Top 10 cricketers of the last 40 years

[rtmohanlal]

13 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

Then whom do you credit it for? No one?

i think it was Sarfraz Nawaz who passed it over to Imran.Again, the most important matter here  is not  'to give credit for introducing some thing new', but whether that introduction is thru  fair,ethical & legal tactics.

[Trichromatic]

44 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

i think it was Sarfraz Nawaz who passed it over to Imran.Again, the most important matter here  is not  'to give credit for introducing some thing new', but whether that introduction is thru  fair,ethical & legal tactics.

How the game changes is part of history books. What's more important is that there is something new in the game. Without changes game doesn't develop. Round arm bowling started with unfair, unethical and illegal tactics only. If game had followed allowed methods only, then we would have seen only amateur version cricket only till now.

[the don]

9 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

Agreed that reverse swing  is possible with out tampering.Bowlers of post 2000 are able to reverse the ball too , but definitely not even closer to the  levels that was possible in the 90s & and even more in the 80s .Using external objects like bottle tops to alter the shape of the ball is illegal & unethical , which ever way we look at it.

   In the case of Imran , it is not one or 2 people who have accused him of this evil, infact several,even his own country men.

The final nail on the coffin was stuck by Rameez Raja ,who put forward an article in cricinfo as to 'how this tampering was some sort of patent material  of the Pakistanis just like sledging was that of Aussies & whining as that of the English.Once Ian Botham was asked as to why he did not include Imran in his list of 'top 50 sportsmen' Botham's reply was that " No, he wouldn't get close. Wasn't good enough. It's not a personal thing. He just wasn't good enough."On another instance he quoted 'now the best thing Imran can do is to keep his mouth shut because he has already done enough damage to this game'.

  And it is well known about the animosity between Botham & Imran that we would be  prone to believe this  opinion as a result of that animosity.But another fact is that Botham & Ian Chappel were the most bitter enemies so much so that Botham even  once  stated some thing in the lines of  'Chappel being non existant as a human'.But yet when Chappel was asked to pick his list of all rounders, he picked Botham in his  list some where at the top.That is the result of acceptance of 'genuine great ness' despite such bitter disliking. On the other hand Botham didn't pick Imran .Naturally,from all these testimonies  one is inclined to believe   in the ' levels' that Imran was indulged in these 'methods'.

  And tampering might has been done by other bowlers too.But that doesn't make it an ok matter.Cheating is unfair, which ever way we look at it.But Kapil was one of the bowlers who did not resort to this unfair tactic.My stance is to give extra credit to fair play & ethics  rather than to discredit it. Any way each to their own

What are you even talking about ??

Ian chappell and almost everyone in Australia has always rated imran above Botham . Infact he is overwhelmingly rated as the best of the fab 4 by atleast 95 percent of cricketing pundits.

 

Cant stop laughing at the first 2100 balls and  "terminal decline " theory .

Even abdul razzaq is better than kapil using such bizzare mumbo jumbo .

[rkt.india]

8 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

Imran made it popular. 

It would have anyway become popular imran or not.

[rtmohanlal]

8 hours ago, the don said:

What are you even talking about ??

Ian chappell and almost everyone in Australia has always rated imran above Botham . Infact he is overwhelmingly rated as the best of the fab 4 by atleast 95 percent of cricketing pundits.

 

Cant stop laughing at the first 2100 balls and  "terminal decline " theory .

Even abdul razzaq is better than kapil using such bizzare mumbo jumbo .

that is the same thing I am asking  to you.What are you even talking about ??

i have brought  the names Botham,Imran & Chappel in my msg: .  And I have said a few things relating these 3 persons in that msg:. There is a reason as to why I am not at all interested to  reply to emotional Pakistani like you.  First do one thing... try to comprehend what I tried to convey thru my earlier post w.r.t these 3 names.

[sandeep]

On 8/10/2017 at 2:56 AM, rtmohanlal said:

26.86 is just a rounded figure in all probablity. if 'would have' & 'should have'  doesn't work, i do not find any meaning in one-one comparisons either. For instance, a bowler who bowled along with Wasim,Waqar,Iqbal Qasim would benefit a lot in numbers than another one who bowled with Binny,Madanlal,Maninder.This because likes of Wasim,Waqar with far more capacity to  create wicket taking deliveries in frequent intervals would change the match situations positively   considerably thru out the match.Naturally the bowler under consideration can benefit a lot especially econ: wise when compared to another bowler who has Binny,Madanlal  as partners who can't strike even in remotely closer levels  to Wasim,Waqar.This is only a matter of simple cricket sense, i feel.Any body who has watched  test cricket practically some what, can understand this.

 

And  even if  keeping aside what all I said , still I can't rate Imran the bowler just as I used to once  because of tampering allegations.The data 'Muloghonto' put forward  w.r.t his  tampering expertrise periods are really eye opening.As Balwinder Sandhu points out, he can't just place Imran above Kapil just for this matter alone.

You are coming up with all kinds of gymnastic twisting and bending, to assert, what are at the end of it all, hypothetical projections, about what Kapil could have achieved.  Its glorified book-cricket.  

Anyway, its clear that you have a bit of bias when it comes to Imran - understandable.  But its still bias.   If you want to be so harsh on Imran's ball-tampering, why not have the same standard for other players?  You picked Ricky Ponting above Sunil Gavaskar - in spite of Ponting being a complete and total bunny in India for most of his career, over multiple tours.  And you apparently forgive his usage of a graphite-reinforced bat for a few years in the middle.   Not saying that Ponting wasn't a very good bat without that bat - but its stupid to claim that it didn't provide any advantage.   In the US, college level and lower level baseball is played with aluminum bats, while top level is played with wood bats.  The power advantage is like night and day.   I have tried both of them myself.  

 

But all of this is glossed over and you choose to shower Ponting with a ton of respect.  But Imran is worthless because he tampered the ball and that somehow nullifies all his achievements.     Now I agree that that Imran's gaudy statistics from that Indian tour in the 80s are rightly suspicious.  But even outside of that, he was still a pretty good player. And neither his ball-tampering, or his over-hyped glorification worship by the green-bros, can change that fact.  

 

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by sandeep

[rtmohanlal]

13 hours ago, sandeep said:

You are coming up with all kinds of gymnastic twisting and bending, to assert, what are at the end of it all, hypothetical projections, about what Kapil could have achieved.  Its glorified book-cricket.  

Anyway, its clear that you have a bit of bias when it comes to Imran - understandable.  But its still bias.   If you want to be so harsh on Imran's ball-tampering, why not have the same standard for other players?  You picked Ricky Ponting above Sunil Gavaskar - in spite of Ponting being a complete and total bunny in India for most of his career, over multiple tours.  And you apparently forgive his usage of a graphite-reinforced bat for a few years in the middle.   Not saying that Ponting wasn't a very good bat without that bat - but its stupid to claim that it didn't provide any advantage.   In the US, college level and lower level baseball is played with aluminum bats, while top level is played with wood bats.  The power advantage is like night and day.   I have tried both of them myself.  

 

But all of this is glossed over and you choose to shower Ponting with a ton of respect.  But Imran is worthless because he tampered the ball and that somehow nullifies all his achievements.     Now I agree that that Imran's gaudy statistics from that Indian tour in the 80s are rightly suspicious.  But even outside of that, he was still a pretty good player. And neither his ball-tampering, or his over-hyped glorification worship by the green-bros, can change that fact.  

 

 

It is not gymnastic twisting and bending or some thing like that ,it's  just analysing  & evaluating 2 contemporary players based on the various contexts they played in.

Bias towards Imran?? For your info:, in my teens I adored him like any thing. yes  that 87 series loss in IND & the one day series loss after that hurt a lot that time .But naturally that hatred towards the opposition captain grew up into respect & admiration  with time.After all greatness transcends all boundaries.Isn't it? That adoration was so severe that I purchased his 'All round view' book  for very high cost that time.Those days I placed him as the best all rounder  of the FAB 4 because in those days it was just about averages for me.Once, when  he admitted to resorting to using bottle top once in a county    match  I just thought he was being sincere to himself and trusted his word 'once'.After that, in one of the TV programmes, Maninder singh was seen briefing about that 83 series of India in Pakistan.I still remember him saying the balls bowled by Pakistani bowlers  curving like a banana  in that seriees & hence questioning their methods.It is then that the seeds of doubts were created in my mind and I started to seriously doubt Imran.When Aamer Sohail came up with strong allegations against Imran after that world cup loss in 2011 , Imran's  gradually diminishing legacy in my mind took a severe beating that day.That prompted me to browse the net w.r.t this  a lot more.I could come across testimonies of various eminent people w.r.t Imran's tampering methods.  And ever since , I have been coming across various  articles w.r.t the same.Naturally the once blind adoration has turned into genuine hatred towards that cheater.If I didn't admire Imran that much, I wouldn't have  intensely hated him either.And to think that a  lot of results were achieved thru   such illegal methods .... I can't describe to you the feeling. I recently went thru the score card of that Sharjah final  where Javed hit that last ball six. I have serious doubts of that match too after viewing the score card.All in all  it is not bias with out genuine reasons.

 W.R.T Gavaskar-Ponting, the details you gave w.r.t Ponting are new to me.It takes a little glow off Ponting's credentials.Yet I still feel he was slightly better to SG all in all.Ponting was a lot more aggressive, he was convincingly better than SG  in one dayers , SG was not that legendary  against Windies FAB 4  as it is hyped up etc etc stand as my reasons.

  Now w.r.t 'support bowling strength' factor of which you have accused as ' gymnastic twisting and bending' , the recently concluded IND-SL series  emphatically confirms my belief even more than ever.Herath who is a borderline great of the game & who was reaping bucket full of wkts till recently  came a cropper against this strong Indian unit.He was not fully fit either due to non top cricket.In such a scenario what he desperately  needed & what he thoroughly deserved(being the great servant to SL cricket that he has been)   against the Indians was a strong support bowling unit from which he can feed off.But it didn't happen and his stats seriously suffered in this series.On the other hand a rookie Hardik Pandya who avg:es only 34 as a bowler even in first class cricket  ended up with 23.75 bowl avg: while feeding off from  the bowling exploits of  certified bowling greats in 'subcontinent conditions'  Jadeja & Ashwin.I  thinks of in the lines as to what would have been their bowling  avg:s ,had  Herath been in India camp & Hardik in SL camp. I am sure the difference  in avg:s for both players would have been  convincingly larger.So, with out taking  such contexts into account ,I think it is foolish to evaluate players based on their avg:s only.

Edited August 15, 2017 by rtmohanlal

[sandeep]

6 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

W.R.T Gavaskar-Ponting, the details you gave w.r.t Ponting are new to me.It takes a little glow off Ponting's credentials.Yet I still feel he was slightly better to SG all in all.Ponting was a lot more aggressive, he was convincingly better than SG  in one dayers , SG was not that legendary  against Windies FAB 4  as it is hyped up etc etc stand as my reasons.

Ponting's spectacularly poor returns in India are "new" to you?   His cheating with the Graphite re-inforced bat, getting caught, and brazenly justifying it as a "sticker" is new to you?   But he's supposedly better than Gavaskar.   Gavaskar is over-hyped because the schedule that he didn't control didn't allow for him to play more tests againsts Windies Fab 4 at the height of their powers?   You want to "handicap" Kapil's numbers claiming he didn't have "support".  But Gavaskar having to open with the likes of Chetan Chauhan, Farokh Engineer etc is not lack of support.  For majority of Gavaskar's prime years, it was almost a sure thing that India lose the match if Gavaskar doesn't score big.   That's just a fact.  While Ponting got to ride the coat-tails of the likes of Hadyen, Langer, Waugh etc for much of his career, and also had the powerful Australian bowling lineup to bank on.   But for SMG - Ponting, support or lack of is no issue.  OK buddy.  You are entitled to your opinions.  And to me, they lack objectivity.  Let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.  

[Trichromatic]

IIRC WI fab 4 played 6 matches together in history of game, 4 against India and 2 against England. How those 4 matches are counted against SMG, I have no idea. Others didn't even face all 4 to have a reference point of failure and success. Still he scored 1 or century against them. 

[Trichromatic]

2 hours ago, sandeep said:

Gavaskar is over-hyped because the schedule that he didn't control didn't allow for him to play more tests againsts Windies Fab 4 at the height of their powers? 

Gavaskar didn't miss matches against them. Fab 4 just didn't play enough tests together at all.

[mishra]

On 8/9/2017 at 1:21 PM, sourab10forever said:

He is already the greatest ever batsmen to play this sport. No body even close to him.

Kuchh bhi

[mishra]

All of the below deserve mentioned

 

Gavaskar

Richard

Tendulkar

Lara

Ponting

 

Gilly/MSD (WK)

 

Botham/Kallis/Imran/Kapil

Warne/Murali

Steyn,Donald,Mcgrath,Wasim,Ambrose,Marshal,Garner

[sourab10forever]

1 hour ago, mishra said:

Kuchh bhi

Kya kuch bhi..

Fact is fact

Kohli is the best batsmen and shastri is the best coach ever. EVER.

[sandeep]

On 8/12/2017 at 9:45 AM, Trichromatic said:

Apart from that Imran can also be given some credit for neutral umpires which was also big change in game. 

This is a very major point in Imran's favor.   Sure Pak umpiring was horrible, but it takes a true competitor to want to win fair and square - a coward would have been happy to just hide behind his home umpires.   

 

Imran did a lot of good things for Pakistan cricket, but he was not flawless.  There's a reason why Miandad hated him so much for so long.  Imran was a ruthless dictator type - it was always his way or the highway - with his players, and even with his board.   Along with his positive legacy, he also left Pakistan cricket a legacy of captains politicking and building their own little band of loyalists within the team.   This has been and continues to be a problem for their team.   Was he a good player and very good captain? Sure.  But the way greenbros splooge on him, its so much worse than even Sachin "worshippers".  Its almost as if Imran can never ever be thought of doing anything wrong when it comes to Pak cricket.  And its surprising how almost 100% of Pakistan cricket fans are indoctrinated with this propaganda.   The shoddy performances in the post-Imran era are probably guilty of making Imran seem perfect by comparison I guess.  

[rtmohanlal]

17 hours ago, sandeep said:

Ponting's spectacularly poor returns in India are "new" to you?   His cheating with the Graphite re-inforced bat, getting caught, and brazenly justifying it as a "sticker" is new to you?   But he's supposedly better than Gavaskar.   Gavaskar is over-hyped because the schedule that he didn't control didn't allow for him to play more tests againsts Windies Fab 4 at the height of their powers?   You want to "handicap" Kapil's numbers claiming he didn't have "support".  But Gavaskar having to open with the likes of Chetan Chauhan, Farokh Engineer etc is not lack of support.  For majority of Gavaskar's prime years, it was almost a sure thing that India lose the match if Gavaskar doesn't score big.   That's just a fact.  While Ponting got to ride the coat-tails of the likes of Hadyen, Langer, Waugh etc for much of his career, and also had the powerful Australian bowling lineup to bank on.   But for SMG - Ponting, support or lack of is no issue.  OK buddy.  You are entitled to your opinions.  And to me, they lack objectivity.  Let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.  

Did I say  Gavaskar wasn't a  great batsman? Taking both  merits & demerits of both Ponting & Gavaskar & analysing them, I consider Ponting slightly better, may be by  a few inches.That's it

[rtmohanlal]

12 hours ago, sandeep said:

This is a very major point in Imran's favor.   Sure Pak umpiring was horrible, but it takes a true competitor to want to win fair and square - a coward would have been happy to just hide behind his home umpires.   

 

Imran did a lot of good things for Pakistan cricket, but he was not flawless.  There's a reason why Miandad hated him so much for so long.  Imran was a ruthless dictator type - it was always his way or the highway - with his players, and even with his board.   Along with his positive legacy, he also left Pakistan cricket a legacy of captains politicking and building their own little band of loyalists within the team.   This has been and continues to be a problem for their team.   Was he a good player and very good captain? Sure.  But the way greenbros splooge on him, its so much worse than even Sachin "worshippers".  Its almost as if Imran can never ever be thought of doing anything wrong when it comes to Pak cricket.  And its surprising how almost 100% of Pakistan cricket fans are indoctrinated with this propaganda.   The shoddy performances in the post-Imran era are probably guilty of making Imran seem perfect by comparison I guess.  

During his tampering years in pre multi camera days , did Imran's  'call for neutral umpires' go for a hiding ?? Towards the fag end of his career with almost nothing to lose personally, he called for neutral umpires? So what is the big deal in it ?Any way, to believe that  even with neutral umpires around ,Imran didn't  go on with his expert methods  atleast  in minimal levels is naive.

[sandeep]

6 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

During his tampering years in pre multi camera days , did Imran's  'call for neutral umpires' go for a hiding ?? Towards the fag end of his career with almost nothing to lose personally, he called for neutral umpires? So what is the big deal in it ?Any way, to believe that  even with neutral umpires around ,Imran didn't  go on with his expert methods  atleast  in minimal levels is naive.

Dude, let's agree to disagree and leave it.  "Imran sux, Ponting is awesome, Gavaskar is good not great"  Allrighty then.   

[putrevus]

7 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

Did I say  Gavaskar wasn't a  great batsman? Taking both  merits & demerits of both Ponting & Gavaskar & analysing them, I consider Ponting slightly better, may be by  a few inches.That's it

You must be kidding to say Ponting is better than Gavaskar, when you are carrying the load of whole team thereby whole country on your shoulders you tend to be defensive.Gavaskar never made any bones about it for his style, for him draw was win given the teams he was playing for or leading.

 

Ponting and his hook/pull happy ways would be another Kim hughes in making, I like Ponting but there is no way in hell he is anyway close to Gavaskar. Some people have no clue what nightmare it was facing those four prong pace attack off WI.They were relentless and as batsman you had no respite.

Edited August 16, 2017 by putrevus

[Trichromatic]

37 minutes ago, putrevus said:

You must be kidding to say Ponting is better than Gavaskar, when you are carrying the load of whole team thereby whole country on your shoulders you tend to be defensive.Gavaskar never made any bones about it for his style, for him draw was win given the teams he was playing for or leading.

 

Ponting and his hook/pull happy ways would be another Kim hughes in making, I like Ponting but there is no way in hell he is anyway close to Gavaskar. Some people have no clue what nightmare it was facing those four prong pace attack off WI.They were relentless and as batsman you had no respite.

I guess Ponting being Aussie helped that assessment. If he was a Pakistani his "actual average" would have calculated as 40 by @rtmohanlal

[putrevus]

7 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

I guess Ponting being Aussie helped that assessment. If he was a Pakistani his average would have been dropped by 10 points already.

We in India were going gaga over Yadav or Shami hitting the batsmen and making them hop around.Bloody faces and broken tooth and broken jaws were common occurances against WI back then.Helmets would not be saving jaws and wrists.

 

That WI team is the best team ever to have stepped on cricket field. Any team in history would be just playing to lose decently to them.2000s Aussies people say had Warne, WI did not need Warne.