His time of consistency certainly should leave a hole in how he's remembered - meaning he should't be compared with lara and sachin.
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The best batsman and bowler of the 1990s
- Thread starter Ilovecric
- Start date
Migara
International Coach
Best batsmen 1990-1999 (>40 innings)
Tendulkar, Waugh and Lara heads the list. Gooch and Dravid had been very good. Interesting to see Ganguly, de SIlva and Anwar high up in the leist as well. And PAdams as well.
Code:
Player Ave
SR Tendulkar 58.00
SR Waugh 53.10
BC Lara 51.60
GA Gooch 51.55
R Dravid 49.96
SC Ganguly 49.63
PA de Silva 46.82
Saeed Anwar 46.10
Saleem Malik 45.97
JC Adams 45.60Migara
International Coach
Top bowlers (>40inn)
Ambrose, Pollock, Wasim, Waqar, Donald are quite close to each other. Compare this with 2000s, and you'll definietly see the difference. Although the bowling average has risen only about 3 runs in 2000s, in 1990s better bowlers had been distinctly better, and crap ones are crappier.
Ambrose, Pollock, Wasim, Waqar, Donald are quite close to each other. Compare this with 2000s, and you'll definietly see the difference. Although the bowling average has risen only about 3 runs in 2000s, in 1990s better bowlers had been distinctly better, and crap ones are crappier.
WestIndianMagic
Cricket Spectator
Batsman: Tendulkar & Lara
Bowlers: Warne & Ambrose/Wasim/Donald
Overall I'd say the two West Indians; Lara & Ambrose.
Bowlers: Warne & Ambrose/Wasim/Donald
Overall I'd say the two West Indians; Lara & Ambrose.
stephen
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Given he really only played for a few years in the 90s I'm not sure it counts so much. In the 00s his average is just short of 60, which is phenomenal. If I had to have someone bat for my life I'd take Ponting to do so over the other two batsmen.
Having said that, while I would rate Ponting as the best player of pace of the three, he was by far the worst player of spin which puts him very marginally behind the other two in how I rate them.
EDIT: In the 00s Ponting averages 5 runs higher than Lara and 6 runs higher than Tendulkar, in the 90s he averaged 8 runs less than Lara and 14 runs less than Tendulkar. Given that he now has the superior average it goes to show how a small sample size can skew the way you look at any player.
At the same stage in their careers (~2000 runs) Lara was averaging nearly 60, Tendulkar just cracked an average of 50 and Ponting averaged 44. Such a small sample size really cannot tell the true story for a modern batsman.
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silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
Ambrose, Tendulkar
Lillian Thomson
Hall of Fame Member
SS must finally have seen through the phoney Glenn Mcgrath for the medium pace trundler he really is.
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
Lara and Ambrose...
silentstriker
The Wheel is Forever
I think McGrath was a better bowler, but his peak was mid 90s to middle of this decade, so I can't give him the whole decade.
Ikki
Hall of Fame Member
Always thought Donald more dangerous. It's quite something that with the aura he had, the fiery persona he showed, that he is so underrated. His record in the 90s is ridiculously good. Something tells me if he were Australian and in the #1 team he would have gotten a lot more spotlight.
MrIncredible
U19 Cricketer
Bowler: Ambrose
Batsman: Steve Waugh (performed great vs great bowling attacks of his time where 'others' failed)
Batsman: Steve Waugh (performed great vs great bowling attacks of his time where 'others' failed)
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
I don't particularly have a problem with anyone considering Ambrose better than Donald (and the 1990s made-up essentially the entire careers of the two so that's a career as well as decade matter), but I think the main reason for it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Ambrose was essentially simply indominatable - no-one, ever, got on top of him, it just wasn't possible. He had times when he wasn't all that effective, but the only way to stop him getting wickets was to block him out - I honestly can't think of a single occasion where someone went after him and didn't pay the price.
Donald on the other hand had the odd occasion - no more than the odd occasion, but it did happen - when he was off-peak, and when he was off-peak he was anodyne and easily got after. As a batsman you never had much of a hope of either surviving or scoring very quickly against Donald when he was on top of his game, because he was a master of just about everything you could wish for in a seam bowler, something Ambrose wasn't. But the fact that it's impossible to recall an occasion where someone got on top of Ambrose (because such a thing pretty much never happened) makes quite an impact.
Come what may, Ambrose and Donald are two of the finest bowlers to have played the game we recognise as cricket, let's put it that way. Anything dividing the two is very fine indeed.
zaremba
Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah spot-on. Different in many ways, though, so they will have different appeals for different people.
Both were great to watch. In full flow Donald in particular was one of the finest sights you're likely to see on a cricket pitch.
Days of Grace
International Captain
And he wouldn't have had to bowl against the Australian batsmen.
Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Indeed not. He'd have had to bowl against the South Africans instead. And, unless you're suggesting that that (bowling at the South African batting) would have been some sort of tea-party, then quite why bowling at South Africans rather than Australians is so funny is beyond me.
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