Bradman is the greatest, Sachin comes only second: Waugh, Benaud

[ravishingravi]

I tell you what. I have a new found respect for the Tendulkar backers, truly have and there is some valid ground for questioning Bradman. They have gone from pillar to post to claim Tendla as the greatest ever which I think many would share now. Although some arguments against uncovered pitches are absolutely preposterous. However the argument might be a more difficult one when you compare him with Sobers or Richards. Not sure if the same kind of arguments can be made about "amateur" nature or "quality of cricket".

[jonas10]

Since I have some time: Do you know what the pressure of playing in Ashes was then? And that too for the matches played b/w the two best cricketing nation of that time? In an era when test cricket was everything (no ODIs WC, no IPL) Experts debate the greatness of players at length when the players are perceived to be of similar quality. How much would the intangibles play a role when comparing say Vensarkar to Tendulkar?

Pressure was non existant at the time...come on man use your common sense can you compare test cricket in a non media driven time to SRT's pressure playing now? Bradman was a recluse almost at a JD Salinger level...he could never handle the pressure SRT had never.

[Tapioca]

However the argument might be a more difficult one when you compare him with Sobers or Richards. Not sure if the same kind of arguments can be made about "amateur" nature or "quality of cricket".

With Sobers, you can still use the amateur bowling argument. SRT is better than Richards because his average is 5 points better and that is the most important thing in cricket.

[ravishingravi]

^No that argument is invalid since there is footage after footage of the quality of bowlers and they in no way seem any less than the current lot infact infinitely superior in some cases. So, some might not be professionals but that didn't hurt their game. Btw correct me if I am wrong but isn't Kallis averaging higher than Tendulkar at this point.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[jonas10]

I wonder what Bradman would do if his part time hobby of cricket (yes he had a "real" life job/world wars etc to occupy the majority of his time) was taken seriously in his country? I wonder what he would do if 1 billion people lived or died with every stroke of his bat. I wonder what he would do if there is an angry mob burning his effigy and fighting police to get to his house. I wonder what he would do if English terrorists were plotting to kidnap him and the Sourav Ganguly of his day. Oh...thats right Bradman was so uncomfortable being around his own teammates...deplored interviews and absolutely freaked out by the little hobby he had - 2 games a year what a bloody joke. No way on Earth could he even last in the modern times in the subcontinent the way SRT has for 20+ years with billions watching.

[jonas10]

What was the argument that you found preposterous ? Just the Away record of SRT is better than Sobers entire career record. If he plays for another 2-3 yrs he will have a record that will be better than the COMBINED record of Viv and Sobers ... just think about that for a moment. I wont even bother mentioning ODIs.

Boss, anyone arguing you now is just grasping for straws....Even Richards has admitted compare me to Sehwag or someone but dont compare me to SRT he is beyond me or any player ive ever seen play. Thats why these 30 year olds who have never seen 1 second of Bradman play invented this greater than SRT player. A guy that played hobby cricket when the sport was in its infancy and commercialism was non existent. I play hobby cricket maybe im better than SRT.

[rkt.india]

^No that argument is invalid since there is footage after footage of the quality of bowlers and they in no way seem any less than the current lot infact infinitely superior in some cases. So' date=' some might not be professionals but that didn't hurt their game. Btw correct me if I am wrong but isn't Kallis averaging higher than Tendulkar at this point.[/quote'] Yaar quality of bowling is not bad in this era too...While Richards never faced the best fast bowling unit of Holding, Roberts, Marshall, Croft, Garner, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop. There were not many better fast bowler than those at that time. Spinners in this era have been better with the likes of Shane Warne and Murli and other pretty good spinners also. SRT has faced the best fast bowler ever in Glen Mcgrath, Fastest ever Shoiab Akhtar, near fastest Brett Lee, Shane Bond, Best left arm fast bowler ever Wasim Akram, lethal Waqar, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop, Alan Donald, and best fast bowler now Dale Steyn. Some other good bowlers of last 21 years like GIllespie, Vaas, Shaun Pollock, Ntini, Asif, Malinga. Now compare the bowling SRT has faced to the bowling Viv has faced.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Sachin=GOD]

Thanks for the guffaws! Sreesanth may be a cr@ppy bowler by ODI standards' date=' is he a cr@p bowler at the club level ? Before bellowing your blah blahs, feel free to watch the videos @ britishpathe. [b']Trust your eye, dont trust your brains. Question to Prof: If there is indeed a quantitative metric that captures the difference in eras (that constitutes competition, pressure, conditions and so many intangible variables) as you would like us to believe, then it should be possible to use the same mechanism to rank order batsmen/bowlers ? Essentially each player can be reduced to a number & all debates about greatness of players can be settled on numbers. I wonder why experts debate the greatness of players at length, if this is a simple numbers game.

that would mean watching Bradman and Co bat and then judging him on the basis of his batting rather than on the baasis of what has been hammered into the heads of the Bradman Brigade for the last 70 years - "Sir Don Bradman averaged 99.94 ergo no cricketer, living or dead, has the right to be called the greatest of all time except Sir Don Bradman". The reason these people call Sir Don Bradman as the best ever is not that they themselves believe in it, its just that others have been saying so for the last 70 odd years so the Bradman Brigade has taken that on face value without even bothering to check whether the quality of cricket in that time was even anywhere close to what it is now or not!!

Since I have some time: Do you know what the pressure of playing in Ashes was then? And that too for the matches played b/w the two best cricketing nation of that time? In an era when test cricket was everything (no ODIs WC, no IPL) Experts debate the greatness of players at length when the players are perceived to be of similar quality. How much would the intangibles play a role when comparing say Vensarkar to Tendulkar?

simple question - was the pressure of the Ashes in the 1930s more than what Goddy has had to face every single day for the last 21 years in a country like India where people give their lives AFTER India won the WC because he could'nt make his 100th century?? Just answer in Yes or No.

[Sachin=GOD]

One thing I can say with absolute certainty - if you ask one of the modern day greats to play 63 out of 80 innings in their career against 1 opposition and that also with a large number of practice matches before every tour then people like Goddy, Ponting, Lara, Kallis etc would absolutely murder the bowlers.

[akshayxyz]

One thing I can say with absolute certainty - if you ask one of the modern day greats to play 63 out of 80 innings in their career against 1 opposition and that also with a large number of practice matches before every tour then people like Goddy' date=' Ponting, Lara, Kallis etc would absolutely murder the bowlers.[/quote'] But then all of them will end up having about the same average.!! One needs to be statistical outlier by at least 4 standard deviations from the population mean, that too only in form of "test cricket average" to qualify to be compared against Bradman.

[Sachinism]

Since I have some time: Do you know what the pressure of playing in Ashes was then? And that too for the matches played b/w the two best cricketing nation of that time? In an era when test cricket was everything (no ODIs WC, no IPL) Experts debate the greatness of players at length when the players are perceived to be of similar quality. How much would the intangibles play a role when comparing say Vensarkar to Tendulkar?

Seriously do you have any idea what kinda pressure players are under playing for India??

[zen]

One thing I can say with absolute certainty - if you ask one of the modern day greats to play 63 out of 80 innings in their career against 1 opposition and that also with a large number of practice matches before every tour then people like Goddy' date=' Ponting, Lara, Kallis etc would absolutely murder the bowlers.[/quote'] Today's cricketers play cricket all around the year. Have access to the best coaching and training facilities, Batsmen have highly advanced bats that enable them to clear the field with relative ease, ability to analyze opposition and conditions well in advance .... and still you think that those who played in Bradman's era had it better! I guess to even things out and do justice to today's poor cricketers, those from 1930s who traveled via boats have to go and play one or two practice game and play the tests and come back. I won't be surprised if in some cases the travel time would be as much as the whole series. It doesn't matter if they didn't have the facilities that today's cricketers enjoy now :P

[zen]

Seriously do you have any idea what kinda pressure players are under playing for India??

poor chaps, so based on the pressure theory: Kumble > Warne/Murali (as they don't face as much pressure than Indian players) Dhoni > Gilchrist Zak > McGrath and so on To Indian cricketers :hatsoff: .... they are under so much pressure of fans, IPL money, scheduling ads in b/w practice, along w/ playing for India

[Sachinism]

poor chaps, so based on the pressure theory: Kumble > Warne/Murali (as they don't face as much pressure than Indian players) Dhoni > Gilchrist Zak > McGrath and so on To Indian cricketers :hatsoff: .... they are under so much pressure of fans, IPL money, scheduling ads in b/w practice, along w/ playing for India

I never said any of that, just thought I'd stop you trying to pass off the ashes series as a higher pressure event than playing for India

[Sachin=GOD]

Today's cricketers play cricket all around the year.

and that results in something called "fatigue" and player burnout or in your opinion even these things do not affect the performance of the modern day cricketers??

Have access to the best coaching and training facilities, Batsmen have highly advanced bats that enable them to clear the field with relative ease, ability to analyze opposition and conditions well in advance .... and still you think that those who played in Bradman's era had it better!

you're talking as if only the batsmen have the facility and bowlers do not have the batsmen's videos to analyze :giggle:

I guess to even things out and do justice to today's poor cricketers, those from 1930s who traveled via boats have to go and play one or two practice game and play the tests and come back. I won't be surprised if in some cases the travel time would be as much as the whole series. It doesn't matter if they didn't have the facilities that today's cricketers enjoy now :P

Is that more hectic than playing back to back ODIs in 2 different cities?? or having a gap of just 3 days between 2 Tests in a vital Test series (for ex - in the recent India-SA test series, the 2nd test ended on 29th Dec and 3rd started on 2nd Jan) or having the WC finish and have the IPL stating in just 5 days or the WI tour just 5-6 days after the IPL ends - is all that more hectic or playing 2-3 practice matches and 1-2 Tests in a long tour of 2-3 months (as it happened in 1930s) ??? what about some of the HUGE advantages the cricketers of the 1930s had - fielding level was so poor that nobody in their right mind would even think of comparing them to the fielders of today. Hardly any spinners were there, batsmen also did'nt have to face reverse swing, there weren't many quality fast bowlers (as in sub 25 avg), playing on only a limited number of grounds and therefore they did'nt have to adjust to different surfaces. They also did not have to adjust their game to suit the needs to different versions of the game - Test or ODIs or T20.

[zen]

I never said any of that' date=' just thought I'd stop you trying to pass off the ashes series as a higher pressure event than playing for India[/quote'] I never implied that Ashes is higher pressure event. Just that Ashes was in those days the most high pressure events in the absence of tourneys like ODI WC and other marque series. I am equating the pressure of playing in Ashes to high marque series of today and thus implying that the belief that those who played in that era played under little pressure is not on I am sorry to say but apart from thinking Tendulkar is the greatest, another characteristics of tendulkar fanboys is that they don't follow how a point has been built upon. they don't understand what's being implied in the posts. Pick out a few words and respond to that when the answer to that is already in the post they picked the words from. To illustrate: Example A: Rett: Monkey is the biggest animal, right? No it's not. TF (tendulkar fan boy): *he would highlight the "monkey is the biggest animal" and say something like* haha, it's not Example B: TF: He plays under tremendous pressue? Rett: Ashes was the preimeir tourney in the Bradman era. It was a high pressure event just like today's top tourneys. TF: Stop claiming ashes had higher pressure than playing today Example C: Rett: so who said Mathama Gandhi is a hero? He was not a hero, infact because of him India is suffering today. This is a line of thinking I find it hard to understand. Gandhi is a hero. TF: *would highlight he was not a hero part and say* what so you think gandhi is not a hero. Example D: Rett: Do intangibles play a part when comparing Vensarkar to Tendulkar? TF: The spelling of Vengsarkar is wrong If you see it's mostly folks like these who debate Tendulkar is greatest. This is one of the reasons, I don't rate TFs highly and one of the reasons why they get laughed off. How seriously you can take their posts except for fun :P

[zen]

and that results in something called "fatigue" and player burnout or in your opinion even these things do not affect the performance of the modern day cricketers?? you're talking as if only the batsmen have the facility and bowlers do not have the batsmen's videos to analyze :giggle: Is that more hectic than playing back to back ODIs in 2 different cities?? or having a gap of just 3 days between 2 Tests in a vital Test series (for ex - in the recent India-SA test series, the 2nd test ended on 29th Dec and 3rd started on 2nd Jan) or having the WC finish and have the IPL stating in just 5 days or the WI tour just 5-6 days after the IPL ends - is all that more hectic or playing 2-3 practice matches and 1-2 Tests in a long tour of 2-3 months (as it happened in 1930s) ??? what about some of the HUGE advantages the cricketers of the 1930s had - fielding level was so poor that nobody in their right mind would even think of comparing them to the fielders of today. Hardly any spinners were there, batsmen also did'nt have to face reverse swing, there weren't many quality fast bowlers (as in sub 25 avg), playing on only a limited number of grounds and therefore they did'nt have to adjust to different surfaces. They also did not have to adjust their game to suit the needs to different versions of the game - Test or ODIs or T20.

^ Example E :P In fact many of his posts could be nominated as examples :hehe: