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Why Gilchrist ahead of Sangakarra?

DingDong

State Captain
Why Gilchrist ahead of Sangakarra?

Same reason why Sachin is ahead of Bradman.
very good argument unless somebody comes up with a stat like wOBA there no way to say gilchrist was a better batsman than flower using the current stats unless somebody has watched every single innings both have ever played.
 

DingDong

State Captain
Yeah I don't really get this argument. Gilchrist was a player who almost always went out there to play his natural game and to "just hit the ball" as he would say. If there is any type of player whose record would be least likely to differ had he played for a different team, it would be someone like Gilchrist imo. Many times Gilchrist got out early in pressure situations, and many times he had match winning knocks (as robelinda pointed out). His batting mentality was more removed from the context of the game than most, and because of that I really doubt his record would change much if he was in a less successful team - i.e. he would still play his natural game.
playing attacking cricket shouldn't be a factor in assessing who is better as you said gilchrist was playing his natural game and he might have struggled to be as successful as flower playing a back to the wall innings. as it stands the only non biased stat for judging a batsmen is batting average so flower>gilchrist imo
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
The obvious retort to TEC's criticism is that if it's in any way easy to average 47 as a keeper batting at 7, why did no one even come close to doing so before Gilchrist?
Gilchrist pretty much changed everything. Though there have been a few exceptions, before him you just didn't have proper batsmen that low down.
 

DingDong

State Captain
Gilchrist pretty much changed everything. Though there have been a few exceptions, before him you just didn't have proper batsmen that low down.
howe_zat there is no way to prove that though something like that is always open to personal bias

a proper stat to evaluvate a player should include how many runs he scored, the bowling attack he faced, the runs other players in the side scored

stuff like 'he changed the game' or 'he's a match winner' is purely subjective and situational becuase a similarly talented player from a poorer team might never get the opportunity to prove himself like that. cricket is after all a team game.

i also don't believe in the rubbishing a knock based on which ground he played it at because the wicket might have played differently during a certain game or a bowler could have bowled brilliantly

cricket needs a fairer stat to judge players because at the moment it is extremely biased towards the bigger cricketing nations' player getting more credit than a similarly talented player from a smaller nation. cw is no different
 

centurymaker

Cricketer Of The Year
rza mate i totally agree with you. you should look at the nominations for the battle of centuries. it was basically 90% made up of aussies, english and indians does this mean the centuries kiwis,, lankans or whoever have hit are less valuable or great? no the fact is unless a player from minor countries doesn't average at least 10 more than somebody from the big countries he wont be considered better in here.

:laugh:
 

Camo999

State 12th Man
For an all time XI, wouldn't you want the guy most likely to hang onto the edges and make stumpings from your all time great bowlers?

Assuming your keeper does get a bat following Bradman and five of the other greatest batsmen of all time, wouldn't you want him to be able to throw the bat if the situation required?

For me, Gilchrist's major competitors are the best pure keepers of all time. Not excellent batsmen like Flower or Sanga who often also took the gloves but are not quite good enough for an all time XI with either bat or gloves.
 

morgieb

Request Your Custom Title Now!
OK, do you expect Gilly to average 50 if he played for Zimbabwe?
No.

Thing is though, Flower was more of a batsman who kept, Gilly was a proper batsman-keeper. That's the main reason why I rate Gilly ahead of Flower, and most of the keeping guns have averages in the 20's and 30's.
 

kyear2

International Coach
First of all Sangakkara is a Great batsman and with Kallis, Dravid, Sachin, Ponting one of the few great remaining batsman of the era. He is not ahead of any of those batsmen listed though and so on that basis alone, and without even leaving the era, cannot make it into any all time 1st team as a batsman.

As a keeper, he just didnt play enough of his career behind the stumps and when he did he keeping wasn't quite up to par with Gillys. Also if we ignore that his average falls when he keeps and we use use his overall average, then Kumar is still behind someone like a Clyde Walcott, who from all reports was a better batsman, especially like Sanga, at home.

On a slightly different point, if we do look for a pure keeper, kindly dont refer to Boucher, who was quite ordinary stading back, and even quite worse up to the wicket. If you want truely great pure keepers take a look at Andrew, Knott, Healy, Oldfield, Hendricks, Tallon, Evans, Taylor, Ames ect, and specifically to pace Dujon, Murray and Marsh.
 
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SamSawnoff

U19 Vice-Captain
Well only the true Gilchrist hater would say all his big runs have come with score at 5/400, it simply wasn't the case at all. Gilchrist's best innings were scored in very tough match situations. the 149* vs Pakistan (one of the all time innings), 144 vs SL (at #3), 138 vs SA, 133 vs England, 122 vs India in 2001 ( incredible), 162 vs NZ, there are so many. People seem to only remember the fast 102* vs England, when he cashed in when the score was big, that was an exception for sure.
I find it weird that I thought of him as our rescuer because he did it so many times, yet people seem to think he came in with massive scores on the board all the time. He was so good because he seemed to shine under the pressure of an ongoing collapse.
 

Outswinger@Pace

International 12th Man
First of all Sangakkara is a Great batsman and with Kallis, Dravid, Sachin, Ponting one of the few great remaining batsman of the era. He is not ahead of any of those batsmen listed though and so on that basis alone, and without even leaving the era, cannot make it into any all time 1st team as a batsman.

As a keeper, he just didnt play enough of his career behind the stumps and when he did he keeping wasn't quite up to par with Gillys. Also if we ignore that his average falls when he keeps and we use use his overall average, then Kumar is still behind someone like a Clyde Walcott, who from all reports was a better batsman, especially like Sanga, at home.

On a slightly different point, if we do look for a pure keeper, kindly dont refer to Boucher, who was quite ordinary stading back, and even quite worse up to the wicket. If you want truely great pure keepers take a look at Andrew, Knott, Healy, Oldfield, Hendricks, Tallon, Evans, Taylor, Ames ect, and specifically to pace Dujon, Murray and Marsh.
+1

Top notch comment. I wanted to use that same Walcott example to prove my point. Looks like kyear2 has done a superb job of explaining. :)
 

Jacknife

International Captain
rza mate i totally agree with you. you should look at the nominations for the battle of centuries. it was basically 90% made up of aussies, english and indians does this mean the centuries kiwis,, lankans or whoever have hit are less valuable or great? no the fact is unless a player from minor countries doesn't average at least 10 more than somebody from the big countries he wont be considered better in here.
Got any proof for this or stats?
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Maybe, probably, because teams rarely have batting depth that one of their great batsmen had to bat that low.
Well yeah, but that's the point. TEC can't reply with that because his whole argument is based around the idea that Gilchrist wasn't a great batsman and merely benefited from batting low down behind a stack of guns.

Some truly weird stuff in this thread, particularly at the start.
 

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