The ATG Teams General arguing/discussing thread

[trundler]

Grace was a very capable bowler, captain and fielder but if you were to read contemporary 19th century literature you would see he was not considered pre-eminent in any of these categories.

Well The Champion was surely considered the pre-eminent bat of the era. He was outscoring all of England! We all know the legend of entry fees being doubled if he played. Surely it was batsmanship which made him THE superstar of Victorian Britain.

 

[andmark]

Borges notes in the DoG thread that Barnes got a fivefer in 48% of matches he played. It's got me thinking, what would a bowler version of Bradman's record look like? Barnes's record is ridiculous and it might be the closest a bowler has reached to Bradman levels, but how good does it have to be to get there?

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Well The Champion was surely considered the pre-eminent bat of the era. He was outscoring all of England! We all know the legend of entry fees being doubled if he played. Surely it was batsmanship which made him THE superstar of Victorian Britain.

He was talking about captaincy, fielding and bowling though.

 

[Prince EWS]

Well The Champion was surely considered the pre-eminent bat of the era. He was outscoring all of England! We all know the legend of entry fees being doubled if he played. Surely it was batsmanship which made him THE superstar of Victorian Britain.

Yeah I remember doing some quick stats compliations to show Grace was further ahead of the average batsman in county cricket for about a 15 year period than Bradman was ahead of the average Test batsman during his career. Unlike the Bradman case there were a couple of others closer to him who were also three to four times better than average, but nevertheless he was something ridiculously special with the bat.

AMZ is right that his bowling, while good, never challenged "best in the world" though.

 

[Borges]

Borges notes in the DoG thread that Barnes got a fivefer in 48% of matches he played. It's got me thinking, what would a bowler version of Bradman's record look like? Barnes's record is ridiculous and it might be the closest a bowler has reached to Bradman levels, but how good does it have to be to get there?

Barnes got a fivefer in 48% of the innings that he bowled in; in 88.9% of the matches that he played.

I would guess that taking a fivefer by a bowler is comparable to scoring a century by a batsman.

 

[andmark]

Barnes got a fivefer in 48% of the innings that he bowled in; in 88.9% of the matches that he played.

I would guess that taking a fivefer by a bowler is comparable to scoring a century by a batsman.

That statistic is incredible. It really has got me wondering if a Bradman comparison would be fair.

 

[trundler]

A bowler can take 5-150 by grabbing some cheap tail end wickets after getting thrashed all day though. There are too many variables involved in a fiver for it to be considered an equivalent of a century.

 

[trundler]

Yeah I remember doing some quick stats compliations to show Grace was further ahead of the average batsman in county cricket for about a 15 year period than Bradman was ahead of the average Test batsman during his career. Unlike the Bradman case there were a couple of others closer to him who were also three to four times better than average, but nevertheless he was something ridiculously special with the bat.

AMZ is right that his bowling, while good, never challenged "best in the world" though.

I actually know what you're talking about even thought it was well before my time

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

A bowler can take 5-150 by grabbing some cheap tail end wickets after getting thrashed all day though. There are too many variables involved in a fiver for it to be considered an equivalent of a century.

That was my first reaction to 'a five wicket haul is equivalent to a century'.

 

[harsh.ag]

A cheap five fer is the equivalent of a century.

 

[trundler]

HowSTAT! Test Cricket - Sydney Barnes - Notable Performances

Only 2 with an average over 20 remarkably.

 

[Bolo]

AMZ is right that his bowling, while good, never challenged "best in the world" though.

For the purposes of this comparison, he wouldn't need to be the best in the world, just the best in his team. I think this might have been the case in his youth. He was definitely his side's leading wicket taker at stages.

 

[trundler]

Of the 12 against Australia, 4 were I'm losing causes. The rest of the bowling lineup did **** all in those matches, however. So Barnes was often the best bowler on either side even in matches where Australia scored 400. Maybe he was just a freak and not some condition reliant trundler.

 

[Prince EWS]

A bowler can take 5-150 by grabbing some cheap tail end wickets after getting thrashed all day though. There are too many variables involved in a fiver for it to be considered an equivalent of a century.

It would no doubt change a bit depending on how batting-friendly or bowling-friendly the era was, but for this century at least I'm going to throw up "at least 4 wickets at a bowling average no higher than 15".

Since Jan 1 2001 there have been 1645 tons, and 1068 instances of the bowling equivalent I offered up. When you consider that there are more batsmen than bowlers selected in each lineup, it largely matches up. As a rough sort of standardisation, if you said that a team on average used four and a half bowlers and bats to seven. and therefore multiplied that 1068 by (7/4.5), you get 1661, which is extremely close to the amount of tons.

Throughout Barnes's career I think you'd have to be a little harsher given tons were rarer and bowling averages were lower in general.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

A cheap five fer is the equivalent of a century.

A century these days is the equivalent of 3 top order wickets

 

[trundler]

It would no doubt change a bit depending on how batting-friendly or bowling-friendly the era was, but for this century at least I'm going to throw up "at least 4 wickets at a bowling average no higher than 15".

Since Jan 1 2001 there have been 1645 tons, and 1068 instances of the bowling equivalent I offered up. When you consider that there are more batsmen than bowlers selected in each lineup, it largely matches up. As a rough sort of standardisation, if you said that a team on average used four and a half bowlers and bats to seven. and therefore multiplied that 1068 by (7/4.5), you get 1661, which is extremely close to the amount of tons.

Throughout Barnes's career I think you'd have to be a little harsher given tons were rarer and bowling averages were lower in general.

What was the overall bowling average in Barnes's era? I tend to think of his average as 20-21 in modern terms.. This is largely based on Hill, Trumper and Taylor averaging near 40. So perhaps a fifer at less than 10 a piece?


Then again, we have to consider that besides Bradman there were others who had exceptional conversion rates in his era.

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Kapil came down the order and scored quick runs. That doesn't make him a better batsman than someone who opened and scored more centuries and more fifties and had more runs per innings.

It's like saying Klusener was a better batsman than Kirsten.

So the ranking system is wrong. Isnt it?

Aproximate stats of Kapil and Srikanth for the said period.
Kapil 21/innings at 100
Srikanth 29 at 75
Difference of 8 points in Runs and 25 points in strike rate.

I was just checking batting rankings of 80s, and i found Kapil topping among indians. Just posted it here. And i think its not completely irrelevant.

 

[andmark]

Throughout Barnes's career I think you'd have to be a little harsher given tons were rarer and bowling averages were lower in general.

Yeah, the likes of uncovered wickets would need to be considered.

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Might as well call Afridi the best of the 00s.

I checked Batting Ranking of Jan 1 everyear from 1997 to 2015.
Afridi featured in top 20
ZERO times.

 

[Pap Finn Keighl]

Must have been a very weak period of international cricket if Kapil is in the top 10 batsmen

Probably,
Viv richards, Jones, Haynes, Greenidge, Gavaskar, De silva, Gooch, Gower, Waugh, Miandad, Srikanth, Boon, Richardson, Azhar, Malik, Vengsarkar, Crowe, Abbas, Border, Ranatunga.. Etc not bad though.