The absurdity behind nominating Ponting as the best batsman of his generation

[Dhondy]

Bossbhai because.... Bossbhai is damn good with his stats. The best we have. But it is annoying to see his utter bias and dishonesty in everything to do with SRT. Honestly, it is nauseating. Every other thread. The others ..( won't mention names) ..don't even matter. They neither understand the game nor statistical analysis. As for those baying for my blood because I am a harsh tongued " non - beleiver " , I believe your chatto chaiya , will see me through.:hysterical:

I am not so sure. Poor Domaink sent you a polite warning about language and you threw the kitchen sink at him. He is one of the few gentlemen on board- wouldn't say boo to a fly and would never abuse you back. It's not his fault that he is of the 23 mods on this board and takes his job seriously.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Lurker]

Jokes apart. Nothing personal. Just both of us have extreme opposite views and I unfortunately have a very spiced tongue.

But surely when you converse/discuss with someone it is not only your taste buds that count?? If the other person prefers bland food then whats the point of sprinkling spice. Anyway I dont mean to be Ms. Ettiquette here, just that loud posts, big caps, abuse etc are generally off-putting.

[patriot]

You want me to start a stats thread on Imran > Kapil .... I know what our resident pehelwaan will do to me :(( .... You on the other hand prefer to watch the fun from the ringside :headshake:

But you said in that " Sunny vs SRT " thread that Imran lived on bottle tops , no ? So the comparison should not even start , no ? See, this is what I mean. IN matters relating to SRT, Honesty. Is. Lacking. Honestly.

[Lurker]

You want me to start a stats thread on Imran > Kapil .... I know what our resident pehelwaan will do to me :(( .... You on the other hand prefer to watch the fun from the ringside :headshake:

Imran > Kapil Mother :hitler::hitler:

[Shehezaada]

One of those fellows, Lurker, actually has been paying his doctor to tell him that you keep growing ad infinitum after 21. Apparently he is "studying" something in "University". Rather worryingly for you, he's been following your regimes. Watch out!:hysterical:

haha! actually i'm still growing, about to turn 22 and still going! Unfortunately the rate has decreased quite a bit....but I saw some additional growth last month so i'm doing two a day stretches and getting into yoga.....also Lurker's awesome with his fitness advice, so I hope to be a beast soon!! And imma post a dunking video soon, get at me son, 9'3 and then 9'6!

[Dhondy]

Help us out here, Boss. Don't take sides. Be the Daniel of this board. Show us the real winners, without regard to nationality. It's an impassioned appeal from your old friend.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[patriot]

But surely when you converse/discuss with someone it is not only your taste buds that count?? If the other person prefers bland food then whats the point of sprinkling spice. Anyway I dont mean to be Ms. Ettiquette here, just that loud posts, big caps, abuse etc are generally off-putting.

Theek hai dost, khyaal rakhoonga. But it is my personality. I have been the same for 27 years. Don't mean to brag, but I have even put my manager in tight corners in front of his manager in matters that I feel need to be put under a microscope. But it has not cost me my job. Never even threatened too. But I have been threatened to be banned here permanently many a times. For a MB, that is too harsh.:haha:

[Dhondy]

Waisey Doc ... do you squirm in agony when the great man beats up 20 somethings at their own game ... example the 2 back-to-back 100s followed by the Donshe in Feb :P ... Must be like a knife thru the heart :-D

Nope. You know better than that. I was very proud and very happy. Admittedly, there was a time when I used to be a "fan" and would be very disappointed at his failings. But I have moved on, not just from him but from cricket itself. My only interest now is fairness, particularly wrt to what goes on on this board.

[patriot]

I believe your chatto chaiya , will see me through

I am not so sure.

My only interest now is fairness, particularly wrt to what goes on on this board.

Contradictions.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Shehezaada]

Nope. You know better than that. I was very proud and very happy. Admittedly, there was a time when I used to be a "fan" and would be very disappointed at his failings. But I have moved on, not just from him but from cricket itself. My only interest now is fairness, particularly wrt to what goes on on this board.

how about playing some team sports while your at it? you literally have no concept of the word "team" and "strategy".

[Bradman99]

You can keep posting all the facts' date=' statistics, blah di blah that you want. [b']History will judge him as one of the greatest players of his era and THAT MY FRIEND IS WHAT WILL COUNT.

It is the same with Ponting though. If that post there was the one to start the thread it would make some think Ponting is better than Tendulkar. As like this thread does. Which is why you can only get an even argument when the pros and cons of BOTH players are put out there.

[graphic23]

Patriot' date=' it's hardly fair to direct all your ire at Boss. He is a gentleman and will do anything for you if you ask nicely. [b']What's your opinion of the various other "fans" who want you quartered and dismembered for being a renegade? (although you could go easy on the aggro, you know. It's rather off-putting).

I'm going to assume that you're pointing this towards people like me Dhondy. And I will answer this for myself. I consider myself a student of the game still. I've only been following the game very rigorously for about 3 years now (in that I've seen about 85-90% of all the games we've played ball-by-ball, and in general, followed world cricket too a fair deal). Starting from my entrance to the site in March 2008 till now, I've learned a great deal about cricket, about cricketers, and in other parts of the website, about Science, Math, Indian politics, and from the debates in the politics thread, about religion as well (which is not relevant here but would just like to put it out there). I dont consider myself an expert of anything plainly because I just haven't seen enough cricket to judge anyone. I do enjoy watching Sachin bat a fair bit, and he's been a favorite player of mine ever since I was introduced to cricket when I was very young. It is my opinion that most of the sports heroes and the teams you follow, you connect with them when you are young. I have been living in Chicago for about 8-8.5 years now, and I still dont feel too bad when the Bulls, Bears, Cubs, the Sox, or the Blackhawks lose - since the sports themselves are new to me, and for the first few years, I was kind of socially absent. Now, throughout this entire period I have been a fan of our cricket team, and Tendulkar. I will also admit that I have some jingoism running through my blood in that it hurts to see India losing, and Indian players criticized - and this is not exclusive to Sachin. Whenever folks bring up that Dravid had a tough time against Warne, or that Kumble had a pretty average record overseas until the early part of this decade, or in this case, Sachin had problems vs. McGrath and other bowlers. I cant do much about it - for me a huge part of following this sport is being slightly biased in my judgment of the players and the team that I follow. I can never become a robot who can watch the game objectively - I'm just not that distanced from cricket as you are, apparently. Even if I'm watching a completely random game on TV in a sport I might not otherwise bother to follow, I just pick a team and root for it. Because sports, again for me, is about entertainment - and not the T20 kind. Its about being able to cheer for the people whom you have built a connection with. Not that this means I cant accept that Tendulkar and other Indian players have their weaknesses and faults, but then again, so does everyone else on the planet. Yet, we seem to be focused more on going to the other end of the extreme and discount every achievement India and Indian players are associated with because we want to be different from the crowd. I remember a thread where you presented a few statistics to show that McGrath towers over Tendulkar in the few test matches they've played against each other, and it was truly illuminating - unlike the recent exercises where you've concluded that he's scared of fast bowlers and likes to wait at the other end of the crease. Now, having set this premise, I think its rather ridiculous that some folks will go out of their way to abuse and belittle the achievements of some cricketers plainly because that person has a lot of fans. And I realize that I'm on the opposite side of the Tendulkar Fatigue Syndrome as you are - because I'm possibly one of those "blind worshipers" who've made this board not so welcome for your objective mind. In the case of a few posters here (I dont need to mention names), they have an undeserved sense of superiority about their brains - which will not take more than a couple of searches on the ICF search engine to prove their plain hypocrisy, and for the lack of a more intelligent word, trolling. I dont bother anymore because 1) i respect my time enough that I wont spend it exchanging abuses - at least not anymore 2) its not going to go anywhere. I mean if you have a poster making an assertion based on the excerpt of a book (said excerpt is not more than 2 lines), without having read the book and trying to criticize a player, you realize that from this discussion, you are not going to learn. On the other hand, I've debated (and failed in attempts to win) with Salil, Outsider, Shehezaada, fineleg, p_k, and other people on the board a fair lot about things like Border vs. Dravid, Waugh vs. Dravid, Kumble vs. Other spinners of this generation, Laxman vs. other #5/6 batsmen and heck - I once was on the other side of the argument when it came to Tendulkar vs. Dhoni (with Shwetabh), and debated with Salil about the value that Fidel Edwards brings to the West Indies side (which, by the way, turns out to not be a lot). And I will emphatically tell you that I've learned more about statistics, cricket, and cricketers from those exchanges than I ever have trying to defend the players I like. Its one thing not being able to admit your player has weaknesses, but its another trying to defend him when you have people calling him a midget choker, an epitome of overratedness, and trying to pass off his expression in a picture as evidence of his selfishness. Add to this that these set of posters/poster constantly abuses people as being one-eyed. And then says that God has given only some posters the brains to think about cricket objectively? What makes you think that anyone with an iota of common sense wants to participate in a debate with a person like this? I am not sure why you added quotes around the word fans - if it was to speak in a condescending manner towards "us", its a little unfortunate. Now coming back to this debate about statistics in general, as someone who does study science and is probably going to for the rest of his life for a living, I think its even more unfortunate that you of all the people have termed this exercise science. Taking a few numbers (without paying heed to the context from which they come about (i.e. one batsman vs. one bowler seldom makes sense in cricket)), and also showing an incomplete set of data (because the other games where Sachin has faced McGrath, the b-y-b statistics are not available (or for other bowlers, really) ) and then belittling his achievements as a batsman and terming it science is something I'd expect from the aforementioned posters, not from you. I dont mind you presenting these statistics and argue that Sachin has not dominated the best bowlers as much as we think he has - its another to term it science - because that would say that this is the best way to decide whether a batsman has dominated his peers or not. I mean in this exercise, you have ignored spinners because you think pacemen are harder to face, along with the fact that you try to score off weaker bowlers because the rest of the batting lineup isn't very strong (I am speaking about the games prior to 2001). From my perspective, that comes out as hyperbole in reaction to the Tendulkar Fatigue Syndrome. Nonetheless, I felt I had to present my side of things. I wont bother responding to or participating in these debates any further because clearly, the idea is to discount someone's achievements because this someone is praised too much. I am afraid I dont know enough about cricket to participate in such a competition.

[Sooda]

Sh!tzer Gra go listen to some ARR...:headshake:

[Sooda]

Btw Dhondy one of the more lively debates (spreading across a few threads no less) on here atm has been regarding Bradman how great he really is and also 'old timers' in general and how they compare against the modern game. Makes for very good reading, some very strong and well informed pro Bradman arguments going on there.

[thevortex]

And therein lies my problem. Every player has his weaknesses and The Outsider is right to point them out, but unlike the other threads where a 100 posters rose to Sachin's defense, there is nobody to pick up the cudgels for Ponting or Lara- not a single person. Two of the greatest players to have ever played the game. Condemned without a trial, a jury or judge. Justice, ICF style.

May I point out Dhondy that I did interject in the Lara thread and announced my disagreement along with the pointlessness of it all? I guess the sentiment applies to this thread as well and any others opened on the same line. Redundancy.

[99.94]

I don't really see the big deal about Tendulkar.. Sehwag anyday for mine!