Top Five Cricketers from each country

[Lillian Thomson]

In the old halcyon days of Cricket Chat this is where Fiery would come in and say that Hadlee was good enough to bat at number 3 for New Zealand in the 70's.

 

[Test_Fan_Only]

Nathan Lyon averages 32.

 

[mr_mister]

Nathan Lyon averages 32.

Yeah but he's a spinner. I know I'm losing the argument tbh but I really don't think there's a lot in it between Kallis and Pollock

 

[Test_Fan_Only]

In the old halcyon days of Cricket Chat this is where Fiery would come in and say that Hadlee was good enough to bat at number 3 for New Zealand in the 70's.

But that would say more about New Zealand cricket than Hadlee's batting.

 

[mr_mister]

But that would say more about New Zealand cricket than Hadlee's batting.

Hadlees average was as good as some of their specialist bats which is pretty funny

 

[Burgey]

Hadlee as a Batsman nowhere near Botham or Kapil.. but far better than McGrath or Steyn. If you are at 400 at 7 and your target is 500 , it's better be Kapil and Hadlee than Kapil and Steyn.

If you’re 400/7 and Hadlee comes in against an ATG attack the game is over, just as it will be if the other two do. You may as well have Mitch Johnson in. Their batting is about the same.

 

[Test_Fan_Only]

Yeah but he's a spinner. I know I'm losing the argument tbh but I really don't think there's a lot in it between Kallis and Pollock

I think Pollock is behind at least, in no particular order, Sobers, Miller, Botham, Imran, Kapil Dev, Kallis, Hadlee, although very close to a number of them. He is certainly well ahead of the likes of Cairns, Flintoff and his teammate at times, Brian McMillian. I am not sure whether some earlier cricketers would be at a similar or better level to Pollock.

 

[aussie tragic]

Botham Bat AVG and Ball AVG better than Kapil , But who is better between them ? It's debatable.

Chris Cairns better than Kapil in both bat and ball avgs. No one rates him above Kapil in either discipline.

Said by someone who never actually saw Botham play. Botham played way beyond what he should have to reach 102 tests and the averages you look at.

At the half way mark of 51 Tests, Botham had 2833 runs @ 38.80 and 231 wkts @ 23.06. These are phenomenal numbers. This also included 11 centuries and 19 fivefors, so better than Kapil in the 1980's, yes he was by a large margin

 

[MrPrez]

Yeah but he's a spinner. I know I'm losing the argument tbh but I really don't think there's a lot in it between Kallis and Pollock

Yeah I'd certainly concede that it's a lot closer than people give Pollock credit for.

 

[Test_Fan_Only]

Hadlees average was as good as some of their specialist bats which is pretty funny

That was my point. Jeff Crowe, okay he was later than the 70s, averaged less than Hadlee.

 

[Test_Fan_Only]

Said by someone who never actually saw Botham play. Botham played way beyond what he should have to reach 102 tests and the averages you look at.

At the half way mark of 51 Tests, Botham had 2833 runs @ 38.80 and 231 wkts @ 23.06. These are phenomenal numbers. This also included 11 centuries and 19 fivefors, so better than Kapil in the 1980's, yes he was by a large margin

But surely Kapil was hindered by bowling in very unfavourable home conditions and not having much support. It might have helped the number of wickets he took a little but would have hurt his average.

 

[aussie tragic]

The 80's was unique in having 4 ATG allrounders, however in my memory it was always 1. Botham, 2. Imran, 3. Hadlee, 4. Kapil.

Again if you look only at averages, Imran may appear to be number 1, however he hardly ever did both disciplines at once. Unlike Botham

 

[Malcolm]

Botham at his peak was better than Kapil but when you take their entire careers, they are much closer than people think.

 

[aussie tragic]

But surely Kapil was hindered by bowling in very unfavourable home conditions and not having much support. It might have helped the number of wickets he took a little but would have hurt his average.

Just for info, Dev's away record was much worse than his home record in both disciplines.

Home - batting 36.97, bowling 26.49
Away - batting 26.21, bowling 32.85

 

[h_hurricane]

Said by someone who never actually saw Botham play. Botham played way beyond what he should have to reach 102 tests and the averages you look at.

At the half way mark of 51 Tests, Botham had 2833 runs @ 38.80 and 231 wkts @ 23.06. These are phenomenal numbers. This also included 11 centuries and 19 fivefors, so better than Kapil in the 1980's, yes he was by a large margin

Why would you take out one half though ? There would be a good reason if Botham had played 150 test matches and ended with 33(bat) and 28(bowl). 51 test matches is rather short to filter out everything else from his records.

Botham is ahead of Kapil but not by a large margin. He was also pretty poor against the best team of his era while Kapil had great record against the same team. This would bring down the margin between them considerably imo.

 

[aussie tragic]

Half was just an example. At 75 tests botham had 4236 runs @ 36.20 and 326 wkts @ 26.20 so this would serve equally well (as this was a Test career until the 90's). The point is that Botham overtook Gatting as the resident fat bastard on his last 25 tests or so*

 

[trundler]

Botham had a reasonably long test career before his output nosedived, didn't he? Like Viv or Hammond. Can't hold that against him.

 

[h_hurricane]

Botham since beginning of 1985 till end of career played 29 tests and was averaging 25 with the bat and 37 with the ball. Those are very poor numbers and should be included while evaluating him.

 

[Starfighter]

Here's where I rush to everyone's rescue with some crudely made graphics. From the ICC ratings, however they work.

 

[aussie tragic]

Why, he was fat, past his prime and was only picked because England had no-one else. If you want to downgrade his achievements because of that, than so be it