Tendulkar/Hobbs vs Marshall/McGrath

[Sliferxxxx]

Well, I generally will go with the batsmen as they have career 23-24 years long. Ofcourse not attainable by a pacer like Maco, but that's just a perk and they are exceptions in this regard even among other ATG batsmen.

Fair. Unlike some other posters who just dismiss these types of comparisons outright, Sachin or Hobbs being rated above the two great pacers is reasonable.

 

[Johan]

Hobbs > Macko > Tendulkar for me, the way Hobbs was averaging 57 to the next best in 40s and then the 3rd best in 30s before the war, is unprecedented.

 

[shortpitched713]

and Yet, yet Fischer would lose to just about any modern day Super GM due to gap in preparation knowledge, skill level and so forth....are we ready to accept that Bradman would be inferior to just about any excellent batsmen today?

It all comes down to exactly how much prep time you give them.

Taking the chess analogy further, I would expect Fischer to be a lot more comfortable with the type of extensive opening prep and analysis required, than lets say Morphy who was used to facing opponents with 5 moves of prep and then improvising from there. The game changes.

Similarly Sobers, Hutton, even Bradman to an extent I'm more comfortable with them having some potential to acclimate to faster pace bowlers, given they dealt with them to a certain extent, whereas Hobbs it was trundlers into spin. It's still of course possible for that adaptation, but it's a different nature of challenge to the type he likely experienced in his career. The game changes.

 

[Johan]

It all comes down to exactly how much prep time you give them.

Taking the chess analogy further, I would expect Fischer to be a lot more comfortable with the type of extensive opening prep and analysis required, than lets say Morphy who was used to facing opponents with 5 moves of prep and then improvising from there. The game changes.

Similarly Sobers, Hutton, even Bradman to an extent I'm more comfortable with them having some potential to acclimate to faster pace bowlers, given they dealt with them to a certain extent, whereas Hobbs it was trundlers into spin. It's still of course possible for that adaptation, but it's a different nature of challenge to the type he likely experienced in his career. The game changes.

I'll be blunt with you, Hobbs's reputation post war largely had to do with his overwhelming superiority to Hammond when it comes to playing pace bowling, especially the short and quick stuff, if you're gonna discuss this you should atleast know how well he combatted fast bowling, There's a reason Constantine being a 85-88ish mph quick rated Hobbs higher than Hammond. You should also know it was Hobbs that found Larwood after facing him in a game and Hobbs used to easily average 40+ opening against Larwood and Voce, while being ancient.

Going with this chess analogy, Bobby Fischer was a genius and of course, if he grew up in this era he'd match the skill level of many super GMs, but that's just potential, bring in a 30 year old Fischer with a completed game to the modern day and he's getting wiped out by just about anyone in the top 15, because computers changed chess.

Same way, If Sobers is put today, he'd have no idea what the reverse is, he hadn't faced the amount of wobble guys produce today, the ball today moves for way longer due to the reinforced seam, the guys are way fitter and better fielders and technique would've increased by leaps and bounds. There is talent, where there's no one above Garfield Sobers barring Donald Bradman, and then there's actuality, where by the argument of sports evolution I don't see an adult Sobers being above your normal first class Cricketers.

Now obviously, I think most of Cricket's changes are superficial and easily adapted to by anyone since the golden era as the core of the game has remained the same, but I'm just saying, Fischer is not the analogy one would want to make for someone like Garfield because that just proves my point that if cricket evolves at a rapid pace, he'd be obsolete.

 

[shortpitched713]

Literally just say Viv and Gavaskar were garbage players compared to modern guys and I'll respect your stance, all I'm asking for is intellectual honesty.

Why those 2 specifically? Lol.

 

[shortpitched713]

I can give another example, in Starcraft: Broodwar, a purportedly mental game, there was a professional competitive league throughout the 2000s. However, the players who made a name for themselves in the earlier part of the decade could not cope with the players who came in and were most successful from 2007-2010ish. The earlier players had a more strategic improvisation and micro oriented style, whereas those of that later generation (who still dominate the game to this day) banked on their superior mechanical hand speed in leveraging a macro style. The only one of the old legends who could have some level of success happened to also have a superior level of that manual speed in an era where it wasn't considered as important. But no one else of the older generation can even come close against that next generation. And they were the absolute best, just a few years before the new wave started. The game changes, emphasis shifts. Decades of change happen in a few weeks. And some decades nothing happens. Or so some historian said something to that effect.

 

[Johan]

Why those 2 specifically? Lol.

Those two are the staple of that generation, if you say they suck I'll say you're consistent with your methodology

 

[shortpitched713]

I'll be blunt with you, Hobbs's reputation post war largely had to do with his overwhelming superiority to Hammond when it comes to playing pace bowling, especially the short and quick stuff, if you're gonna discuss this you should atleast know how well he combatted fast bowling, There's a reason Constantine being a 85-88ish mph quick rated Hobbs higher than Hammond. You should also know it was Hobbs that found Larwood after facing him in a game and Hobbs used to easily average 40+ opening against Larwood and Voce, while being ancient.

Going with this chess analogy, Bobby Fischer was a genius and of course, if he grew up in this era he'd match the skill level of many super GMs, but that's just potential, bring in a 30 year old Fischer with a completed game to the modern day and he's getting wiped out by just about anyone in the top 15, because computers changed chess.

Same way, If Sobers is put today, he'd have no idea what the reverse is, he hadn't faced the amount of wobble guys produce today, the ball today moves for way longer due to the reinforced seam, the guys are way fitter and better fielders and technique would've increased by leaps and bounds. There is talent, where there's no one above Garfield Sobers barring Donald Bradman, and then there's actuality, where by the argument of sports evolution I don't see an adult Sobers being above your normal first class Cricketers.

Now obviously, I think most of Cricket's changes are superficial and easily adapted to by anyone since the golden era as the core of the game has remained the same, but I'm just saying, Fischer is not the analogy one would want to make for someone like Garfield because that just proves my point that if cricket evolves at a rapid pace, he'd be obsolete.

I don't know if many would agree with you.

When and how the game changed is up for debate, but I think Sobers was in a period where a lot of changes (prevalence of fast bowling as the main wicket tool over spin, for one) solidified, but others were in progress. People will have a different idea of the history of the game than you. I'm presenting one possibility, and one in which I think it's plausible for Sobers to compete, let alone Gavaskar and Viv.

 

[Johan]

I don't know if many would agree with you.

When and how the game changed is up for debate, but I think Sobers was in a period where a lot of changes (prevalence of fast bowling as the main wicket tool over spin, for one) solidified, but others were in progress. People will have a different idea of the history of the game than you. I'm presenting one possibility, and one in which I think it's plausible for Sobers to compete, let alone Gavaskar and Viv.

England and West Indies were preffering pace over spin since 1920s...

 

[shortpitched713]

Not really the point was it?

I'm gonna be extremely frank with you as I've seen so far in this thread, there are two methods one can apply and both methods require the person to be intellectually consistent.

1. Linear Progression Method – under this methodology Cricket is going to always improve and all the players from the next generation would be superior to those who came before, we see this kind of progression in other sorts, and this applies to not only Grace, or Hobbs, or Hutton, this applies to everyone. As always moving, professionalisting, intensity increasing and developing sport, the logical consistency would demand that Boycott is better than Hutton, Cook is better than Boycott and Yashasvi is going to be better than all of them simply because the game's level is at a constant linear increase. This makes Hobbs trash to Sobers, but jt also makes Sobers trash to modern players, same thing happens with Viv or Imran or anyone really, hell, under this system Joe Root and Steven Smith would objectively be the two greatest Batsmen of all time and Jasprit Bumrah and Pat Cummins the two best bowlers, as the level of competition faced would just increase linearly, same way you treat 1912-1962.
2. Golden Era – rather than thinking about hypothetical developements, One accepts that Cricket developed into a mature sport in 1890s and henceforth, there's nothing to advance only for it to change slightly here and there, and no era of Cricket is inherently "better" than any other.

Personally, I've no issue with either approach, where it gets messy is when one doesn't rate Hobbs in comparison to Sobers but rates Sobers in comparison to modern day bats, or one doesn't rate Hobbs but rates Hutton when the gap between their eras is literal peanuts compared to the gap between the latter's eras and the modern era.

If one believes level of competition and skill level is increasing, fine, that does make older players garbage in comparison to modern day players physically and skillfully, but this increase and developement doesn't stop in 1970 just because colour Telivision came into play, the developement would keep happening and due to no world war interruptions and due to modern developments, the gap between a great from 1962 and 1912 is gonna be far smaller than the gap between a 2022 great and a 1962 great under the guise of linear Progression, pretending otherwise is foolish and ignores the boom period human technology, healthcare and medicalcare has gone since the second world war.

simply put, if there's a gap between 1912 and 1962 cricket in quality, the gap between 1962 Cricket and 2022 Cricket would be exponentially higher, Of Course, I personally interpret it as just differences, but if one wants to argue superiority of one era...go for it, it'll just doom every Cricket who played Cricket before the year 2000.

I don't even care about anyone's views on Barnes, his record speaks for himself, everyone who saw speaks for him, if you don't rate him that's fine, but there's probably nothing that's gonna make me change my view on him.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

This is the quote I was looking for. In my hypothesis of the history of cricket, those main decades of change were concentrated towards the middle of the 20th century.

 

[Johan]

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

This is the quote I was looking for. In my hypothesis of the history of cricket, those main decades of change were concentrated towards the middle of the 20th century.

I disagree, I think they were centred around the end of the victorian era and the game finally finding the balance between the ball and the bat.

 

[shortpitched713]

and Yet, yet Fischer would lose to just about any modern day Super GM due to gap in preparation knowledge, skill level and so forth....are we ready to accept that Bradman would be inferior to just about any excellent batsmen today?

I don't have a great deal of idea how much Fischer could acclimate given say 6 months of prep time to get himself up to speed on the current level of opening preparation. But I posit he'd do a lot better than Morphy given those 6 months, because the latter was more used to just playing the game, and working out of improvised positions, and the former was used to extensive opening preparation, just not with computers.

Similarly with Bradman, I also can't be 100% sure how good he'd be exactly, but if you give him a warm-up tour in SENA and one in the subcontinent, I'm figuring he could be up there with any modern bat.

Thing is, we aren't exactly able to do these experiments, so we have to make inferences that are more speculative. But having the sort of bimodal black and white hypothesis that you gave, doesn't seem appropriate to me.

 

[Johan]

I don't have a great deal of idea how much Fischer could acclimate given say 6 months of prep time to get himself up to speed on the current level of opening preparation. But I posit he'd do a lot better than Morphy given those 6 months, because the latter was more used to just playing the game, and working out of improvised positions, and the former was used to extensive opening preparation, just not with computers.

Similarly with Bradman, I also can't be 100% sure how good he'd be exactly, but if you give him a warm-up tour in SENA and one in the subcontinent, I'm figuring he could be up there with any modern bat.

Thing is, we aren't exactly able to do these experiments, so we have to make inferences that are more speculative. But having the sort of bimodal black and white hypothesis that you gave, doesn't seem appropriate to me.

sure, that was always my point, Morphy (Hobbs) can be fodder to Fischer (Sobers) and Fischer (Sobers) can be fodder to Fabiano (Root), the logic is the same all ways, but I doubt anyone is ready to go for Root > Viv when logically by their own argument...they really should..

also, Morphy is genuinely from hundreds of years ago bro, that'd be like mentioning Fuller Pilch, Take Hobbs as Capabalanca and Sobers as Fischer and my analogy works even better, that's been my point the whole time, if one thinks Sobers is better than Hobbs on basis of Cricket evolution and change, that's fine, I disagree but that's fine.

but there should be consistently, you can't use era arguments while simultaneously pretending Sobers can be better than guys from 50 years after him, that's inherently contradictory, if someone says all older players are inferior to current crop who put somewhat similar performances, that's fine for me, I'm just not a fan of picking out eras and choosing where Cricket, frankly, stops developing.

 

[shortpitched713]

And if you argue for gradual shift, the thinking it changed more between 1910 and 60 (with 2 WWs in between) than 1960 and now is laughable, at best.

Respectfully, why?

Change begets change. Those were the decades of massive global scale change, and the seeds of the globalization that has made the world what it is today. It was accelerated a few decades for sports, due to the ease of moving around some top players, as opposed to a whole modern labor force, but the concept is the same. There was a much more insulated pool of talent, that opened up towards the middle of the century, and saw little growth in scope (although yes, continuing improvement in total number of players and infrastructure) in the decades after.

 

[Johan]

Change begets change. Those were the decades of massive global scale change, and the seeds of the globalization that has made the world what it is today. It was accelerated a few decades for sports, due to the ease of moving around some top players, as opposed to a whole modern labor force, but the concept is the same. There was a much more insulated pool of talent, that opened up towards the middle of the century, and saw little growth in scope (although yes, continuing improvement in total number of players and infrastructure) in the decades after.

Mate what are we talking about here? Interwar period was universally seen as an inferior game to the Golden Age, ans after the world war 2nd I remember no such event of decades being accelerated.

 

[shortpitched713]

I've never dismissed the possibility that Root could just be better as a player than Viv. Only stated that, given my own view of how cricket looks like it's changed, he'd have a much greater probability of adapting and highlighting whatever inherent skills he might have, than say a player from arbitrarily far back like a Grace or whomever.

If you don't think Morphy is a good comparison, then we could go Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, whomever, point is Fischer is much more likely to adapt than any of them given a short catch up period to just download memorize the chess opening development in the years since he left. Because that sort of thing was already much more a part of the game that Fischer played, than for any of those earlier periods players.

Anyway, I think we're both talking in circles, and unlikely to convince each other, so I'll try not to engage further in this convo. I do respect your hypothesis and what you're trying to do. We should always challenge our assumptions of the game, and not fossilize opinions without reflection. I'm just not seeing your bimodal either everything after 1890 is equal or flat ramp of growth as fitting the reality. I think there's more nuance there.

 

[shortpitched713]

Mate what are we talking about here? Interwar period was universally seen as an inferior game to the Golden Age, ans after the world war 2nd I remember no such event of decades being accelerated.

That is likely the contemporary "historians", who will always rate the generation right before them better than what is in front of their eyes. There is literally no reason to think the game ever regressed in such a manner as these guys rose colored glasses always seems to indicate.

You go from 3 to 4 to 7 Test playing nations, and you don't think growth and competitiveness is accelerating?

 

[Johan]

I've never dismissed the possibility that Root could just be better as a player than Viv. Only stated that, given my own view of how cricket looks like it's changed, he'd have a much greater probability of adapting and highlighting whatever inherent skills he might have, than say a player from arbitrarily far back like a Grace or whomever.

If you don't think Morphy is a good comparison, then we could go Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, whomever, point is Fischer is much more likely to adapt than any of them given a short catch up period to just download memorize the chess opening development in the years since he left. Because that sort of thing was already much more a part of the game that Fischer played, than for any of those earlier periods players.

Anyway, I think we're both talking in circles, and unlikely to convince each other, so I'll try not to engage further in this convo. I do respect your hypothesis and what you're trying to do. We should always challenge our assumptions of the game, and not fossilize opinions without reflection. I'm just not seeing your bimodal either everything after 1890 is equal or flat ramp of growth as fitting the reality. I think there's more nuance there.

For reference, I don't think everything after 1890 is the "same" but equal in the sense that every era has it's own set of challenges, for example if you put say Victor Trumper today and Joe Root in 1903 on those wet minefields with those short bats, I don't think Root would find success with that equipment with those wickets, same way I don't think Victor Trumper would come out and dominate Bumrah and Rabada on swining wickets with bats much bigger than what he was used to and quicker bowling than the average of the time.

What my point is, I don't think one is necessarily better than the other under all context, both have their selling points and both have their own set of challenges that I don't see the other easily representing, after enough practise both ways? sure! but it's not like I can see someone from today walk on a wet wickets, take a bat the size of a toothpick and smash around fast bowlers and spinners alike, same way I can't see someone like Trumper making 750 runs against Bumrah on bowling friendly wickets. The core game is similar though, that's a stance I'll not change on, give them a flat wicket and the same type of bowling that they'd both be used to (spin) and they're making an equivalent number of runs. Hobbs is kind of different as he absolutely owned a very good pace trio from West Indies in 1928, makimg 500 runs in just 6 innings, 3 tons and so forth, completely outperforming Hammond and Sutcliffe so I back him against pace.

All in all, I agree we're going in circles and it'd be wiser to end here.

 

[Johan]

That is likely the contemporary "historians", who will always rate the generation right before them better than what is in front of their eyes. There is literally no reason to think the game ever regressed in such a manner as these guys rose colored glasses always seems to indicate.

You go from 3 to 4 to 7 Test playing nations, and you don't think growth and competitiveness is accelerating?

I think the argument was the wickets greatly flattening and the balance between the bat and the ball dissapearing, this was kind of a sentiment showed by Hobbs too when he said he found making runs in 20s easier even though he was, per his own words, a far inferior Batsmen which I'm inclined to believe considering his elderly age and illnesses and he was still one of the leading bats against pace, probably the best until Bradman came along.

Regardless, I think we've discussed enough.

 

[Xix2565]

Fair. Unlike some other posters who just dismiss these types of comparisons outright, Sachin or Hobbs being rated above the two great pacers is reasonable.

**** no. The pacers are the matchwinners here.