'Bradman fanatic' to think he would have averaged the same. A lot of time people bring out the argument that the game's changed a lot since Bradman's time, and yes, it definitely has. However, I'm still confident that he'd perform the same way, assuming he was playing today.

For every argument that bowlers are faster, reverse swing is around, etc., there's the argument that batsmen now have more protection and bigger bats. That is, while bowling has come along a lot since then, so too has batting. If Bradman were to be playing today, there's no logical reason to believe that he wouldn't benefit from these advances in batting any more than the bowlers would benefit from the advances in their respective fields.

I'm pretty confident this is the case, because since Bradman's time, the balance between bat and ball has remained relatively the same; the good bowlers still average under 30 and the great ones under 25; the good batsmen still average over 40 and the great ones over 50. Yet Bradman still stands out as an anomaly, both in terms of Test cricket and FC cricket. No one's come even close to him yet.

So for mine, the argument that fielding standards have improved so much over time, or bowlers have becoming better, doesn't wash for me. If you were to jump in a time machine, go back to the 1930s, bring Bradman up and throw him in against South Africa tomorrow, then yes, I'm pretty certain he would struggle a bit. But if were born, raised and trained in today's environment, there's absolutely no reason IMO why he wouldn't be as successful, if not more. Assuming the coaches let him get away with his unorthodox batting technique, that is.

 

[Migara]

I'm not a Bradman fanatic, I just don't accept that it was easier for him to score runs than it has been for any other batsman in any other era. Of course the game is different. Some of those changes have made it harder for batsmen. (General increase in fielding standards, for instance, the end of timeless tests, changes in lbw law, reduced overs per day) A LOT of them have made life easier for batsmen (covered wickets, better equipment, faster outfields, shorter boundaries, the toll the current international calendar, multiple formats, and back-to-back tests takes on bowlers, for instance).

And yet through all of that, batting averages have remained pretty constant. If you could average 50, you were very very good, maybe even a true great. This suggests that all the changes over time haven't altered the basic balance between bat and ball.

(With the possible exception of the current generation where it seems a 50 average is pretty common.)

So if Bradman was a freak back then, I feel pretty confident he would be a freak today.

Your assessment of for and against the standard of the game is quite acceptable. But I find that analysis of batting would lead to players being more mortal. Same could be said about mystery bowlers, but Bradman didn't face any of true mystery bowlers. Field settings also have changed a lot as well as tactics of set batsmen getting a load of runs. Basically, bowling for me is a standard above what it was in 30s. Extremely fast men might have been there and as well as wrist spinners who spun it a mile. But reverse swing, mystery bowlers and resurgence of fingerspin are the new challenges a batsman face now. Most of them would have been very difficult to pick without state of art technology. And generally, bowlers have become faster. Fastest must have been very close over every era, but the support bowlers have got faster and faster. Somebody like Bopara hits 130k today, who is a part timer!

I generally agree with more oppositions, more your average will approach the median. Players who play 8 oppositions will have lesser degree of variance between their stats opposed to players who do it against two countries.

 

[stephen]

You don't have to be a 'Bradman fanatic' to think he would have averaged the same. A lot of time people bring out the argument that the game's changed a lot since Bradman's time, and yes, it definitely has. However, I'm still confident that he'd perform the same way, assuming he was playing today.

For every argument that bowlers are faster, reverse swing is around, etc., there's the argument that batsmen now have more protection and bigger bats. That is, while bowling has come along a lot since then, so too has batting. If Bradman were to be playing today, there's no logical reason to believe that he wouldn't benefit from these advances in batting any more than the bowlers would benefit from the advances in their respective fields.

I'm pretty confident this is the case, because since Bradman's time, the balance between bat and ball has remained relatively the same; the good bowlers still average under 30 and the great ones under 25; the good batsmen still average over 40 and the great ones over 50. Yet Bradman still stands out as an anomaly, both in terms of Test cricket and FC cricket. No one's come even close to him yet.

So for mine, the argument that fielding standards have improved so much over time, or bowlers have becoming better, doesn't wash for me. If you were to jump in a time machine, go back to the 1930s, bring Bradman up and throw him in against South Africa tomorrow, then yes, I'm pretty certain he would struggle a bit. But if were born, raised and trained in today's environment, there's absolutely no reason IMO why he wouldn't be as successful, if not more. Assuming the coaches let him get away with his unorthodox batting technique, that is.

If by "struggle a bit" you mean "only score a half century" then I might agree with you.

One thing that I don't think people tend to bring up is just how the different disciplines scale.

As you go up the grades, batting averages tend to get better and better, with the best averages belonging to test match players. This suggests to me that batting scales better with skill and ability than bowling does. Let's face it, most park cricket games at the sub-grade level are lucky to see batsmen who average over 20 for an entire season.

To me this suggests that there is more improvement potential for batsmen than bowlers. Given that the game of cricket sees the batsmen "winning" far more often than bowlers (an individual ball is far more likely to be hit for runs than to take a wicket) suggests to me that batsmen who were champions in the past would be far more likely to be able to adapt to modern conditions than people are giving them credit for.

In the case of Bradman, we cannot forget that he was a naturally gifted sportsperson, with great hand-eye coordination and incredible powers of concentration. He was a national level squash player (which was nothing more than a hobby to him) at a time where squash was a very popular sport.

Sure, with modern bats and roped in fences you could argue that an old-timer batsman would have a lot of difficulty adjusting to the ease of smashing fours and might get out by losing concentration, but I doubt that a time-machined Bradman would average any less than 90 in today's conditions.

As for T20, I think he'd be paid not to play, in the interests of competition. The IPL organisers would get a bit annoyed by having Bradman's team win every single tournament.

 

[Migara]

So those players who were half as good as Bradman, the likes of McCabe and Ponsford, would average 12-14 in the modern world? Bill Ponsford is as good a batsman as say, Zaheer Khan?

You, sir, can go back to worshipping at your Sachin temple and leave the rest of us to have a serious conversation.

Chill out mate. Note that smiley. He trying to be cheeky.

 

[weldone]

Somebody like Bopara hits 130k today, who is a part timer!

Some part-timers were fast during Bradman's time as well, Wally Hammond for example.

 

[L Trumper]

Should've closed the thread after ArchieMac's response.

If we are pegging back bradman, might as well say hammond, hutton et al averages less than 30 in the modern era and thus conclude that they are worse than the likes of vettori, sakib al hasan etc. FFS how many times the same discussion?

 

[G.I.Joe]

He was never a big fan of ODI. No doubt if he was playing now he would take the money and who would blame him. What would the IPL pay for him?

Still not sure if was plucked from 1936 he would have take to it.

I always loved the quote from Tiger after his lost his leg. He said "I am just sitting in my kitchen watching the paint dry, but it is still more exciting than watching ODI." What would he say about T20

You're making the assumption that all people from the same generation think alike on all matters.