Bradman and some stuff

[pensionplan]

However' date=' the names of the stars of yesteryears like Bradman and the scary average of 99.94 has been so repeatedly drilled into our heads [/quote']It is not drilled into our heads but something that has been genuinely achieved in the field of play much like a Lara or a Tendulkar or Ponting of today did. So....

[ganeshran]

It is not drilled into our heads but something that has been genuinely achieved in the field of play much like a Lara or a Tendulkar or Ponting of today did. So....

Yes it is. Older players always come with a halo around them that people find difficult to challenge. I dont say Bradman didnt achieve that 99.94 average or wasnt an accomplished batsman. But his performances will always be played up and his stature taken to an unchallengable level simply by repeated references to his talent. To such an extent that we simply oppose any information that says Bradman is a mortal and might not be able to sustain such a world beating average in today's game. Its the same with leaders. Go to a padosi site and start a thread about a negative aspect about Jinnah, they will go ballistic and simply find it impossible to accept that their leader even had a single flaw.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[pensionplan]

if it is "Genuinely achieved" why have you been shying away from naming those bowling giants from the 30s and 40s that can compare to the modern day bowling giants.?

You mean they fudged his numbers as in when he scored a 50 they registered a 100 against his name? As for the rest of your 30s 40s stuff oh well I say you refer back to the earlier posts as to why DGB is way ahead of the game than Tendulkar for example is in his day.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[pensionplan]

Yes it is. Older players always come with a halo around them that people find difficult to challenge. I dont say Bradman didnt achieve that 99.94 average or wasnt an accomplished batsman. But his performances will always be played up and his stature taken to an unchallengable level simply by repeated references to his talent. To such an extent that we simply oppose any information that says Bradman is a mortal and might not be able to sustain such a world beating average in today's game.

Well keeping aside what he would have achieved today if he played which will mostly be subjective in nature let us look at what he accomplished when he played. In 325 odd FC innings he averaged a cool 95 plus when the next best failed to ever top 60 and mind you there were about 400 FC batsman who played during the time span as DGB. That kind of a difference between the first best and the next best has never been witnessed in the annals of team sports let alone cricket.

[pensionplan]

I repeat again : Who are the bowlers that are of the class of Steyn' date=' Ambrose, Donald, Ws, McGrath , Warne , MuMu that DGB faced ? ... can we have some names instead of hot air ... PLEASE ! Its a request.[/quote']I think when we analyzed the videos you requested me to 4-5 months back I clearly gave you my take on the bowlers that DGB faced were of good quality and also on accounts of transcripts I read on the matches from the time. It is my stated opinion. So attaching names to those faces will not make much of a difference here and meaningless comparisons across generations with bowlers like Donald, Ambrose etc. Based upon which when I see some other batsman from his time face the same set of bowlers the next best to DGB barely averaged above 58-60. How can one and mind you one alone could come close to the 100 barrier? And the socio-economic problems you dwell into often times could easily be turned around in favor of DGB and said when everyone else around him found it so tough how did a single individual find the mental fortitude to surpass everyone by that kind of a margin and be that consistent despite various prolonged breaks in action at times?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[pensionplan]

If they were of good quality why are you shying away from naming them and ranking them alongside the modern day greats. You obviously dont have any qualms proclaiming Bradman to be the greatest so can we do the same exercise for the bowlers instead of regurgitating the same old - same old nonsense of "No-one else did this and that" ?

Larwood, Bowes, Allen, Tate, Voce, Constantine, Bedser to name a few were good that Bradman faced plus Lindwall, Miller etc since he played a ton of FC games in Australia who would be fine in today's game if they had been part of the way the game evolved and perhaps be as good as any present day bowlers with available technology, scouting and training methods. Would any one be as good or better than McGrath or a Ambrose difficult to say but not totally inconceivable. In that context when you see there were other batsman too that faced the same bowlers during the Bradman time and what he accomplished of course he will be the one spoken about across generations. Why is that so difficult to comprehend? I do not think there is much to debate here excepting wonder if Bradman were to play today how good he would have been or else if the 50 average brigade in Tests from today starting with SRT to BCL to RP to RD to Kallis to VS to Sanga to Jaya to Samara what they would have done in the prevailing conditions back then. That would be totally subjective IMO.

Because what you achieve as a Batsman is direct function of what your opposition bowlers let you achieve ... if they don't have the goods you will naturally succeed more. The absolutely dire economic and political conditions in his times were responsible for keeping away the talent. Even otherwise you are talking about a grand total of 2 countries that were into cricket seriously and even in those countries it wasn't even the first choice sport.

See above. We have gone over this a few times.

[cricketlover]

Yes it is. Older players always come with a halo around them that people find difficult to challenge. I dont say Bradman didnt achieve that 99.94 average or wasnt an accomplished batsman. But his performances will always be played up and his stature taken to an unchallengable level simply by repeated references to his talent. To such an extent that we simply oppose any information that says Bradman is a mortal and might not be able to sustain such a world beating average in today's game. Its the same with leaders. Go to a padosi site and start a thread about a negative aspect about Jinnah, they will go ballistic and simply find it impossible to accept that their leader even had a single flaw.

Doesnt the same thing happen here with regards to Gandhi?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Tapioca]

Will reply if this is not one of your usual hit and run sorties. Lemme know.

It is a hit and run sortie. :winky:

[pensionplan]

Ahhh finally some names ... it took me many attempts but hey better late than never as they say !! Anyhow most of those bowlers that you mention bowled to him in only a handfull of matches. But since you are not sure they would match the skills of modern day greats why are you trying to peddle this theory of yours that DGB would have done well against these ? And those videos actually tell me that these bowlers are no way close to the lethal fast bowlers from the modern era. I know your response that would revolve around simply making a proclamation to the contrary but a damning factor is that hardly anybody picks these bowlers in their alltime world XI's. You will invariably find that it is the modern day greats that always make the cut.

Irrespective of any of these bowlers making an all-time world XI or not which again is a grueling exercise given the number of bowlers that played across generations Bradman faced very good bowling over his career from what I have seen(mostly video footage) and read through the years. While he dominated the rest during his time faded and paled in comparison so much so that there is not even one with a 80 average or thereabouts to consider that some sort of a norm during those times. Hardly the case. Anyone trying to explain that in cricketing terms that it was kind of a diluted feat will have an uphill battle since there is none simply because Bradman was a great great batsman. Simple as that.

What good is this context when we know that the quality that these bowlers offered is on Par with bowlers from minnow sides these days ? Again Iam one of those that likes to go by hard evidence instead of the embellished million column inches that are written eulogizing these players. It is very very odd that you sooo blatantly lie thru your teeth and tell me that you see absolutely no problem in what Ernie Toshack is bowling and consider him worthy of bowling avg of 21. That is just simply your blatant attempt at ego massaging to save your face.( Iam sorry but there is no other way to get that across. ) Which is why this discussion cannot be conducted unless the Bradman fanatics can bring themselves to discuss things with a honest mind. It is futile to discuss this topic when a left arm spinner is being sold as being on par with a modern day strike bowlers of the Flintoff, Javagal , Gul class. That makes absolutely no sense in any which way to me.

I do not know who the Bradman fanatics are you keep referring to here. But most of them would be long gone now in their graves rolling over at some of the things you are saying by the way of extrapolating things with interpretations that suit you based on some video evidence which does not even scratch the surface on explaining how could some one be that good to average 95 plus in 325 or so innings while the best across other generations like Hutton to Sobers to Gavaskar to Tendulkar in their generations facing the same attacks as their peers did not quite identify themselves vastly superior as Bradman did against his peers. There is no way you can explain that as I told you many a time here excepting bring up some videos evidence you got hold of. To put it in your words if one is hell bent on believing in what they want to regardless of others POV be it for messaging their ego or hero worship there is nothing much one could do.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[kirkutfan]

Boss Bhai- Its not enough to say that SRT of today's generation would have murdered Larwood of the prior generation. You would have to adjust for time differences. Would a Larwood growing up in today's era be an even better bowler today? Would SRT have been a lesser batsman if he was the product of a prior generation? Today, every high school kid knows what a bouncer is. Bodyline was the first time that type of bowling was tried on a consistent basis. How would have SRT dealt with something new? In today's day and age, I remember that our batsmen had a period of adjustment when Ajanta Mendis first came out with his carrom ball. In prior years, it took a while for batsmen to figure out how to bat when the Pakistanis started reverse swinging the ball. So, how would he have dealt with bodyline when it was being tried out for the first time and SRT batting helmet less? Also there would be no Gary Kirsten to give him throw downs all day as he pondered over strategies to deal with this. He would have to go work somewhere to feed his family. He would have to take years away from the game to deal with stuff like World War II and if he was an Indian- partition. Then, with those limitations- he would have had to go out and destroy Bedser and company, and average more than 99 to beat out Bradman. For Bradman, you would have to figure out whether he would have been a better bat in today's generation by having best access to information, the ability to prepare day and night with dedicated coaches, physios, nutritionists etc in tow. And, whether the improvements as a result of that would have been enough for him to face today's bowlers and average more than 56 odd against them to argue that he was better than SRT. Until we address those issues, the comparison is a non starter.

[cricketlover]

Boss Bhai- Its not enough to say that SRT of today's generation would have murdered Larwood of the prior generation. You would have to adjust for time differences. Would a Larwood growing up in today's era be an even better bowler today? Would SRT have been a lesser batsman if he was the product of a prior generation? Today, every high school kid knows what a bouncer is. Bodyline was the first time that type of bowling was tried on a consistent basis. How would have SRT dealt with something new? In today's day and age, I remember that our batsmen had a period of adjustment when Ajanta Mendis first came out with his carrom ball. In prior years, it took a while for batsmen to figure out how to bat when the Pakistanis started reverse swinging the ball. So, how would he have dealt with bodyline when it was being tried out for the first time and SRT batting helmet less? Also there would be no Gary Kirsten to give him throw downs all day as he pondered over strategies to deal with this. He would have to go work somewhere to feed his family. He would have to take years away from the game to deal with stuff like World War II and if he was an Indian- partition. Then, with those limitations- he would have had to go out and destroy Bedser and company, and average more than 99 to beat out Bradman. For Bradman, you would have to figure out whether he would have been a better bat in today's generation by having best access to information, the ability to prepare day and night with dedicated coaches, physios, nutritionists etc in tow. And, whether the improvements as a result of that would have been enough for him to face today's bowlers and average more than 56 odd against them to argue that he was better than SRT. Until we address those issues, the comparison is a non starter.

top post :two_thumbs_up: i always mantain that doesnt the fact that Bradman played on uncovered pitches, no helmets poor bats and little or no quality coaching mean that if he had been present in today's times he would have been brilliant and better.. And one could alos say that the batsmen of the 70's and 80's who averaged in the 50's are better than any of the batsmen today. They still had the same disadvantage of uncovered, green pitches and poor quality bats. For most of their careers, no helmets. Aand they had to face the best fast bowling of any era ever. Marshall, Holding, Imran, Ambrose... the list goes on and on.. But they still have figures comparable to modern batsmen like Tendulkar, Lara and PontiNG. By using BossBhai's logic I guess these batsmen are then better than both Tendulkar and Bradman One such player is Greg Chappel.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[cricketlover]

These are the usual excuses hurled by those supporting for Bradman and I have answered them in agonizing detail and that too not just once or twice. Most of the usual suspects quite simply ran away the moment we got hold of those rare videos that showed the absolute amateur nature of cricket back in those days and ofcourse those uncovered pitches that were actually covered. I cant be bothered to dig all those posts with the search engine disabled. heres a classic video of the usual suspects bowling ... see for yourselves the quality of the bowling and try telling me if you can call this sort of cricket as Test Match cricket http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=61612 BTW the Aussie team chose to bat despite being 300+ runs ahead and you can see that they are having 7 or 8 fielders in close catching positions and then sending down about 120 overs perr day ... I mean even school cricket is not played like that. You are more than welcome to keep pretending that this was high quality cricket but kindly excuse me.

Ok, then how is that Bradman's fault? and why was no other batsman in the era even close to him in terms of numbers. Surely if he wasnt that special then there would have been others with the same numbers too. and then what about players like Chappel and Gavaskar.. they did play high quality bowling(better than Tendulkar I might say) and have similar figures to tendukar. Di yiou say that Ponting, Lara and every other batsmen with 50 plus average is alos better than Bradman? eventhough i may not agree with you at this point but i atleast respect that you back up with something tangible. that is never the case with other indians who claim that tendulkar is better than bradman or any other batsmen

[cricketlover]

on a side note, why is the search engine disabled. new here