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

[zen]

comedy show continues

[akshayxyz]

You compared the difference in standard in the same era to show the difference in standards b/w different era. If you still don't get it, Bradman played in the best scene of his era, much like the European scene that you are trying to show, while the Indian cricket schene would be similar to the scene that you discribed (CK Naydu, Vijay Merchant maybe) To take the those who played in the best scene of that era and compare them with the weakest of this era is ....

What you still failed to notice: Assumptions of snooker example: a) - Indian domestic snooker can be considered an era or two behind European scene - "in terms of level of competition". Point I was proving - Not enough quality competition can result in high standard deviation, when comparing the 'performances'. In other words, "high standard deviation" when comparing performances, can be an indication of "lack of competition/quality". It was no way meant to prove - Pankan Advani ( because of his level of peer domination) can be considered better than international level players. And it was much better and sensible example than your hypothetical 100m race numbers. If you fail to see the analogy ( in terms of - how one can interpret standard deviation), then .. Stick to photography :nice:

The eras are not disconnected. There are several greats whose careers have spanned a long time, during which many changes to the game have been made, but all the greats adapted their games to maintain roughly the same level of performance. Bradman and Miller played together, Miller and Sobers overlapped, Sobers and Gavaskar overlapped. It's not like Sobers was averaging 100 during his overlap with Miller and started averaging 30 during his overlap with Gavaskar. Cricket has changed a lot ever since Tendulkar debuted, but he still remains a 50-60 averaging batsman. The second bolded part is not for amusement purpose. It's a direct corollary of your argument that the strength of Bradman's peers could have been poor. If that were indeed the case, you should not hesitate to claim Rameez as a better batsman than Hammond. Ironically, that is the only thing which can support your 'peer domination theory falls flat' argument - to prove that Hammond was as mediocre a batsman as Rameez.

So - Fielding levels have improved, level of competition is tougher, we have been seeing much better bowlers, batsmen are closely scrutinized for possible weaknesses. Is it a mere coincidence that batting averages have gone down and batting ladder is more tightly packed? Agreed that 40s was not isloated from 50s, 50s was not completely isolated from 60s. But - over the period of 6+ decades, there have been so many changes that when you compare quality of cricket from 30s to 90s - they can be, for all practical reasons, considered disconnected. In the sense - when we compare 30s platform with 90s/2000s platform - there are more differences than similarities - in terms of quality, conditions, competitiveness - and many more factors that affect "distances on performance ladders" more than "differences individual potential"

[The Outsider]

So - Fielding levels have improved, level of competition is tougher, we have been seeing much better bowlers, batsmen are closely scrutinized for possible weaknesses. Is it a mere coincidence that batting averages have gone down and batting ladder is more tightly packed? Agreed that 40s was not isloated from 50s, 50s was not completely isolated from 60s. But - over the period of 6+ decades, there have been so many changes that when you compare quality of cricket from 30s to 90s - they can be, for all practical reasons, considered disconnected. In the sense - when we compare 30s platform with 90s/2000s platform - there are more differences than similarities - in terms of quality, conditions, competitiveness - and many more factors that affect "distances on performance ladders" more than "differences individual potential"

Of course, cricket has changed. But these changes have not been some sudden instance. They have been gradual and all great players have adapted to these changes. You can look at the performance of any cricketing great - it has been roughly the same within reason, this and that side of a change like the leg before law, increased standards in fielding, reverse swing, doosra etc. Tendulkar did not become ineffective after the doosra was introduced, his batting average did not plummet as the fielding standards have risen over the last 22 years, he has not struggled to score centuries after more and more bowlers started bowling reverse swing. Neither Tendulkar nor any other genuine great of the game failed to adapt to these changes. Why do you think Bradman would not be able to adapt? It's stupid to think of the comparison as some time machine where Bradman is transported to the 90s or Tendulkar to the 30s. And that is the reason 40s and 90s cannot be thought to be disconnected. The game has been in a flux of continuous evolution, not some discrete change where players from one era have been shifted to another.

Point I was proving - Not enough quality competition can result in high standard deviation, when comparing the 'performances'.

Someone has already done a statistical analysis on this basis and the result was that given the number of international players today a modern batsman would have to average in the 75 or so range to be equivalent to Bradman. And I agree with that. If a modern batsman averages that much, I would not hesitate to say he is as good as Bradman.

[sarcastic]

Of course, cricket has changed. But these changes have not been some sudden instance. They have been gradual and all great players have adapted to these changes. You can look at the performance of any cricketing great - it has been roughly the same within reason, this and that side of a change like the leg before law, increased standards in fielding, reverse swing, doosra etc. Tendulkar did not become ineffective after the doosra was introduced, his batting average did not plummet as the fielding standards have risen over the last 22 years, he has not struggled to score centuries after more and more bowlers started bowling reverse swing. Neither Tendulkar nor any other genuine great of the game failed to adapt to these changes. Why do you think Bradman would not be able to adapt? It's stupid to think of the comparison as some time machine where Bradman is transported to the 90s or Tendulkar to the 30s. And that is the reason 40s and 90s cannot be thought to be disconnected. The game has been in a flux of continuous evolution, not some discrete change where players from one era have been shifted to another. Someone has already done a statistical analysis on this basis and the result was that given the number of international players today a modern batsman would have to average in the 75 or so range to be equivalent to Bradman. And I agree with that.

Great Post!!!!!! :hatsoff: Although I agree with your point completely, I do see merit in Bossbhai's argument. Which is, the skill level and the game playing level has increased so much that the people of this era are much more skillful and athletic than those in 30's and 40's or even earlier. Going by who is more skillful and played more competitive cricket and had longer career, SRT will topple DBG by probably a good distance. (Just watching a clip of DBG will reveal what are the skill sets at that time). If this criteria is the criteria for saying who is greater batsman, yes indeed SRT is a greater batsman than DBG. It goes without saying that Rameez Raja is a better batsman than Wally Hammond. Most of the batsmen of 90's and 2000's are greater than 30's and 40's and same is the case with people in 19th century... The level of competition and skill has progressed slowly.>> The people of newer generation could be far better than people in earlier generation!!!!!!

[zen]

What you still failed to notice: Assumptions of snooker example: a) - Indian domestic snooker can be considered an era or two behind European scene - "in terms of level of competition". Point I was proving - Not enough quality competition can result in high standard deviation, when comparing the 'performances'. In other words, "high standard deviation" when comparing performances, can be an indication of "lack of competition/quality". It was no way meant to prove - Pankan Advani ( because of his level of peer domination) can be considered better than international level players. And it was much better and sensible example than your hypothetical 100m race numbers. If you fail to see the analogy ( in terms of - how one can interpret standard deviation), then .. Stick to photography :nice:

Nope, snooker's example is like comparing say Zim's domestic structure and Aus's to imply that Zim domestic structure = Bradman's era and OZ domestic structure = today's era. While Bradman displayed his prowess in the best scene of his era .... In terms of snooker example, it would be the best snooker players in the world playing, along with some like the one in Indian domestic scene and one of them dominating everyone else, along with some of the other best guys :winky: 2ndly, it's the qualitiy of participants and not their number that determines how you judge the players. For example, let's assume that Lara, DBG and Ponting are playing in the same era and against BD and Zim. Here we are comparing performance against each other to see who is better. The quality of Lara and DBGr is not based upon how good BD and ZIm are or how many quality batsmen are playing but against how Lara, Ponting and DGB compare. That's all you need. So if DGB avg 100, Lara avg 60 and Ponting 58, you know that DBG is a much better player .... Now fast forward to a different era and we have Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting and Dravid playing against OZ and SA. Tendulkar avg 55, Lara avg 54, Pontiong avg 53 and Dravid avg 52. And we have Rameez Raja avg 30. So who is the best batsman? To find that out you have to first see if Lara of DBG's era is similar in quality of Lara of Tendulkar's era. Or is Lara of DBG'e era comparable to Rameez Raja of Tendulkar's era. There are those who think that Lara of DBG's era is more or less similar in quality to Lara of Tendulkar's era. Which is why both Laras are AT greats. And thus feel that DBG is the greatest batsman. Which is why people point towards peer domination because it is abt dominating a Lara that is more or less similar to Lara of Tendulkar's era .... To show that peer domination theory doesn't work, people need to show that Lara of DBG's era is not even as good as Rameez Raja of modern era. This is the simple thing some folks need to understand. Enough said! :icflove:

[akshayxyz]

Nope, snooker's example is like comparing say Zim's domestic structure and Aus's to imply that Zim domestic structure = Bradman's era and OZ domestic structure = today's era. While Bradman displayed his prowess in the best scene of his era .... In terms of snooker example, it would be the best snooker players in the world playing, along with some like the one in Indian domestic scene and one of them dominating everyone else, along with some of the other best guys :winky: 2ndly, it's the qualitiy of participants and not their number that determines how you judge the players. For example, let's assume that Lara, DBG and Ponting are playing in the same era and against BD and Zim. Here we are comparing performance against each other to see who is better. The quality of Lara and DBGr is not based upon how good BD and ZIm are or how many quality batsmen are playing but against how Lara, Ponting and DGB compare. That's all you need. So if DGB avg 100, Lara avg 60 and Ponting 58, you know that DBG is a much better player .... Now fast forward to a different era and we have Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting and Dravid playing against OZ and SA. Tendulkar avg 55, Lara avg 54, Pontiong avg 53 and Dravid avg 52. And we have Rameez Raja avg 30. So who is the best batsman? To find that out you have to first see if Lara of DBG's era is similar in quality of Lara of Tendulkar's era. Or is Lara of DBG'e era comparable to Rameez Raja of Tendulkar's era. There are those who think that Lara of DBG's era is more or less similar in quality to Lara of Tendulkar's era. Which is why both Laras are AT greats. And thus feel that DBG is the greatest batsman. Which is why people point towards peer domination because it is abt dominating a Lara that is more or less similar to Lara of Tendulkar's era .... To show that peer domination theory doesn't work, people need to show that Lara of DBG's era is not even as good as Rameez Raja of modern era. This is the simple thing some folks need to understand. Enough said! :icflove:

Genius - where were you? You should be working for NASA. One-to-one correlation in a problem that is even more than combination of Linear Algebra, and Multi variable differential calculus and what not. If the world worked as per your 1-1 correspondence - "new 56 equivalent to old 99.94 then it must be true that new 31 is equivalent to old 60" - each one of us would have been flying 5 feet replica of Boing 777. You are doing 1-1 mapping of Rameez (who does not figure in current top 50) to Wally ( top 2-3 of his time) based on 1-1 mapping of averages?? Snooker example holds good - which means - if there is not enough competition - points will be more scattered on "performance ladder". You are making a mistake by assuming that I am doing 1-1 correspondence there to compare performances. Let me put it in other words - if Indian Domestic snooker setup stays isolated from European setup - but more and more player in India play competitive snooker - then variance would reduce and would relatively more closely mirror Europian ladder. Coming back to ladder in Don's time vs Ladder in Modern era. It is not yet possible to say old#1 > (or<) new #1 (or #2 or #3 or #4 or #5...). It is not as simple as putting an "Inches ruler" against "cm Ruler" - aligning 12 inch with 30 cm and deriving 6 inch > 14 cm. And if you still insist on your 1-1 mapping, then you will have to agree that old lot of bowlers were as significantly better than current lot.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[The Outsider]

well Heres what happens to the bowling avgs of the bowlers from 30s and 40s if you want to standardize . If I understood correctly you are trying to tell us that 100runs in those days were roughly equal to 75runs of today. So using a factor of 1.33 ( = 99.94/75 ) heres what the adjusted bowling averages of bowlers from 30s and 40s will look like for bowlers who have taken at-least 25 wkts in this period.

No, you didn't. So the rest of your post is a meaningless number crunching exercise devoid of any analysis.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[goose]

i like the way rett says 'case closed' or 'enuf said' before writing essay after essay.

[jonas10]

What would Bradman do when he has video made of him 24/7 analyzing him studying his weaknesses and then exploiting them. How would he face an opening pair like Wasim and Waqar. Would he even understand something like reverse swing? Look at the leggies Sacchin played against Warne, Qadar etc. Even Offies like Murali who is a freak of nature Bradman never needed to face. Try having your bodyline series against a Shohib Akthar that can swing a ball at 100MPH No contest Sachin is better than Bradman cause his time is much tougher he has stood the test of time and beaten the best of the best throughout generations.

[zen]

Genius - where were you? You should be working for NASA. One-to-one correlation in a problem that is even more than combination of Linear Algebra, and Multi variable differential calculus and what not. If the world worked as per your 1-1 correspondence - "new 56 equivalent to old 99.94 then it must be true that new 31 is equivalent to old 60" - each one of us would have been flying 5 feet replica of Boing 777. You are doing 1-1 mapping of Rameez (who does not figure in current top 50) to Wally ( top 2-3 of his time) based on 1-1 mapping of averages?? Snooker example holds good - which means - if there is not enough competition - points will be more scattered on "performance ladder". You are making a mistake by assuming that I am doing 1-1 correspondence there to compare performances. Let me put it in other words - if Indian Domestic snooker setup stays isolated from European setup - but more and more player in India play competitive snooker - then variance would reduce and would relatively more closely mirror Europian ladder. Coming back to ladder in Don's time vs Ladder in Modern era. It is not yet possible to say old#1 > (or<) new #1 (or #2 or #3 or #4 or #5...). It is not as simple as putting an "Inches ruler" against "cm Ruler" - aligning 12 inch with 30 cm and deriving 6 inch > 14 cm. And if you still insist on your 1-1 mapping, then you will have to agree that old lot of bowlers were as significantly better than current lot.

:omg: so I guess only those who are good enough for NASA could answer this. And since I don't see anyone as good here, all the theories go down to the bin :giggle: .... And then you have it in you to harp over the snooker example. Don't even get me started on that crap. Let's not try to divert our attention from the simple question below: Simple question: Is Hammond near in quality to a Tendulkar or a Rameez Raja? You don't need to work for NASA to answer that, Thank you! And As I said, in the end if all your efforts point to one thing that things are not conclusive, then we have to keep things simple and go by who has the highest avg and in the league of his own. You don't need to do an analysis to do that. And ofc you need to understand how cricket evolved too :winky:

[akshayxyz]

What would Bradman do when he has video made of him 24/7 analyzing him studying his weaknesses and then exploiting them. How would he face an opening pair like Wasim and Waqar. Would he even understand something like reverse swing? Look at the leggies Sacchin played against Warne, Qadar etc. Even Offies like Murali who is a freak of nature Bradman never needed to face. Try having your bodyline series against a Shohib Akthar that can swing a ball at 100MPH No contest Sachin is better than Bradman cause his time is much tougher he has stood the test of time and beaten the best of the best throughout generations.

There is no doubt that he would have been able to keep up with the best in modern era too. But its meaningless to say that one has to average 75 ( or 85 or 65) to be considered as good as Don OR Sachin (and ponting, and Lara and Dravid. and Sehwag..) would not have been able to match Don stroke for stroke, run for run.

[The Outsider]

Well then please explain what it means when you say someone has to avg 75 to be considered equivalent to Bradmans 99.94 ... to me it implies that 100runs of that time = 75 runs of today.

I've done it many times in the past, but here goes one more attempt : The analysis I am talking about is not equating the runs then to now with any scaling factor. It is a statistical measure of how much of an outlier Bradman was in relation to other batsmen. If the sample you are dealing with is small (as in Bradman's times) as opposed to large (as in Tendulkar's times), it is easier to find a bigger statistical outlier compared to the general pool. In effect, it becomes progressively more difficult for someone to average 100 if the pool size you are dealing with grows from 100 to 500 to 1000 etc. The degree to which Bradman was a statistical outlier, with an average of 100, in his smaller pool size is equivalent to a modern batsman averaging 75-80 in his larger pool size. It does not mean that the average run scored in a smaller pool size scales with some parameter in a larger pool.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[akshayxyz]

:omg: so I guess only those who are good enough for NASA could answer this. And since I don't see anyone as good here, all the theories go down to the bin :giggle: .... And then you have it in you to harp over the snooker example. Don't even get me started on that crap. Let's not try to divert our attention from the simple question below: Simple question: Is Hammond near in quality to a Tendulkar or a Rameez Raja? You don't need to work for NASA to answer that, Thank you! And As I said, in the end if all your efforts point to one thing that things are not conclusive, then we have to keep things simple and go by who has the highest avg and in the league of his own. You don't need to do an analysis to do that. And ofc you need to understand how cricket evolved too :winky:

Arey merey baap.. Either you are very bad at analogies and analytics or you just want to ignore it to divert attention. NASA example meant - It is a horrible mistake to do 1-1 mapping of averages. You are hell bent on finding a mapping - and I am saying it is not possible, and meaningless to do so. But if you insist - in my perspective- Hammond will map to somewhere in top 10 or so of modern era and it is just a guess, not a definitive blind claim like yours - old 100 maps to new 75. Second best in old era does not mean he would be second in modern era, nor does it mean that he would go as low as rank 50 - purely based on 1-1 mapping of averages. Btw - do you understand how this problem is (or is not) a combination of multivariable calculus,linear algebra,game theory problems, or can point out exactly what class of mathematical problems it belongs to? (I very well know about the math terms and many more I have used - so I know what I am talking about there.) Or you want to delude yourself by taking it as simple as multiplying & dividing by constants?

[Raghav_12]

Here are my two cents on this debate (though till now I would contributed few dollars in that way :-)) There are two main factors which led people world over to believe that Bradman has been best batsman to play cricket ever. But if you look at these factors closely, you'll realize that there are flaws in arguments built based on both of these factors and accordingly there is no validity in the claims that Bradman should be considered better than best of current era. At most we can say that Bradman was greatest of that era and comparing era's doesn’t make much sense. Let's have a look at both the factors which lead people to elevate him to numero-uno position. 1. Bradman's average of 99.9 - Talking of average in isolation is rubbish. No way, when talking in terms of purely numbers, we can say 99.9 of that era was better than the 57 of current era. Balance of bat and ball has changed completely in cricket and fielding has done it's bit too, of course in favor of ball. I am convinced that in pre-WW2 era bowlers were employed in cricket matches just to get the game going. Cricket was game of batting skills and bowlers/fielders were there so that batsman can exhibit their skills. I need not to explain that why I have such low opinion of fielders from that era as we all know, fielding really became athletic in only last 20-30 years, however I'll do my bit to justify my opinion on bowlers of that era. First point is, I often hear that bowlers used to bowl 135 overs or more in a day's play. And I have checked that myself and had posted one link in this forum showing same. I sincerely ask, how many of us think that it is possible to bowl that many overs in a game's play if bowlers are taking their job seriously? How you can compare runs scored against such bowlers with the runs scored against bowlers like Marshall, McrGath, Donald, Ambrose, Wasim, Akhtar who would put their life behind their bowling. My second point is whenever we hear stories of legend from that era, legend inevitably has to be a batsman- be it Bradman, Hammond, Hutton, Ranji, Hobbs. Now try to create a list of legendary cricketers of last 35 years and see for yourself how many bowlers feature in that list. First name to put on that list for Pakistan would be Imran or Wasim, for WI would be Marshall, Lara or Viv, for SA would be Donald, for NZ would be Hadlee. You can do your exercise for few other countries. And my third point, justifying my opinion of those bowlers are the videos which Bossbhai keeps posting on any possible opportunity :-).:cantstop: 2. Bradman's supremacy over peer batsmen - Next best batting average after Bradman in that era was in mid 60's and thus was cool 35% lower than Bradman's average. This is stronger argument in Bradman's favor and definitely would have been invincible argument if competition and skill levels of cricket were same in both eras. First I counter this argument based on pure numbers. Anybody knowing a bit statistic would tell that conclusion based on numbers becomes increasingly reliable when sample size increases. For a small sample size you can easily have outliers. You'll give more credence to a data point, which is 100% better than average of sample, if sample size is of one million versus a sample size of 1,000. This fact should be accepted that international cricket in that era was more like a domestic cricket played between England and it's colony Australia. And there are other instances as well across sports where at domestic level one player completely dominated the scene in the same way as Bradman did. One example to consider is, Andy Flower. His Batting average is around 70-80% more than nearest Zimbabwean batsman. Second point which flattens this argument is, it is naive of us to think that Bradman would definitely have translated his statistics of that era to the era of more difficult and competitive cricket. I don't understand what logic behind such notion is, when there are enough examples to suggest that it might not be true in all cases. Thing may change drastically when standard of sports goes up. For an example, Ajay Sharma has one of the best average in India FC cricket, 67. Going by the same logic, shouldn't he have been one of best test batsmen ever to play for India. His FC average is a cool 30% more than Gavaskar’s FC average, who faced similar conditions and opposition. While we strongly assert that Bradman would have maintained similar lead over his rivals while transitioning from amateur cricket to professional cricket, but look askance when it comes to explaination of instances which suggest otherwise. If that is true, then why Ajay Sharma could not manage his 25% lead over Gavaskar while transitioning from FC cricket to International cricket. Point is, you can not extrapolate numbers like that in sports. It is very much possible that fast forwarded to current era and Hobbs would have averaged more than Bradman. So it is ludicrous to suggest if Bradman eqaul to Sachin, then Hobbs equal to Ramiz Raza. You don't draw analogioes like that in Cricket. And so if somebody says to me that if both Ramiz and Sachin had played in 30's Raza would have averaged more that Sachin, I would say - I don't know, may be. I think it is high time people stop going by the stories spread predominantly by English/Australia media of Bradman being definitely superior to modern bunch of batsmen. Let's say Bradman was best in his era. But nowadays we play different cricket which requires more skills and Sachin is best batsman of this cricket :hatsoff::hatsoff: PS- It has definitely been more that just two cents :-):--D

[zen]

Arey merey baap.. Either you are very bad at analogies and analytics or you just want to ignore it to divert attention. NASA example meant - It is a horrible mistake to do 1-1 mapping of averages. You are hell bent on finding a mapping - and I am saying it is not possible, and meaningless to do so. But if you insist - in my perspective- Hammond will map to somewhere in top 10 or so of modern era and it is just a guess, not a definitive blind claim like yours - old 100 maps to new 75. Second best in old era does not mean he would be second in modern era, nor does it mean that he would go as low as rank 50 - purely based on 1-1 mapping of averages. Btw - do you understand how this problem is (or is not) a combination of multivariable calculus,linear algebra,game theory problems, or can point out exactly what class of mathematical problems it belongs to? (I very well know about the math terms and many more I have used - so I know what I am talking about there.) Or you want to delude yourself by taking it as simple as multiplying & dividing by constants?

Arre bhai, I am not a mathematician and thus would not ask for something for which great skills are needed. And a guess is fine. If you follow cricket, you should be able to answer such questions. The guys at cricinfo didn't have to do complex analysis to arrive at this: :winky: The World XI: Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Adam Gilchrist, Malcolm Marshall, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Dennis Lillee The Second XI: Sunil Gavaskar, Barry Richards, George Headley, Brian Lara, Wally Hammond, Imran Khan, Alan Knott, Bill O'Reilly, Fred Trueman, Muttiah Muralitharan, SF Barnes LINK Bottomline is players like Hammond will feature in the top bracket of any era that they play in. That top bracket included players like Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, Chappell, Gavaskar, Richards, etc. Bradman has shown that he has performed much better than the likes of Hammond, Headley, Hutton, etc and thus to be in the league of his own. Which is where the debate ends for me. As I said, for me the discussion should be abt who is 2nd best. As a Tendulkar fan, I would like to see Tendulkar triumph. But when I see this from a neutral perspective, I don't find myself picking Tendulkar first.

Three players were unanimous choices' date=' figuring in the first XIs of each of the 12 members of the jury (each juror was asked to pick a first XI and a second) - Don Bradman, Garry Sobers and Shane Warne, each of whom got the maximum points possible in the exercise, 60.[/quote']

[akshayxyz]

Excellent post Raghav. If Rett/Outsider still do not get it. - All I am saying is it is not possible (as of now) to conclusively say Don is significantly better than Sachin or vice versa. esp - not using bare minimal numbers (99.94,60...57, 31), samples of different sizes across different eras and doing basic math (multiply divide) & stats of outliers (of samples of varying quality & size).. They are best of their respective eras - that is it. But going by the level of competition modern day's best are as best as it can get.

[The Outsider]

The problem in this comparison is not just about sample size ... the problem is of the overall quality of that sample. Had Bradman encountered the likes of Ambrose ' date=' Steyn , Wasim or your fav McGrath throughout his career ... [b']his avg would have taken a hit. Do you dispute this? If you do who are the Bowling equivalents of Steyn, Donald, McGrath from his times according to you ? If you dont dispute that then how do you correct that imbalance and what is your correction factor ?

Hit by how much? How are you going to quantify that? In fact, just Tendulkar's career should show you how great players adapt to changing variables. If Tendulkar, Lara, Waugh could adapt to higher fielding standards, more frequent use of reverse swing, and newer deliveries which evolved during their careers why wouldn't Gavaskar, Richards, and Chappell adapt to those changes, why wouldn't Sobers adapt to those changes, why wouldn't Hammond, Hutton, and Bradman adapt to those changes. Why didn't Sobers average 100 at the start of his career and 20 towards the end when the standards of cricket grew so much between 1955 to 1975? Why didn't Chappell start averaging in the 20s after the WI bowling quartet started playing?