Top 10 cricketers of the last 40 years

[rtmohanlal]

1 hour 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.

Just can't believe these OTT comments w.r.t placing  Ponting just slightly above SG. SG only scored a single century (147*) against that FAB 4. And in that entire tour he avg:ed only 30+ that too with this 147* score.That is why I maintains that SG despite being a brilliant player of fast bowling was   a bit over hyped.Agreed , when compared to Ponting he belonged  to a weaker team & he was an opener too.But Ponting scored some 3000+ more runs  in his career.At one stage after scoring around 10250 runs(SG has only 10125 runs and when he retired he was way past 38 years old) his avg: stood at 58.5.And Ponting too had to withstand  top quality bowlers during his time like Wasim.Waqar,Saqlain,Akhtar,Ambrose,Walsh,Donald,Pollock,Ntini,Dale Steyn,Kumble,Murali etc etc.Ponting was very aggressive too. Yeah... despite all these merits & demerits each of these 2 possessed   , I don't mind any body placing SG over Ponting as a pure test batsman.

 

 But it is in one dayers  that Ponting is convincingly better to SG for me. Scored some 10000+ runs more than SG,avg:ed 7 more & had a str; rate of 18+ more.Agreed that SG played in an era which was slightly more bowler friendly than what was the case with Ponting.Also agreed SG was an opener in onedayers too.But yet the difference is clearly evident.And in SG's period batsmen like Greenidge,Haynes,Lloyd,Richards,Miandad,Zaheer Abbas,Greg Chappel,Dean Jones etc had clearly better one day figures than SG.That means SG's fall in performance when compared  to his test exploits was not a general case either.And Ponting was a great world cup player too.

All in all, in the end, I select a batsman who was great in 2 formats over another one who was great in one format but only 'very good' at the best in another format

   

[sandeep]

52 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

Just can't believe these OTT comments w.r.t placing  Ponting just slightly above SG. SG only scored a single century (147*) against that FAB 4. And in that entire tour he avg:ed only 30+ that too with this 147* score.That is why I maintains that SG despite being a brilliant player of fast bowling was   a bit over hyped.Agreed , when compared to Ponting he belonged  to a weaker team & he was an opener too.But Ponting scored some 3000+ more runs  in his career.At one stage after scoring around 10250 runs(SG has only 10125 runs and when he retired he was way past 38 years old) his avg: stood at 58.5.And Ponting too had to withstand  top quality bowlers during his time like Wasim.Waqar,Saqlain,Akhtar,Ambrose,Walsh,Donald,Pollock,Ntini,Dale Steyn,Kumble,Murali etc etc.Ponting was very aggressive too. Yeah... despite all these merits & demerits each of these 2 possessed   , I don't mind any body placing SG over Ponting as a pure test batsman.

 

 But it is in one dayers  that Ponting is convincingly better to SG for me. Scored some 10000+ runs more than SG,avg:ed 7 more & had a str; rate of 18+ more.Agreed that SG played in an era which was slightly more bowler friendly than what was the case with Ponting.Also agreed SG was an opener in onedayers too.But yet the difference is clearly evident.And in SG's period batsmen like Greenidge,Haynes,Lloyd,Richards,Miandad,Zaheer Abbas,Greg Chappel,Dean Jones etc had clearly better one day figures than SG.That means SG's fall in performance when compared  to his test exploits was not a general case either.And Ponting was a great world cup player too.

All in all, in the end, I select a batsman who was great in 2 formats over another one who was great in one format but only 'very good' at the best in another format

   

Gavaskar played the majority of his cricket when ODIs were considered to be like Hongkong Sixes level of cricket - i.e. not serious.   In any case your ODI logic is completely f-all.  By this logic, Rohit Sharma is better than Tendulkar, since he's scored so heavily in ODIs and T20s, so what if Tendulkar has done better in tests.   And what about Ponting's shyteshow in India?  Until his last tour he averaged almost single digits in India.  And you keep harping about Gavaskar's 30+ average in an isolated series.   Your problem is that you see Gavaskar's defensive style a a negative, while Ponting's "aggressive" style apparently gains your favor.   This is a clear result of you not having enough information and knowledge about Gavaskar's batting.  And your inability to account for the differences in eras - the style of cricket was totally different.  

 

Your lack of objectivity is glaring, and you seem simply unable to overcome that blind spot.  

[Trichromatic]

1 hour ago, rtmohanlal said:

Just can't believe these OTT comments w.r.t placing  Ponting just slightly above SG. SG only scored a single century (147*) against that FAB 4. And in that entire tour he avg:ed only 30+ that too with this 147* score.That is why I maintains that SG despite being a brilliant player of fast bowling was   a bit over hyped.

How manyy centuries should 1 expect against pace bowling line up in 4 matches? 3-4? Then what would be difference between them and mediocre bowlers?

 

They played 6 matches together, 4 against India and 2 against Eng. So what's the reference point for hyping, over-hyping and underrating in this case? WI pacers played mostly in pack of 3 or 2 and SMG performed brilliantly against them. 

 

Other players have not even faced that challenge so how can we say that he failed?

 

1 hour ago, rtmohanlal said:

, when compared to Ponting he belonged  to a weaker team & he was an opener too.But Ponting scored some 3000+ more runs  in his career.At one stage after scoring around 10250 runs(SG has only 10125 runs and when he retired he was way past 38 years old) his avg: stood at 58.5.And Ponting too had to withstand  top quality bowlers during his time like Wasim.Waqar,Saqlain,Akhtar,Ambrose,Walsh,Donald,Pollock,Ntini,Dale Steyn,Kumble,Murali etc etc.Ponting was very aggressive too. Yeah... despite all these merits & demerits each of these 2 possessed   , I don't mind any body placing SG over Ponting as a pure test batsman.

Ponting had good 4 years and that's it. His career can be divided into 3 parts. First and last set of 50 matches, he averaged around 38-39 and 75 in middle set of 50-55 matches. That was the peak time when all the quality pacers started retiring and Ponting made his career there. Then age caught up and he lost.

 

How many openers average 50+ in test cricket. There are many replacements of Ponting in world XI. SMG is probably first name of any XI in world whereas Ponting competes with Viv, Lara, SRT, Sanga, Kallis, Dravid for middle order positions.

 

[sandeep]

25 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

How manyy centuries should 1 expect against pace bowling line up in 4 matches? 3-4? Then what would be difference between them and mediocre bowlers?

 

They played 6 matches together, 4 against India and 2 against Eng. So what's the reference point for hyping, over-hyping and underrating in this case? WI pacers played mostly in pack of 3 or 2 and SMG performed brilliantly against them. 

 

Other players have not even faced that challenge so how can we say that he failed?

 

Ponting had good 4 years and that's it. His career can be divided into 3 parts. First and last set of 50 matches, he averaged around 38-39 and 75 in middle set of 50-55 matches. That was the peak time when all the quality pacers started retiring and Ponting made his career there. Then age caught up and he lost.

 

How many openers average 50+ in test cricket. There are many replacements of Ponting in world XI. SMG is probably first name of any XI in world whereas Ponting competes with Viv, Lara, SRT, Sanga, Kallis, Dravid for middle order positions.

 

This guy's rant against Gavaskar made me look up Ponting's stats - He's bashing Gavaskar for averaging 30 in 4 tests in one series - while Ponting after 3 separate tours averaged 12  and if you take out his solitary 50, he will average less than 5.   This is across 10 years - not some one-off series.   

 

But Ponting is an "aggressive" bat, so that makes him better than SMG.   That's just utter BS.   You can't be nitpicky when evaluating one batsman, while gloss over the flaws of the other.   Which is what our friend here keeps doing.  I'm not going to call it "safedi ki chamkaar" , but clearly its a bit of stockholm syndrome type thing - maybe that 2003 WC final left him overly affected.    

[sandeep]

31 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

How many openers average 50+ in test cricket. There are many replacements of Ponting in world XI. SMG is probably first name of any XI in world whereas Ponting competes with Viv, Lara, SRT, Sanga, Kallis, Dravid for middle order positions.

 

And even the most dedicated of Ponting fans will admit that the guy was not only weak against spin - he was quite vulnerable to quality pace bowling in his 1st 20 balls - had a pronounced tendency to fall over and was a prime leg-before candidate to any decent fast bowler around.  Fortunately for him, he played in an era when the good bowlers were on his own team, and that's about it.   While Gavaskar's technique and batting ability was unquestionably solid against pace and spin, regardless of conditions.  SMG has played banner knocks against pace in hostile seamer-friendly conditions, as well as against top flight spin on breaking pitches.   The gap between SMG and Ponting as test batsmen is major and its the other way around.  

[rtmohanlal]

13 hours ago, sandeep said:

Gavaskar played the majority of his cricket when ODIs were considered to be like Hongkong Sixes level of cricket - i.e. not serious.   In any case your ODI logic is completely f-all.  By this logic, Rohit Sharma is better than Tendulkar, since he's scored so heavily in ODIs and T20s, so what if Tendulkar has done better in tests.   And what about Ponting's shyteshow in India?  Until his last tour he averaged almost single digits in India.  And you keep harping about Gavaskar's 30+ average in an isolated series.   Your problem is that you see Gavaskar's defensive style a a negative, while Ponting's "aggressive" style apparently gains your favor.   This is a clear result of you not having enough information and knowledge about Gavaskar's batting.  And your inability to account for the differences in eras - the style of cricket was totally different.  

 

Your lack of objectivity is glaring, and you seem simply unable to overcome that blind spot.  

You need to calm down a little bit.... i feel . Just because some body differs from you over a matter of a game , it is not fair to get 'over the top' with using words like 'harping,not having enough information and knowledge,inability to account for the differences in eras,lack of objectivity is glaring, stockholm syndrome'    etc etc.Another thing is that you are seen some times exaggerating  points I mentioned about.For instance  ' Gavaskar's defensive style a a negative, while Ponting's "aggressive" style apparently gains your favor.' - Did I dismiss 'Gavaskar's defensive style' as negative ??? I just gave pointing little a bit more credit for his aggressive play in this one one comparison .That's all.

  And when you use Rohit-SRT case to compare with  SG-Ponting  case , I have nothing much to say.I am thoroughly  aware of Ponting's record in India too for which I discredit him.'Hongkong Sixes or not' while SG was playing his last world cup,it was the 4rth world cup till date & 'the 83 world cup win' was celebrated crazily like any thing thru out the nation.So much so for dismissing one dayers as  'Hongkong Sixes level'.

[rtmohanlal]

12 hours ago, Trichromatic said:

How manyy centuries should 1 expect against pace bowling line up in 4 matches? 3-4? Then what would be difference between them and mediocre bowlers?

 

They played 6 matches together, 4 against India and 2 against Eng. So what's the reference point for hyping, over-hyping and underrating in this case? WI pacers played mostly in pack of 3 or 2 and SMG performed brilliantly against them. 

 

Other players have not even faced that challenge so how can we say that he failed?

 

Ponting had good 4 years and that's it. His career can be divided into 3 parts. First and last set of 50 matches, he averaged around 38-39 and 75 in middle set of 50-55 matches. That was the peak time when all the quality pacers started retiring and Ponting made his career there. Then age caught up and he lost.

 

How many openers average 50+ in test cricket. There are many replacements of Ponting in world XI. SMG is probably first name of any XI in world whereas Ponting competes with Viv, Lara, SRT, Sanga, Kallis, Dravid for middle order positions.

 

As I earlier said , I do not find it 'not sensilble' if any one places SG  over Ponting as a pure test batsman. But what about the glaring difference in favour of Ponting  in one dayers?? Agreed, test cricket carries more weightage.Yet are we to dismiss one dayers as irrelavent?

[sandeep]

7 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

You need to calm down a little bit.... i feel . Just because some body differs from you over a matter of a game , it is not fair to get 'over the top' with using words like 'harping,not having enough information and knowledge,inability to account for the differences in eras,lack of objectivity is glaring, stockholm syndrome'    etc etc.Another thing is that you are seen some times exaggerating  points I mentioned about.For instance  ' Gavaskar's defensive style a a negative, while Ponting's "aggressive" style apparently gains your favor.' - Did I dismiss 'Gavaskar's defensive style' as negative ??? I just gave pointing little a bit more credit for his aggressive play in this one one comparison .That's all.

  And when you use Rohit-SRT case to compare with  SG-Ponting  case , I have nothing much to say.I am thoroughly  aware of Ponting's record in India too for which I discredit him.'Hongkong Sixes or not' while SG was playing his last world cup,it was the 4rth world cup till date & 'the 83 world cup win' was celebrated crazily like any thing thru out the nation.So much so for dismissing one dayers as  'Hongkong Sixes level'.

I'm calm.  If you keep on claiming something that's evidently false and proven as such, then I will just call a spade a spade.  I'm entitled to my opinion as much as you are entitled to claim Ponting > SMG.  I see you that you have still to respond why Ponting's "aggressively" single digit average over 3 India test tours is less of an issue than SMG's 30 average vs the Windies in one test series, or his flagrant cheating with his bat.   Why does Imran's record get nullified or diminished due to his ball-tampering, why Ponting is still an unvarnished great?  

 

And ODI cricket was considered a circus side-show for most of the 1970s and even the early 1980s - i.e. majority of SMG's career.  If you don't know this, you simply don't know your cricket history.  Let me explain the example I used - Dravid and SRT  played their formative cricket and majority of their careers where T20 either didn't exist or was a format in its infancy that wasn't taken that seriously.  If you use T20 metrics to declare someone like David Warner as a better overall batsman than Dravid - that would be similar to you using ODI statistics to justify Ponting > SMG.   Does that make my point a bit clearer?  

[sandeep]

7 hours ago, rtmohanlal said:

As I earlier said , I do not find it 'not sensilble' if any one places SG  over Ponting as a pure test batsman. But what about the glaring difference in favour of Ponting  in one dayers?? Agreed, test cricket carries more weightage.Yet are we to dismiss one dayers as irrelavent?

If you have to consider ODI stats, then you have to account for difference in eras.  You generously 'handicapped' Kapil's average to account for the lack of support he had.  Similarly you have to consider the fact that Ponting grew up as a cricketer and played his entire career at a time when ODIs was a legitimate and valued cricket format.  SMG simply didn't.  He had to evolve to play that format at a later stage in his career.  He never had the opportunity to build an ODI style game when he was coming throug the ranks as Ponting did.   To summarize, Context matters.  And all things considered, even if you grant a few "points" to Ponting as a superior ODI batsman, the primary comparison between the 2 is in the format they definitely had in common, the premier format when evaluating a batsman - test cricket.  And Ponting's glaring failures against spin in the sub-continent can't just be made up by his ODI 'edge'.  

[rtmohanlal]

On 8/17/2017 at 6:30 PM, sandeep said:

I'm calm.  If you keep on claiming something that's evidently false and proven as such, then I will just call a spade a spade.  I'm entitled to my opinion as much as you are entitled to claim Ponting > SMG.  I see you that you have still to respond why Ponting's "aggressively" single digit average over 3 India test tours is less of an issue than SMG's 30 average vs the Windies in one test series, or his flagrant cheating with his bat.   Why does Imran's record get nullified or diminished due to his ball-tampering, why Ponting is still an unvarnished great?  

 

And ODI cricket was considered a circus side-show for most of the 1970s and even the early 1980s - i.e. majority of SMG's career.  If you don't know this, you simply don't know your cricket history.  Let me explain the example I used - Dravid and SRT  played their formative cricket and majority of their careers where T20 either didn't exist or was a format in its infancy that wasn't taken that seriously.  If you use T20 metrics to declare someone like David Warner as a better overall batsman than Dravid - that would be similar to you using ODI statistics to justify Ponting > SMG.   Does that make my point a bit clearer?  

Getting personnel  by using the words of your choice is  not calling spade a spade, it is  insulting  a person.Any way let us stop this discussion w.r.t this right here.I  shall stick on with  my stance and you shall with yours. No regrets.

[rtmohanlal]

On 8/16/2017 at 11:00 PM, Trichromatic said:

How manyy centuries should 1 expect against pace bowling line up in 4 matches? 3-4? Then what would be difference between them and mediocre bowlers?

 

They played 6 matches together, 4 against India and 2 against Eng. So what's the reference point for hyping, over-hyping and underrating in this case? WI pacers played mostly in pack of 3 or 2 and SMG performed brilliantly against them. 

 

Other players have not even faced that challenge so how can we say that he failed?

 

Ponting had good 4 years and that's it. His career can be divided into 3 parts. First and last set of 50 matches, he averaged around 38-39 and 75 in middle set of 50-55 matches. That was the peak time when all the quality pacers started retiring and Ponting made his career there. Then age caught up and he lost.

 

How many openers average 50+ in test cricket. There are many replacements of Ponting in world XI. SMG is probably first name of any XI in world whereas Ponting competes with Viv, Lara, SRT, Sanga, Kallis, Dravid for middle order positions.

 

Ponting scored 11 100+ scores against opponent teams in which there was atleast 1 ATG bowler in tough conditions.By 'tough' conditions it doesn't necessarily mean abroad. For instance scoring a 100+ against Warne in AUS is not that tough.But 

against Warne  in IND is tough because of the spin friendly conditions. Similarly scoring vs Akram  in AUS is tough becaue of pace friendly conditions despite Ponting having the home advantage.  These ATG bowlers  were Akram, Ambrose ,Walsh , Pollock , Donald, Steyn & Murali.To put it in context, Dravid could score only 4 100+ scores against 4 bowlers namely Donald,Pollock,Warne & Murali.Sachin has 14 100+ scores against 6 ATG bowlers.Gavaskar   has  10 100+ scores vs 7 ATG bowlers namely  FAB4 of Windies,Imran,Underwood & Willis.In this regard Ponting is far superior to Dravid,   on a par with Gavaskar & only lags slightly behind Sachin.And I didn't count   Ponting's 100+ score in IND vs Kumble & Harbhajan either because of these 2 bowlers being not ATGs. I hated Ponting the  human being  like any thing because of his arrogant behaviour, but just can't neglect his greatness as batsman.

[sandeep]

1 hour ago, rtmohanlal said:

Getting personnel  by using the words of your choice is  not calling spade a spade, it is  insulting  a person.Any way let us stop this discussion w.r.t this right here.I  shall stick on with  my stance and you shall with yours. No regrets.

Fair enough.  Apologies if you took my post personally.  Not my intent to insult you.   I see that you still haven't responded to the points raised below though 

Quote

  I see you that you have still to respond why Ponting's "aggressively" single digit average over 3 India test tours is less of an issue than SMG's 30 average vs the Windies in one test series, or his flagrant cheating with his bat.   Why does Imran's record get nullified or diminished due to his ball-tampering, why Ponting is still an unvarnished great?  

 

[putrevus]

On 8/16/2017 at 11:22 AM, rtmohanlal said:

Just can't believe these OTT comments w.r.t placing  Ponting just slightly above SG. SG only scored a single century (147*) against that FAB 4. And in that entire tour he avg:ed only 30+ that too with this 147* score.That is why I maintains that SG despite being a brilliant player of fast bowling was   a bit over hyped.Agreed , when compared to Ponting he belonged  to a weaker team & he was an opener too.But Ponting scored some 3000+ more runs  in his career.At one stage after scoring around 10250 runs(SG has only 10125 runs and when he retired he was way past 38 years old) his avg: stood at 58.5.And Ponting too had to withstand  top quality bowlers during his time like Wasim.Waqar,Saqlain,Akhtar,Ambrose,Walsh,Donald,Pollock,Ntini,Dale Steyn,Kumble,Murali etc etc.Ponting was very aggressive too. Yeah... despite all these merits & demerits each of these 2 possessed   , I don't mind any body placing SG over Ponting as a pure test batsman.

 

 But it is in one dayers  that Ponting is convincingly better to SG for me. Scored some 10000+ runs more than SG,avg:ed 7 more & had a str; rate of 18+ more.Agreed that SG played in an era which was slightly more bowler friendly than what was the case with Ponting.Also agreed SG was an opener in onedayers too.But yet the difference is clearly evident.And in SG's period batsmen like Greenidge,Haynes,Lloyd,Richards,Miandad,Zaheer Abbas,Greg Chappel,Dean Jones etc had clearly better one day figures than SG.That means SG's fall in performance when compared  to his test exploits was not a general case either.And Ponting was a great world cup player too.

All in all, in the end, I select a batsman who was great in 2 formats over another one who was great in one format but only 'very good' at the best in another format

   

Ponting was not a great T20 player so would you discount him as player in future vs a great T20 player who has same stats as him in ODIs. 

Gavaskar was brought up in ERA where ODIs was an afterthought same thing which happened to Ponting with respect to T20s.

While I understand your point in SG not doing well when facing  full might of WI fearsome foursome in 1983 in WI where he scored his only hundred in Georgetown.But he did very well against them in return series in India in 1983.

 

The bowlers you mentioned are no comparison to fearsome foursome.The reason being there was no respite from them , there is no instance in history of cricket where you had four equally dynamic express bowlers with highest quality.You might have had a pair of great bowlers or single great bowler operating but not four. Scoring a hundred even on a feather bead was an achievement against them  due to their high quality of bowling.

 

If you take them individually you may find better bowlers but as group there is no match for them in  history of cricket.Crciket was laid back then and over rates were not enforced then as strictly as they are now so they did not win statistically as many matches as Aussies but Aussies were no match for the fear factor they possessed.

 

Ponting while being very good was weak when facing high quality swing bowling and spin bowling.Gavaskar was master of both and that makes Gavaskar a better batsman Ponting hands down.

Edited August 18, 2017 by putrevus

[gazza]

India might be spin friendly but it's a foreign place to Warne, he grew up in Australia and has a much better record in Australia than India hence you can't just say India was spin friendly so scoring a ton against him in India is tougher.

 

same for wasim, he has a better record at home, where he grew up and knew the conditions back to front and had the most experience.

 

i understand the difference in amount of matches played, but I think if you look at bowlers records in most case they have a better home record than anywhere else (usually same for batsmen to). Don't under estimate a players home advantage just because it may seem like conditions don't suit batting or bowling.

Edited August 18, 2017 by gazza

[rtmohanlal]

23 hours ago, sandeep said:

Fair enough.  Apologies if you took my post personally.  Not my intent to insult you.   I see that you still haven't responded to the points raised below though 

 

It's ok....no problems.That is what I am saying. I do take into account that Ponting's record in India is below par & I discredit him for that factor.But for that matter even Dravid's record in SAF is almost similar & Lara in India too was not that far than what Ponting could achieve.Any way , as I always maintain , my way of comparing 2 batsmen is to take a lot of batting factors .Evaluate the performances of both these batsmen  in each of these factors.Then sum it up.

Based on that

performance in all  countries : SG definitely better.

batting avg: Ponting avg: once stood at 58.5 after 10250 runs compared to SG's over all avg: of 51.12 or so.Then Yeah SG was an opener hence I am weighing SG's avg:  a lot more even at around 54.Ponting played in a convincingly stronger AUS  team and that goes against him a bit. Sill Ponting better here.

aggressiveness : Ponting played several dominant 100s  even against top qlty attacks.Taking nothing away from SG's methods.He too has several big inns against top quality bowling attacks.But because Ponting being  more aggressive, he gets

a bit more points here. 

 

One dayers -The stats are too leniant towards Ponting.When quite a few of his contemporaries could convincingly out do SG

in this format, his not up to the mark performance  can't be excused as nothing serious.He atleast played one day cricket for 12 years.

 

So all in all my mind says it is Ponting though I badly wish he wasn't one because I don't generally like arrogants succeeding.Based on that , though my heart says  to place SG slightly better  because of myself being an Indian,my sense of being true to myself doesn't allow that.Ponting by  the skin of teeth.That's all.  Having  said that,i take extreme satisfaction & some sort of joy in the fact that SG is one of the ATGs  from India & a legend of the game.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2017 by rtmohanlal

[rtmohanlal]

16 hours ago, gazza said:

India might be spin friendly but it's a foreign place to Warne, he grew up in Australia and has a much better record in Australia than India hence you can't just say India was spin friendly so scoring a ton against him in India is tougher.

 

same for wasim, he has a better record at home, where he grew up and knew the conditions back to front and had the most experience.

 

i understand the difference in amount of matches played, but I think if you look at bowlers records in most case they have a better home record than anywhere else (usually same for batsmen to). Don't under estimate a players home advantage just because it may seem like conditions don't suit batting or bowling.

agree with this .

[rtmohanlal]

23 hours ago, putrevus said:

Ponting was not a great T20 player so would you discount him as player in future vs a great T20 player who has same stats as him in ODIs. 

Gavaskar was brought up in ERA where ODIs was an afterthought same thing which happened to Ponting with respect to T20s.

While I understand your point in SG not doing well when facing  full might of WI fearsome foursome in 1983 in WI where he scored his only hundred in Georgetown.But he did very well against them in return series in India in 1983.

 

The bowlers you mentioned are no comparison to fearsome foursome.The reason being there was no respite from them , there is no instance in history of cricket where you had four equally dynamic express bowlers with highest quality.You might have had a pair of great bowlers or single great bowler operating but not four. Scoring a hundred even on a feather bead was an achievement against them  due to their high quality of bowling.

 

If you take them individually you may find better bowlers but as group there is no match for them in  history of cricket.Crciket was laid back then and over rates were not enforced then as strictly as they are now so they did not win statistically as many matches as Aussies but Aussies were no match for the fear factor they possessed.

 

Ponting while being very good was weak when facing high quality swing bowling and spin bowling.Gavaskar was master of both and that makes Gavaskar a better batsman Ponting hands down.

Agree that facing the 4 of them as a group was a mammoth task.But SG scored only 1 100 vs those 4 together

Apart from that SG  scored 6 more 100s against atleast 1 of them in the team. In one of these 6 100s, only  Holding was present  and that too abroad.In another 1 of these which was abroad Holding & Roberts played.But Roberts was at the best a border line ATG.Even after playing with other greats  a lot & playing only 43 tests his avg: went past 25. In another  2  of these 100s  only a rookie Marshall was there and that too at home.Another 100 was at  home  vs 2 of them & yet another one  vs 3 of them at home.So, all in all SG's performance was brilliant , but I don't think scoring 100s vs Akram,Amrose & Walsh,Donald & Pollock,Murali,Steyn lacks that far behind. 

[Trichromatic]

1 hour ago, rtmohanlal said:

Agree that facing the 4 of them as a group was a mammoth task.But SG scored only 1 100 vs those 4 together

 

What is your expectation for good number in 4 matches?

 

1 hour ago, rtmohanlal said:

Apart from that SG  scored 6 more 100s against atleast 1 of them in the team. In one of these 6 100s, only  Holding was present  and that too abroad.In another 1 of these which was abroad Holding & Roberts played.But Roberts was at the best a border line ATG.Even after playing with other greats  a lot & playing only 43 tests his avg: went past 25. In another  2  of these 100s  only a rookie Marshall was there and that too at home.Another 100 was at  home  vs 2 of them & yet another one  vs 3 of them at home.So, all in all SG's performance was brilliant , but I don't think scoring 100s vs Akram,Amrose & Walsh,Donald & Pollock,Murali,Steyn lacks that far behind. 

Which challenge did he miss against those fast bowlers? All 4 played 6 matches together and most of the time either it was 2 or max 3 bowlers together. That was most famous line up of that time and certainly those combination of 3 and 2 bowlers were most difficult then. 

 

You are using term "only" as if 4 bowlers played 40 matches together and Gavaskar missed regularly and he scored only when main bowlers were missing. A batsman can't score against set of bowlers who don't play test cricket. He couldn't have line up those bowlers by some magic and faced them, could he.  

 

When Ponting scored 100 against Murali, he had just started doing well. Till late 90s Murali was dominated by many batsmen. He averaged 32 in SL when Murali became a dominant force.

 

When did Ponting face Ambrose? He did score against Akram at fag end of his career. He scored only 4 100s against Walsh, Wasim, Donald and Steyn and out of those 1 against and Donald and 1 against Walsh when they were good.