Steve Smith - Test Batting Ranking

[rkt.india]

32 minutes ago, SK_IH said:

true,he will have to score consecutive 100s in last 2 games,one of them preferably double again to come close,highly improbable

he will have to score multiple double hundreds to do that. this double got him 7 points and he is still 16 points, will need at least 3 consecutive doubles to come close to 961.

[Gollum]

One thing that surprises me about him is his control %, much higher than the likes of Root, Kane and Kohli despite his weird technique. 

[rkt.india]

29 minutes ago, Gollum said:

One thing that surprises me about him is his control %, much higher than the likes of Root, Kane and Kohli despite his weird technique. 

he has great eyes and quick reflexes.

[Rasgulla]

 One of the Best Test cricketers.

Leaving out legends like Dravid and few other foreign cricketers..

 

1. Dravid

2. Smith

3. Kallis

4. Sanga

5. Lara

 

 

My top 5 .. Leaving out all those bradmans and Vivs which I never saw 

 

 

 

[velu]

3 hours ago, Gollum said:

One thing that surprises me about him is his control %, much higher than the likes of Root, Kane and Kohli despite his weird technique. 

 

test version of ODI Dhoni

 

[Vijy]

10 hours ago, Rasgulla said:

 One of the Best Test cricketers.

Leaving out legends like Dravid and few other foreign cricketers..

 

1. Dravid

2. Smith

3. Kallis

4. Sanga

5. Lara

 

 

My top 5 .. Leaving out all those bradmans and Vivs which I never saw 

 

 

 

Putting aside your anti-SRT sentiment, how the heck can Dravid rank ahead of the rest? He did little of note in Oz (barring a weak 2003 Oz team) and in SA (apart from few scattered innings). He had some issues against high pace and also against spin on turners. I would easily put Lara, Smith, SRT, etc. ahead of him as more complete batsmen.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Vijy

[Rasgulla]

12 minutes ago, Vijy said:

Putting aside your anti-SRT sentiment, how the heck can Dravid rank ahead of the rest? He did little of note in Oz (barring a weak 2003 Oz team) and in SA (apart from few scattered innings). He had some issues against high pace and also against spin on turners. I would easily put Lara, Smith, SRT, etc. ahead of him as more complete batsmen.

Let's look at away average

 

-He has average of 69 in England.. which

is way way better than sachin..

 

- 63 in NZ.. miles ahead of sachin even there

 

- 78 in pak... sachin has 40

 

-65 in WI... sachin has 48

 

Are you talking about same Aus team that won series in India year later? How can you put Lara ahead of Dravid ? Dravid has a better average in WI than Lara does.. 

 

Dravid has better average than Lara in AUS,eng,pak,india and so on.. leaving out RSA

 

There is no where Lara ll be ahead of Dravid..

 

 

 

 

 

[Vijy]

6 hours ago, Rasgulla said:

Let's look at away average

 

-He has average of 69 in England.. which

is way way better than sachin..

 

- 63 in NZ.. miles ahead of sachin even there

 

- 78 in pak... sachin has 40

 

-65 in WI... sachin has 48

 

Are you talking about same Aus team that won series in India year later? How can you put Lara ahead of Dravid ? Dravid has a better average in WI than Lara does.. 

 

Dravid has better average than Lara in AUS,eng,pak,india and so on.. leaving out RSA

 

There is no where Lara ll be ahead of Dravid..

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't the same bowling attack. The 2003 series at home didn't have McG and Warne. It had scattergun Lee and others. That was how we made 700-odd in Sydney.

 

you cannot conveniently leave SA out of analysis. Lara had a marginally. better avg in Aus compared to Dravid. Check your stats. WI can be excluded since they were minnows after 2000 (Walsh and Amby retired).

 

Dravid's avg in SA is less than 30. I cannot think of any other great batsman apart from the "great" Kohli who has averaged less than 30 in a given country. As I wrote, Dravid also had issues with spin as seen from his performances in SL against Murali. Accepting these limitations does not make Dravid a bad batsman - in my book, he's still great (unlike FTB Kohli). But he's no Lara.

 

I'm not going to start with SRT vs Dravid (threads already exist) because we were very lucky to have 2 such genuinely great players no matter what SRT-haters like you think.

[Rasgulla]

5 hours ago, Vijy said:

 

you cannot conveniently leave SA out of analysis. Lara had a marginally. better avg in Aus compared to Dravid. Check your stats. WI can be excluded since they were minnows after 2000 (Walsh and Amby retired).

No it wasn't left out.. You already mentioned in your first post then I gave you averages in Eng,NZ,PAK,WI.. Which you missed out. You can't call them minnows just because sachin has worse record than Dravid there.. Those stats are from starting to end not just hand picked.. You only keep mentioning AUS.. leaving out other teams. Lara has 34 average in India 

[MechEng]

He is Australia's 2nd greatest test batsman. Ahead of Ponting right now.

[rkt.india]

6 hours ago, Vijy said:

It wasn't the same bowling attack. The 2003 series at home didn't have McG and Warne. It had scattergun Lee and others. That was how we made 700-odd in Sydney.

 

you cannot conveniently leave SA out of analysis. Lara had a marginally. better avg in Aus compared to Dravid. Check your stats. WI can be excluded since they were minnows after 2000 (Walsh and Amby retired).

 

Dravid's avg in SA is less than 30. I cannot think of any other great batsman apart from the "great" Kohli who has averaged less than 30 in a given country. As I wrote, Dravid also had issues with spin as seen from his performances in SL against Murali. Accepting these limitations does not make Dravid a bad batsman - in my book, he's still great (unlike FTB Kohli). But he's no Lara.

 

I'm not going to start with SRT vs Dravid (threads already exist) because we were very lucky to have 2 such genuinely great players no matter what SRT-haters like you think.

Lara and Ponting both have poor records in India. Dravid in SA. so, it evens out.

[Vijy]

13 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Lara and Ponting both have poor records in India. Dravid in SA. so, it evens out.

I never mentioned ponting. you did. as for lara, I am aware that he did badly against ind (both in ind and WI) but very well against peak murali in SL. as for dravid, his records in both SA and Oz (esp the 1999 tour which featured a strong attack in mcg, warne, fleming, kaspy and lee) appear to reflect a more consistent failing. however, these matters are obviously subjective. I prefer lara to dravid, even though the latter counts as a genuine ATG in my book.

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Vijy

[MechEng]

5 hours ago, Vijy said:

I never mentioned ponting. you did. as for lara, I am aware that he did badly against ind (both in ind and WI) but very well against peak murali in SL. as for dravid, his records in both SA and Oz (esp the 1999 tour which featured a strong attack in mcg, warne, fleming, kaspy and lee) appear to reflect a more consistent failing. however, these matters are obviously subjective. I prefer lara to dravid, even though the latter counts as a genuine ATG in my book.

 

The reason why Dravid underperformed in Australia is because it is not a place for defensive batsmen if you're up against out and out fast bowlers. Australia suits batsmen who don't think much and rely on rhythm by hitting fours like Laxman, SRT and Lara.

 

Apart from Ashes 2010 Cook has looked vulnerable against pace and bounce too, add Kallis to that list as well, all defensive batsmen.

 

England on the other hand is total opposite, there you have to play every ball to it's merit because you don't know how much late the ball may swing, not a good place for stroke makers. Which is why Dravid was so succesful there, completely matches his style.

Edited December 21, 2017 by MechEng

[Vijy]

20 minutes ago, MechEng said:

The reason why Dravid underperformed in Australia is because it is not a place for defensive batsmen if you're up against out and out fast bowlers. Australia suits batsmen who don't think much and rely on rhythm by hitting fours like Laxman, SRT and Lara.

 

Apart from Ashes 2010 Cook has looked vulnerable against pace and bounce too, add Kallis to that list as well, all defensive batsmen.

 

England on the other hand is total opposite, there you have to play every ball to it's merit because you don't know how much late the ball may swing, not a good place for stroke makers. Which is why Dravid was so succesful there, completely matches his style.

there have been a few who do have good records in both countries, but struggle against spin. I guess that's the beauty of cricket - almost impossible to find a batsmen who is adept at all conditions equally.

[Muloghonto]

Anyone who's seen test cricket from the 80s onwards, should know, that when it comes to being the absolute best, as far as middle order goes, its:

Tendulkar > Lara >Viv.  These three are a step ahead of the rest, who are also ATG batsmen- the likes of Ponting, Dravid, Steve Waugh, Andy Flower,Border, Kallis, Miandad,Sangakkara and they are a step ahead of the likes of Youhana, Inzamam, Jaya, etc.

 

Kohli, at the moment, is in the Jaya-Inzamam-Youhana class, in tests. 

Reason being, like these batsmen, Kohli can dominate any attack, but not anywhere (in England, he's been exposed as a tail ender) but are also not consistent enough to merit the upper echelons like 'not succeeded everywhere but has beaten up most attacks in most parts of the world' ala Ponting/Dravid/Kallis. 

 

Smith, as impressive as his record is, he slots in the tier below Viv, Sachin, Lara. For the simple reason that Smith has not faced any fearsome attacks in his time or atleast, its rare enough that it doesn't merit domination against ATG attacks like which Lara-Tendulkar-Viv did. 

Viv became less consistent as he got older, but still retained the ability to dismantle any attack on any ground, anywhere. Which is why i rate him behind Lara and Tendulkar, the two best test batsmen i've ever seen. 

 

The reason being, these two could dominate the best attacks, on the type of pitches that Smith, Kohli etc. would crap themselves on (or have so far) and that was the standard fare of their time. Australia, West Indies, Pakistan & South Africa had fearsome attacks for most/all of these two guys careers and they also played the bulk majority against them. 

The reason i consider Tendy > Lara is pretty simple- Tendy had an unbelievable consistency in a nearly 18-19 year span, where he got to dominate the attacks as well as get almost 60 average over something absurd like 150 tests. Lara makes a strong case, because once his eye was in, he was even more dominating and invincible than Tendulkar- hence his glut of much, much higher scores and match-changing innings- but he simply didn't do it consistently enough as Tendulkar's lower 100s. 

 

[Muloghonto]

27 minutes ago, BeardedAladdin said:

Does anyone seriously believe that Steve Schit will maintain the average he currently has?

 

The guy is just a pastier, uglier Austrayyan version of Pujara. Pure flat track bully. We all saw the same hype around Joe Root about a year ago, he also had an incredibly high average, look where he is now. And Root has a superior technique.

 

A few difficult tours will correct any fluky run of form.

Maybe, maybe not. Remember Chanderpaul ? Guy managed to average 50+ over nearly 20 years, despite batting completely front on and never ever playing on the front foot. Its possible to trash the coaching manual like Chanderpaul & Sehwag did but its highly unlikely.

Smith is untested. And even if he does average 60+ after 150 tests, he'd still be a lesser batsman than Lara or Tendulkar, unless he manages to score tons of runs against attacks of the calibre of Wasim-Waqar/Walsh-Ambrose/Donald-Pollock-Ntini/McWarne etc. on pitches where 275-300 are par scores batting first. 

 

[Gollum]

32 minutes ago, BeardedAladdin said:

Does anyone seriously believe that Steve Schit will maintain the average he currently has?

 

The guy is just a pastier, uglier Austrayyan version of Pujara. Pure flat track bully. We all saw the same hype around Joe Root about a year ago, he also had an incredibly high average, look where he is now. And Root has a superior technique.

 

A few difficult tours will correct any fluky run of form.

Steve Smith has scored in Eng, NZ, SA and India. Also decent in UAE, Lanka.

 

Pujara has been abysmal in Eng, Aus, NZ. 

[velu]

23 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Steve Smith has scored in Eng, NZ, SA and India. Also decent in UAE, Lanka.

 

Pujara has been abysmal in Eng, Aus, NZ. 

 

you got trolled

 

[Muloghonto]

28 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Steve Smith has scored in Eng, NZ, SA and India. Also decent in UAE, Lanka.

 

Pujara has been abysmal in Eng, Aus, NZ. 

But how many runs against a quality attack like the ones Lara-Tendulkar/Viv dominated against ? less than 500 by my account (only RSA comes close to having the kind of attack RSA-Pak-Aus-WI had in the 90s/early 2000s) and even then, not on pitches where 300 is a par first innings score. 

[rkt.india]

13 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

But how many runs against a quality attack like the ones Lara-Tendulkar/Viv dominated against ? less than 500 by my account (only RSA comes close to having the kind of attack RSA-Pak-Aus-WI had in the 90s/early 2000s) and even then, not on pitches where 300 is a par first innings score. 

Attacks are all relative to their respective eras.   80s, 90s all had poor quality batsmen so certainly those bowlers looked good against them.

Edited December 22, 2017 by rkt.india