Steven Smith vs Dale Steyn

[kyear2]

Peak : Smith > Sachin
Prime : Sachin > Smith
Okay

Not that I don't agree Sachin is slightly better, it's important to note that Smith's latter years are in this livelier era, while Sachin's was very much in the dead pitch state.

Yes the inverse is true for the beginning, but it's not like Sachin's home pitches were comparable to the other countries either.

But yeah, right now Smith is declining as the conditions are getting harder, tough to overcome that.

 

[Johan]

Your cut off date for Zimbabwe is clearly off. Because you obviously were a kid to have actually watched anything from that time.

Zimbabwe beat India in 2001.

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Then they almost beat India in India in 2002 in Delhi. So you are wanting to remove this Zimbabwe? Tendulkar never played Zimbabwe after 2002. There goes your agenda in the bin. Here's Bangladesh in 2010.

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Not every hundred is a freebie hundred. Some come in low scoring conditions. They are still a lot better than freebie downhill tons that Root scores in the 3rd innings with lead of 500+.

first of all, you're clearly getting emotional over someone saying 2000s Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were minnows, cut it out, I'm not interested in discussing with an individual who wants to get personal over normal ass debates about a sport.


3 50+ averaging bowlers, one 45 averaging bowler and one half good spinner (Shakib) who averages...33 against non-zimbabwe teams, we're not moved by runs against them. Teams can have off days

why don't you also mention the pitches that were flat as **** and Sachin got not out double hundreds on them?


like this test where he got 201*?

or how about this


248* on this wicket against a clearly non-test class bowling, not even Shakib to cope with.

Pretending 2000s Zimbabwe and Bangladesh aren't minnows while you have called iirc Windies minnows in the past, who have had WAY bigger upsets like beating England in England and Australia in Australia, is just... yeah, not ideal.

also, you really don't wanna get into a discussion of useless hundreds, everyone has them, there is a difference in doing them against a test class bowling unit and against a bunch of 50+ averaging objectively terrible bowlers.

 

[Coronis]

Because he think s/r is over rated, despite the fact that if Viv had retired at the same time as Chappell his average would still have been higher.

There's literally no case for the other 3, so basically instead of not rewarding him for being able to accelerate the innings, it's almost become a punishment.

lol. “literally no case” how blinded we are.

And yeah sure if he retired at the same time, with 30 less tests and a tiny career span. Why don’t you try the same amount of tests or better yet, innings?

 

[Johan]

Let's arbitrarily remove stats from players to suit our agenda. You can bring any player's average down by several points with just a few convenient filters. For instance, Lara seriously stat padded on absolute highways with 400* and 375 where getting a result was impossible. Without those 2 innings alone, his career average falls to 49.68.

first of all, I don't give two shits about Lara, he isn't my favourite or anything close but considering this is England slander....

375 came against Angus Fraser (27 avg) and Andy Caddick (29 avg) both using the new ball and were good bowlers.

400 came against Hoggard/Harmison/Flintoff/Jones, all good bowlers to varying levels.

again, I only removed minnow runs, I didn't ask you to remove Sydney runs even tho it was on a draw pitch, because it was against a test call bowling attack, but you're asking to remove runs against top 8 sides anyway so yeah, illogical.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Don’t forget Gareth Batty

 

[centurymaker]

first of all, you're clearly getting emotional over someone saying 2000s Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were minnows, cut it out, I'm not interested in discussing with an individual who wants to get personal over normal ass debates about a sport.

View attachment 43194
3 50+ averaging bowlers, one 45 averaging bowler and one half good spinner (Shakib) who averages...33 against non-zimbabwe teams, we're not moved by runs against them. Teams can have off days



Pretending 2000s Zimbabwe and Bangladesh aren't minnows while you have called iirc Windies minnows in the past, who have had WAY bigger upsets like beating England in England and Australia in Australia, is just... yeah, not ideal.

also, you really don't wanna get into a discussion of useless hundreds, everyone has them, there is a difference in doing them against a test class bowling unit and against a bunch of 50+ averaging objectively terrible bowlers.

Is a 100 in a low scoring innings (243 all out) vs Zim/Bang worth more?

or

A 100 in 3rd inns when your team is setting 600 run mammoth target vs NZ who have given up and opened the field and allowing free runs and waiting for declaration? Which 100 is better? Think for a minute.

So much for test standard attack.. As if that matters in such situations. Not a good argument. Match situation trumps everything.

 

[kyear2]

lol. “literally no case” how blinded we are.

And yeah sure if he retired at the same time, with 30 less tests and a tiny career span. Why don’t you try the same amount of tests or better yet, innings?

What's the case? Seriously what's the case that Barrington, Sangakkara and Kallis are better batsmen that Viv Richards.

Did they face better bowlers, tougher pitches, excellent at any one skill like Viv did vs fast bowling? We're any of them rated the best batsman of their era, far less over a decade?

And I'll look it up, but after 87 tests I'm sure the averages were comparable at the very least. Did he had the overseas tours that Viv did? The peak? The dominance vs ATG peers?

 

[Johan]

Is a 100 in a low scoring innings (243 all out) vs Zim/Bang worth more?

or

A 100 in 3rd inns when your team is setting 600 run mammoth target vs NZ who have given up and opened the field and allowing free runs and waiting for declaration? Which 100 is better? Think for a minute.

So much for test standard attack.. As if that matters in such situations. Such a ridiculous argument. Match situation trumps everything.

worth more — the runs against the non-test standard attack, as the team is in a tricky situation.

requires a higher level of skill — hundred against one of the top eight sides, as the bowlers are superior.

technically the hundred against Bangladesh was more valuable than the 241 against Australia in Sydney too, yet the later inning is remembered and rated more as it was against a decent attack.

again, there is a reason hundreds against good attacks are rated more than runs against minnow attacks, a hundred against Australia is gonna be rated more than a hundred against Nepal no matter how clutch the latter ton was. anyway Tendulkar has his fair share of worthless hundreds against top 8, so does Sobers, so does Bradman, so does literally everyone in history so it doesn't work anyway.

 

[centurymaker]

first of all, I don't give two shits about Lara, he isn't my favourite or anything close but considering this is England slander....

375 came against Angus Fraser (27 avg) and Andy Caddick (29 avg) both using the new ball and were good bowlers.

400 came against Hoggard/Harmison/Flintoff/Jones, all good bowlers to varying levels.

again, I only removed minnow runs, I didn't ask you to remove Sydney runs even tho it was on a draw pitch, because it was against a test call bowling attack, but you're asking to remove runs against top 8 sides anyway so yeah, illogical.

It doesn't matter what their career average is when they are playing on a highway. Are English bowlers averaging 30 on a highway? They look worse than any attack in the world on a highway. What are they averaging on such a pitch? 100 each? That's what is relevant.

So what matters is prevailing conditions and match situation. Not career averages of bowlers. Because those bowlers will average 2-3 times their career average on tracks like that.

Similarly when playing on a low scoring track, it's irrelevant if a bowler's average is 45 or 50! Because if India is getting bowled out for 243, then on that track Bangladeshi bowlers are averaging 24.3 per wicket. So this idea of yours to look at career avg of bowlers doesn't make sense. Career avg of bowlers is not going to determine opposition score. The pitch/the conditions dictate the opposition score as much as anything else.

 

[kyear2]

I mean I have him in my XI in my signature, he gets in over Lara and Smith due to his secondary and tertiary skills, but another day I might have him 7th.

He makes it into an ATG team partially because of his bowling with those 4 and Sobers? His bowling is inconsequential


What's not inconsequential would be his slip fielding as his status as arguably the greatest first slip ever.

So basically he's making it on his batting and justifiably on his catching.

So interesting how a tertiary skill gets someone into a team

 

[subshakerz]

What's not inconsequential would be his slip fielding as his status as arguably the greatest first slip ever.

Lol dude pls stop...

 

[centurymaker]

worth more — the runs against the non-test standard attack, as the team is in a tricky situation.

requires a higher level of skill — hundred against one of the top eight sides, as the bowlers are superior.

technically the hundred against Bangladesh was more valuable than the 241 against Australia in Sydney too, yet the later inning is remembered and rated more as it was against a decent attack.

again, there is a reason hundreds against good attacks are rated more than runs against minnow attacks, a hundred against Australia is gonna be rated more than a hundred against Nepal no matter how clutch the latter ton was. anyway Tendulkar has his fair share of worthless hundreds against top 8, so does Sobers, so does Bradman, so does literally everyone in history so it doesn't work anyway.

Double tons aren't usually scored on balanced pitches. They come on flat tracks large majority of the time. So I don't rate most double tons. It's flat track bullying.

 

[kyear2]

Lol dude pls stop...

I shall not.

But interesting how a "tertiary" skill can get someone into an ATG team.

 

[subshakerz]

Double tons aren't scored on balanced pitches. They come on flat tracks large majority of the time. So I don't rate most double tons. It's flat track bullying.

You can't ignore them entirely.

 

[Johan]

Double tons aren't scored on balanced pitches. They come on flat tracks large majority of the time. So I don't rate most double tons. It's flat track bullying.

 

[centurymaker]

worth more — the runs against the non-test standard attack, as the team is in a tricky situation.

requires a higher level of skill — hundred against one of the top eight sides, as the bowlers are superior.

technically the hundred against Bangladesh was more valuable than the 241 against Australia in Sydney too, yet the later inning is remembered and rated more as it was against a decent attack.

again, there is a reason hundreds against good attacks are rated more than runs against minnow attacks, a hundred against Australia is gonna be rated more than a hundred against Nepal no matter how clutch the latter ton was. anyway Tendulkar has his fair share of worthless hundreds against top 8, so does Sobers, so does Bradman, so does literally everyone in history so it doesn't work anyway.

You don't require more skill to get a 100 on a road vs a good attack, compared to a 100 on a tough pitch vs a weak attack.

 

[centurymaker]

You can't ignore them entirely.

Yes can't ignore them.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

The reason Tendulkar doesn't have as great a peak as others is primarily because India was not playing that many tests during his peak years. And the test series that they did play were often 2 matches and sometimes 3 matches in his absolute peak. So Tendulkar didn't get complete opportunity to run home the advantage after scoring 1-2 tons in the short series. If some of those series were 4 matches or 5 matches, he'd have undoubtedly got huge runs and 3 or more tons in few of those series in his absolute peak. India's prime focus back then was on ODI cricket.

For instance, he was killing it in the 1998 BGT series vs Australia but it was just 3 matches.

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

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Smith on the other hand was lucky that he played a lot more tests during his absolute peak. He was also lucky that his Ashes series and BGT series were always 4-5 tests. Let's reduce his big series to 2-3 tests long like Tendulkar. He will no longer have those ATG series that we talk about! So you guys need to be rational rather than jump to conclusions.

Disagree with most of your argument. Monster series is not just about run out put. It's about dominating and averaging in the 70+ range over the course of a series vs a challenging attack (greater the attack the better). For instance, Viv scored almost 400 runs in 4 innings vs a challenging attack in Australia in 1980. Sachin had plenty of opportunities to do the same vs South Africa in the 90s and Australia with McWarne. He didn't. Even that BGT in 1998 was vs Warne and a bunch of nobodies. The best he had was vs WI in 1997 over 6 innings. And I believe he had a great series vs Steyn away in the 2000s.

 

[Johan]

You don't require more skill to get a 100 on a road vs a good attack, compared to a 100 on a tough pitch vs a weak attack.

I don't think 2000 Bangladeshi pitches are something extremely difficult, and their bowler's home averages at the time reflect that.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

Yeah, Lara's 213 was most definitely not on a flat track. Sabina park is anything but that.