Top 10 Batsmen and Bowlers of All Time

[smash84]

how does Shane Warne get rated ahead of Imran, Holding and Hadlee?

 

[kyear2]

how does Shane Warne get rated ahead of Imran, Holding and Hadlee?

Because he was so far ahead of any other leg spinner, but I agree he wasn't more effective that any of the three. Average, s/r and wpm he wasn't ahead of any of them except for WPM ahead of Holding and Imran and injuries contributed to the lower numbers for both of them.

 

[Red]

There's no point comparing the averages/SR of spinners against quicks. Good quicks will almost always have better averages and SRs than spinners. You either need to categorise them separately, or understand that cricket teams almost always need spinners, and spinners are almost never as economical, and almost never strike as regularly, as quicks.

 

[Expressway76]

can't believe we haven't found a cure for cologne cancer yet

It's a terrible affliction, I remember having terrible trouble with a bottle of Joop! Pour Homme once.

 

[kyear2]

There's no point comparing the averages/SR of spinners against quicks. Good quicks will almost always have better averages and SRs than spinners. You either need to categorise them separately, or understand that cricket teams almost always need spinners, and spinners are almost never as economical, and almost never strike as regularly, as quicks.

Then why do you need them. I disagree on the notion that teams need spinners. The greatest attack of all time utilized four quicks while the best team in the world currently doesn't have a competent spinner and they are doing quite well.

From an ATG Team perspective, unless it's Warne or Murali and four great quicks are available (especially if a Garner is available who is capable of marathon economical spells) then I will go four quicks.

 

[Flem274*]

you need a spinner because some pitches turn and some batsmen are terrible against spin.

 

[watson]

And;

There are two surprises. The first is that West Indies played 4 pace bowlers, out of these 8, in only 30 of these during these 27 years. Of course they played other pace bowlers to come to four. The second surprise is that in tests in which West Indies had fielded 4 pace bowlers, out of the selected 8, their win percentage is below 50. This indicates that the best combination was three top pace bowlers and one bowler of different type, a spinner or even a medium pace swing bowler, to maintain balance. One would have again expected the win % to be higher. Maybe 3 pace bowlers + Gibbs/Holder/Richards/Gomes/Harper/Patterson was the more effective combination. Amongst this lot, Gibbs was a world-class spinner on his own rights. Patterson and Holder were good support bowlers.

Blogs: Eight genial giants: a pictorial view across 28 years | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[kyear2]

you need a spinner because some pitches turn and some batsmen are terrible against spin.

And in those instances you play a spinner.

 

[The Battlers Prince]

Then why do you need them. I disagree on the notion that teams need spinners. The greatest attack of all time utilized four quicks while the best team in the world currently doesn't have a competent spinner and they are doing quite well.

From an ATG Team perspective, unless it's Warne or Murali and four great quicks are available (especially if a Garner is available who is capable of marathon economical spells) then I will go four quicks.

It's the course Australia is in at the moment, after having had Warne, now the selectors won't just choose the best bowlers. Not just based on a pitch, but THE BEST Australian bowlers at any time. I know that Lyon is occasionally lucky enough to get a wicket. But If you don't have a good enough spinner, then use the more than capable part timers for those batsmen who have real trouble against spinners.

 

[Red]

Reasons teams should have a spinner-

- Some batsmen are poor at playing spin.
- Some wickets are very receptive to spin.
- Over rates are to be considered.
- When the ball is older, quite often a spinner is more effective than a quick.
- On day 5, a spinner can often take wickets where a quick won't.
- Monotonous fast bowling is ****ing boring.
- After facing pace for a long time, batsmen can find spin disconcerting.

 

[kyear2]

Reasons teams should have a spinner-

- Some batsmen are poor at playing spin.
- Some wickets are very receptive to spin.
- Over rates are to be considered.
- When the ball is older, quite often a spinner is more effective than a quick.
- On day 5, a spinner can often take wickets where a quick won't.
- Monotonous fast bowling is ****ing boring.
- After facing pace for a long time, batsmen can find spin disconcerting.

And if you have a good one available you select him. But if the spin bowler is not among your top 10 bowlers available do you still force the selection just to say you have a spinner? I don't think you should.

 

[Flem274*]

That wasn't even your original argument.

 

[Eds]

Then why do you need them. I disagree on the notion that teams need spinners. The greatest attack of all time utilized four quicks while the best team in the world currently doesn't have a competent spinner and they are doing quite well.

Was it really the greatest attack of all-time though? Or was it just the best collection of bowlers that happened to play for the same country at the same point in time?

It seems to me that you're justifying the lack of need for a spinner on the basis that the WI had a fantastically phenomenal crop of fast bowlers. But you're rating it as the "greatest attack of all-time" based on the fact that you don't consider a spinner important to the balance of an attack. Those who're big fans of Warne, Murali, spinners in general, would disagree that it was the greatest ever because there was no spinner. You can't use it as your justification and argument.

 

[Red]

I don't think it's a given that the WIs were the greatest attack of all time by any means.

- McGrath, Gillespie, Lee/Kaspa, Warne

- Lindwall, Miller, Davidson, Benaud, Johnston (around that era anyway)

- Waqar, Wasim, Imran, Qadir

- Trueman, Statham, Tyson, Lock, Laker

 

[OverratedSanity]

I don't think it's a given that the WIs were the greatest attack of all time by any means.

- McGrath, Gillespie, Lee/Kaspa, Warne

- Lindwall, Miller, Davidson, Benaud, Johnston (around that era anyway)

- Waqar, Wasim, Imran, Qadir

- Trueman, Statham, Tyson, Lock, Laker

Man for man they're better than all of those tbh. There isn't another bowling attack which boasts of 4 genuine top tier ATG bowlers.
Waqar, Wasim, Imran, Qatar probably the closest even though Imran was on the wane and Qadir was not really that great anyway. That's the thing about Roberts-Holding-Garner-Marshall-Croft... Not only were they all amazing but they were amazing together. ... No set of fast bowlers has ever peaked together to such an extent

 

[smash84]

Man for man they're better than all of those tbh. There isn't another bowling attack which boasts of 4 genuine top tier ATG bowlers.
Waqar, Wasim, Imran, Qatar probably the closest even though Imran was on the wane and Qadir was not really that great anyway. That's the thing about Roberts-Holding-Garner-Marshall-Croft... Not only were they all amazing but they were amazing together. ... No set of fast bowlers has ever peaked together to such an extent

You mean a whole country was playing with those 3

 

[Eds]

Man for man they're better than all of those tbh. There isn't another bowling attack which boasts of 4 genuine top tier ATG bowlers.
Waqar, Wasim, Imran, Qatar probably the closest even though Imran was on the wane and Qadir was not really that great anyway. That's the thing about Roberts-Holding-Garner-Marshall-Croft... Not only were they all amazing but they were amazing together. ... No set of fast bowlers has ever peaked together to such an extent

I don't think anyone would argue that man-for-man they weren't the best set of bowlers ever. But the debate was regarding whether the lack of a spinner means they can be called the greatest attack ever. A set of incredible pace bowlers all peaking at one point in time doesn't mean that a side doesn't need a spinner.

Kyear was suggesting that the WI fast bowling unit was the best attack ever. He was using his belief that the absence of a spinner makes no difference to the quality of an attack to determine this. He then used this as justification to suggest that therefore spinners are at some sort of lower level. Which doesn't really work.

 

[Migara]

You need spinners because four quicks cannot bowl 90 overs per day against good batsmen. WI pace quartret would have got away bowling to lesser line ups, but we are considering another ATG line up with brilliant batsmen.

Pluck out this line up: Gavaskar, Sutcliffe, Ponting, Sangakkara, Kallis, Barrington, A. Flower, Hadlee, Garner, Warne, Trueman (2nd ATG XI for me)

I don't expect even the mighty WI pace quartet to dislodge them within one day more than 50% of the times.

 

[OverratedSanity]

You mean a whole country was playing with those 3

Ah, the pains of using SwiftKey on a new mobile.

 

[ankitj]

01. Sir Donald Bradman
02. Sir I.V.A. Richrads
03. Sir Garfield Sobers
04. Sachin Tendulkar
05. Brian Lara
06. Sir Jack Hobbs
07. Sir Leonard Hutton
08. Graeme Pollock
09. Greg Chappell
10. George Headley / Ricky Ponting

01. Malcolm Marshall
02. Glenn McGrath
03. Muttiah Muralitharan
04. Dennis Lillee
05. Shane Warne
06. Curtly Ambrose
07. Dale Steyn
08. Fred Trueman
09. Alan Donald
10. Michael Holding / Richard Hadlee / Imran Khan

Sorry about the cheat, but hard to separate the three for differing reasons and all three deserve to be there.

Why the down grading of Warne and Headley? By this time all of us could post your rationale for rating them higher and you decide to change your ranking