Ashraful can walk into the Indian lineup

[MundaPakistani]

No, you have not stated why a matchwinning knock is in the equation to evaluate a batsman- a batsman does NOT go out to bat knowing it will be in a losing/drawing or wining cause- so by causality, your criteria is irrelevant. For two, Yousuf and Anwar were never great. For three, i have explained to you what you are measuring is the relative worth of a batsman to his team- NOT how good he/she is. I bring in the grandma example to demonstrate that having a better average in wins have NOTHING to do with how good a batsman you are - it has everything to do with how much your team relies on you. You could be a great batsman in a great team and your team relies on you far less than a decent batsman on a poor team. Your averages in matches won does not address this and as such, is irrelevant.

1- If you outperform your fellow batsmen in games won then that automatically means that you are also doing better than the opposition batsmen how ever say if you have an average of 50 in defeats then it means that even though you were good enough to score 50 the batsmen from the opposition were able to do better than you so at the end of the day they won the competition. So it becomes obvious that a 50 odd in wins is far more useful than a 50 odd in defeats. 2- How was Saeed Anwar not a great batsman? most peoplr consider him as the finest opener of his generation. Yousuf too is a very fine batsman and he certainly has been playing like a 'great' for the last 4 or 5 years.

[Donny]

In the 13 innings he has played against these two bowlers (A+W on 12 occasions' date=' and 1 innings v W alone), he averages 61.7.[/quote'] Almost meaningless. Unless stats like these are broken down to indicate how much a certain batsman faced certain bowlers, in those matches, those sorts of numbers are not conclusive at all. Example: An opening bowler bowls a 7 over spell. 14 overs gone. Inzi (whoever) comes to the crease in the 15th over and scores heavily but is out in over 43. Back comes that same opening bowler to bowl his last 3. Inzi didn't face him once.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[CC1981]

1- If you outperform your fellow batsmen in games won then that automatically means that you are also doing better than the opposition batsmen how ever say if you have an average of 50 in defeats then it means that even though you were good enough to score 50 the batsmen from the opposition were able to do better than you so at the end of the day they won the competition. So it becomes obvious that a 50 odd in wins is far more useful than a 50 odd in defeats.

yes yes yes..on a given day, your 50 won the match. Mine didnt. Big deal coz like i said, if the team is RELIANT on your performance, your sucess & failures are obviously gonna be magnified in wins and losses. The biggest flaw to your reasoning is easily demonstrated by some simple examples: Viv Richards averaged 52 in matches won...but his team won 63 matches! Chanderpaul averages 54 in matches won...but his team has won only 24 matches! Now do you really think that these stats have any relevance to how GOOD viv and Shiv were ? NO! All it shows is that Shiv's team depends more on him than Viv's did on him. Which is infact true-WI had Richardson,Greenidge,Haynes, kalli,Lloyd etc- all superb bats & super bowlers. Even if Viv scored a zero, WI were favourites to win...if Chanders scores a zero, you can almost say that WI isnt gonna win, period! All your argument leads to how important a batsman is to his team. NOT how good he is in empiric sense. And i dont wanna repeat myself because you just cannot accept this basic fact. And no, Saeed was not a great batsman in tests- he was worldclass, very good etc, but great ? Sorry, but no!

[MundaPakistani]

yes yes yes..on a given day, your 50 won the match. Mine didnt. Big deal coz like i said, if the team is RELIANT on your performance, your sucess & failures are obviously gonna be magnified in wins and losses. The biggest flaw to your reasoning is easily demonstrated by some simple examples: Viv Richards averaged 52 in matches won...but his team won 63 matches! Chanderpaul averages 54 in matches won...but his team has won only 24 matches! Now do you really think that these stats have any relevance to how GOOD viv and Shiv were ? NO! All it shows is that Shiv's team depends more on him than Viv's did on him. Which is infact true-WI had Richardson,Greenidge,Haynes, kalli,Lloyd etc- all superb bats & super bowlers. Even if Viv scored a zero, WI were favourites to win...if Chanders scores a zero, you can almost say that WI isnt gonna win, period! All your argument leads to how important a batsman is to his team. NOT how good he is in empiric sense. And i dont wanna repeat myself because you just cannot accept this basic fact. And no, Saeed was not a great batsman in tests- he was worldclass, very good etc, but great ? Sorry, but no!

How about the likes of Steve Waugh(another player known as a match winner) now surely no one can say that the played in average teams because his team won 88 test matches and in those wins S Waugh averaged 70...so was he the only good/great batsman in the team? NO! he was just a match winning batsman. man we aren't done with one debate and you have already started another:giggle:..why do you say that Anwar wasn't a great batsman? and if Anwar isn't great then would you agree that other than Sunny Gavaskar there hasn't been a great opener in the last 50 years?

[CC1981]

How about the likes of Steve Waugh(another player known as a match winner) now surely no one can say that the played in average teams because his team won 88 test matches and in those wins S Waugh averaged 70...so was he the only good/great batsman in the team? NO! he was just a match winning batsman.

If you think Steve Waugh was more matchwining than Viv Richards, i question your entire cricketing knowledge, really. My point is, what you are measuring is how important a batsman is to the team, not how good a batsman is. You have not demonstrated how my point is wrong. I have demonstrated to you using many examples to illustrate how your 'average in wins' is nothing more than measuring how much that preson's successes & failures reflects in the team performance. Not how good that person is. Obviously if i am a good bat & my team has weak batting ( and even if Anwar was good, the Pakistani batting lineup has been weak & highly inconsistent since the mid 80s) with excellent bowling, if i put runs on the board, the team will win & if i fail, team will fail far more often. It has nothing to say about how OFTEN i put runs on board or in what conditions & against whom, etc etc- which are the only things that matter,really.

and if Anwar isn't great then would you agree that other than Sunny Gavaskar there hasn't been a great opener in the last 50 years?

Err..YES! Though i'd pick Gooch for the last 7-8 yrs of his career and say he was a great opener too in that period.

[MundaPakistani]

If you think Steve Waugh was more matchwining than Viv Richards, i question your entire cricketing knowledge, really. My point is, what you are measuring is how important a batsman is to the team, not how good a batsman is. You have not demonstrated how my point is wrong. I have demonstrated to you using many examples to illustrate how your 'average in wins' is nothing more than measuring how much that preson's successes & failures reflects in the team performance. Not how good that person is. Obviously if i am a good bat & my team has weak batting ( and even if Anwar was good, the Pakistani batting lineup has been weak & highly inconsistent since the mid 80s) with excellent bowling, if i put runs on the board, the team will win & if i fail, team will fail far more often. It has nothing to say about how OFTEN i put runs on board or in what conditions & against whom, etc etc- which are the only things that matter,really.

1- i have. I gave you the example of the last IND PAK series where the 50s scored by the PAK openers were so much more important and better innings than the 50s scored by Malik in the 1st 2 test matches and how Younis Khan's 80 odd was much better than his tons in the 1st 2 games. Then there is the part about doing better than the competitors and how it's quite obvious that by having a high average in defeats you are not defeating your opponents. The point is further emphasised by the fact that S Waugh had the likes of Boon, Border, Jones and later M Waugh, Slater, Taylor, Ponting, Gili etc yet was able to maintain an average of 70 in wins. 2- No..not true even if you fail the team still has a fair chance of doing well because the bowlers are capable enough of 'bailing' you out.

Err..YES! Though i'd pick Gooch for the last 7-8 yrs of his career and say he was a great opener too in that period.

Why do you want to do that? Looking at the entire career can you come up with a better opener than Anwar in the last 40-50 years?(excluding Sunny)

[CC1981]

I gave you the example of the last IND PAK series where the 50s scored by the PAK openers were so much more important and better innings than the 50s scored by Malik in the 1st 2 test matches and how Younis Khan's 80 odd was much better than his tons in the 1st 2 games

Yes and it goes towards the point of ' Younis's knock being more valuable to the team in that match' - nothing to do with who's better and who isnt. again, a factor of how important you are to the team,not how good you are.

hen there is the part about doing better than the competitors and how it's quite obvious that by having a high average in defeats you are not defeating your opponents.

Irrelevant because it is a team sport and your performance is not directly proportional to the match outcome every single time. Plus when you go out to bat, you don't know the outcome- you may have an easy time , score 60 & win or you might face down the best of the best bowlers on a terror pitch, score 90 and lose. Noway is the latter knock indicative of a lesser batsman.

2- No..not true even if you fail the team still has a fair chance of doing well because the bowlers are capable enough of 'bailing' you out.

That is true if you hail from a strong lineup like West Indies of Australia- you gotto be Sh!tting me if you think Pakistan had a good batting lineup in the 90s...they had 1 near-great and 2 good batsmen at any given time, rest were useless. This is why Viv's average in wins is nothing extraordinary- his batting lineup didnt need him to deliver as often...with pakistan, in the 90s, if Inzy failed, Pakistan's batting was bolloxed far more often than not.

Why do you want to do that? Looking at the entire career can you come up with a better opener than Anwar in the last 40-50 years?(excluding Sunny)

Boycott, Haynes, Gooch, Taylor, Langer, Sehwag, Hutton, Hunte, Lawry,Simpson,..... Why do i do what ? pick last 7-8 yrs of Gooch's career ? well because he most defnitely batted as a great in that period- at a level of consistency & against quality of attacks as a great batsman would. i have no problems rating a player over another if one comprehensively outshines the other for many many years on the trot. Gooch graduated to the 'great' club late- but i think he belongs there.

[MundaPakistani]

Yes and it goes towards the point of ' Younis's knock being more valuable to the team in that match' - nothing to do with who's better and who isnt. again' date=' a factor of how important you are to the team,not how good you are. [/quote'] So you are telling me that you would award the same number of points to an innings of 50 odd on a lifeless pitch that produces a high scoring draw vs an innings of 50 odd that produced a result in 4 days.

Irrelevant because it is a team sport and your performance is not directly proportional to the match outcome every single time. Plus when you go out to bat, you don't know the outcome- you may have an easy time , score 60 & win or you might face down the best of the best bowlers on a terror pitch, score 90 and lose. Noway is the latter knock indicative of a lesser batsman.

The performance of the pitch and the batsman is judged after both teams have had a go...Kamran Akmal's 113 was an epic because not only did he rescue PAK from 39/6 but also for the fact that no other batsman in either team was able to score more than 45 in the 1st dig.

That is true if you hail from a strong lineup like West Indies of Australia- you gotto be Sh!tting me if you think Pakistan had a good batting lineup in the 90s...they had 1 near-great and 2 good batsmen at any given time, rest were useless. This is why Viv's average in wins is nothing extraordinary- his batting lineup didnt need him to deliver as often...with pakistan, in the 90s, if Inzy failed, Pakistan's batting was bolloxed far more often than not.

I don't quite understand where you are going with this because even when Inzi failed PAK still had the bowlers to win them test matches.

Boycott, Haynes, Gooch, Taylor, Langer, Sehwag, Hutton, Hunte, Lawry,Simpson,..... Why do i do what ? pick last 7-8 yrs of Gooch's career ? well because he most defnitely batted as a great in that period- at a level of consistency & against quality of attacks as a great batsman would. i have no problems rating a player over another if one comprehensively outshines the other for many many years on the trot. Gooch graduated to the 'great' club late- but i think he belongs there.

umm so you are telling me that all of them were better than Saeed?? even Warne himself said that S Anwar was the greatest opener that he ever played with or against. Hutton is the only one that stands out but he was outside the 40-50 year period.

[CC1981]

So you are telling me that you would award the same number of points to an innings of 50 odd on a lifeless pitch that produces a high scoring draw vs an innings of 50 odd that produced a result in 4 days.

What i am saying is that the match result has zero bearing in me rating a performance of a batsman because this is a team sport and your method is mindless number-crunchig without any meaning- it penalizes batsmen who play heroic hands in a loss in favour of batsmen who score 60-70 while waltzing to an innings victory.

The performance of the pitch and the batsman is judged after both teams have had a go...Kamran Akmal's 113 was an epic because not only did he rescue PAK from 39/6 but also for the fact that no other batsman in either team was able to score more than 45 in the 1st dig.

False...pitch conditions change as match progresses- this isnt being played on a concrete patch that remains constant throughout the match- sometimes you have a pitch where batting on the first two days are sheer hell, sometimes it starts as a flat pitch that crumbles horribly to turn into a spinner's delight. I didnt have to wait for the match's end to realize that Kamran's innings was a real beauty.

I don't quite understand where you are going with this because even when Inzi failed PAK still had the bowlers to win them test matches.

Err no...bowling cannot win matches if batting doesnt put some runs on the board. Since PAK is/was a weak batting team, Inzy's batting often made the difference by giving bowlers some run to bowl at. again, nothing more than 'if inzy fails, so does pakistan' condition- nothing to do with how good Inzy is because that is solely a function of how much he succeeds/fails and against whom in what conditions. You have not shown how my logic with 10 grandmas and Razzaq is flawed or how scoring a 150 in a victory and then ten zeroes in a loss is a 'better' outcome than scoring 50 in a victory and 25 in every other innings in a losing cause.

umm so you are telling me that all of them were better than Saeed??

Err..most definite YES!

even Warne himself said that S Anwar was the greatest opener that he ever played with or against.

And prasanna left out Dravid from an alltime XI for someone half as good..whats your point ?Opinions are dime a dozen,really.And a spinner praising an opener means very little to me. Very very little.

Hutton is the only one that stands out but he was outside the 40-50 year period.

Every single name in there, particularly Gooch,Boycott, Langer,Simpson & Haynes were most categorically better than Saeed. Saeed was a pretty but loose opener.

[MundaPakistani]

What i am saying is that the match result has zero bearing in me rating a performance of a batsman because this is a team sport and your method is mindless number-crunchig without any meaning- it penalizes batsmen who play heroic hands in a loss in favour of batsmen who score 60-70 while waltzing to an innings victory.

Yes your method is S Malik's 57 at Lahore vs iND(High scoring draw)= S Butt's 53 at Karachi( win in 4 days). Inzamam's 77 vs ENG at Multan(22 runs win)< Inzamam's 100 at Faisalabad(Draw) I just can't accept that. In the last 5 to 6 years how many great innings do you remember in wins and compre that to how many great innings do you remember in defeats or Draws.

False...pitch conditions change as match progresses- this isnt being played on a concrete patch that remains constant throughout the match- sometimes you have a pitch where batting on the first two days are sheer hell, sometimes it starts as a flat pitch that crumbles horribly to turn into a spinner's delight. I didnt have to wait for the match's end to realize that Kamran's innings was a real beauty.

Agree but the change is gradual... the wicket that India batted had become easier but it was still far from an ideal batting pitch.

Err no...bowling cannot win matches if batting doesnt put some runs on the board. Since PAK is/was a weak batting team, Inzy's batting often made the difference by giving bowlers some run to bowl at. again, nothing more than 'if inzy fails, so does pakistan' condition- nothing to do with how good Inzy is because that is solely a function of how much he succeeds/fails and against whom in what conditions. You have not shown how my logic with 10 grandmas and Razzaq is flawed or how scoring a 150 in a victory and then ten zeroes in a loss is a 'better' outcome than scoring 50 in a victory and 25 in every other innings in a losing cause.

Nope..not true! There were numerous games where Inzi failed yet the bowlers won PAK the game.

Err..most definite YES!

Have to agree to disagree on this one e.g Taylor IMO wasn't even the best opener in his team(Slater was), Boycott never dominated a bowling attack, Langer was gritty player but could never dominate a bowling attack like Saeed could so yeah too many things that i disagree with to have a debate.

And prasanna left out Dravid from an alltime XI for someone half as good..whats your point ?Opinions are dime a dozen,really.And a spinner praising an opener means very little to me. Very very little.

opinion of the highest wicket taker in test cricketer means more than mine or yours ( off course we can still disagree with him..) Secondly great opening batsmen don't just have great players of fast bowling they also need to be able to handle the spinners well which Saeed definately did.

[CC1981]

Boycott never dominated a bowling attack, Langer was gritty player but could never dominate a bowling attack like Saeed could so yeah too many things that i disagree with to have a debate.

I don't care about domination- i care about performance and how good their batting/bowling looks. Boycott was a far far better opener than Anwar was even at his very best. And i stand by that one.

Nope..not true! There were numerous games where Inzi failed yet the bowlers won PAK the game.

I am talking about the general trend and in most cases, not each and every one. Cricket isnt exactly tightly bound as law of gravity..

Secondly great opening batsmen don't just have great players of fast bowling they also need to be able to handle the spinners well which Saeed definately did.

True, but their ability against pace is far more important, simply because an opener great against spin but sh!tty against pace will rarely survive long enough to face spin ! PS: I hope it is clear to you now that 'average in match won/lost/draw' is suited to determine who is more/less valuable to their team, not how good a player they are in empiric reality. All my examples with grannies and Razzaq and its type demonstrate that- which you have not directly challenged or shown how it is about razzaq's empiric batsmanship and not about how much the Abdul-grannies team relies on Abdul.

[Rahul]

LOL @ Abdul-grannies. bahut chars pee riya aaj kal, Joy? Gafoorbhai ke adde se to nahin liya??

[jf1gp_1]

Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 4s 6s Ct St Tests 44 85 4 1924 158* 23.75 4169 46.15 4 7 234 20 15 0 now that he has proved he is a match winner lets bring him in to replace ganguly

[Dirty_South]

:haha:

[punjabi_khota]

Bhajji has been a better over last year I think. hahaha IN TEST MATCHES Last 1 year: Bhajji Batting average: 18 Ashraful Batting average: 10.90 (NO TYPO) :yay::yay::yay::omg::omg::omg::finger::finger::finger::hatsoff::hatsoff::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::cantstop::cantstop:

[TaNk]

i think harbajan is better batsman then ashraful

[graphic23]

Bhajji has been a better over last year I think. hahaha IN TEST MATCHES Last 1 year: Bhajji Batting average: 18 Ashraful Batting average: 10.90 (NO TYPO) :yay::yay::yay::omg::omg::omg::finger::finger::finger::hatsoff::hatsoff::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::cantstop::cantstop:

I think this post deserves this spoiler.

BaiCXO5K--Y

[Gambit]

OMG! Who bumped this?!

i think harbajan is better batsman then ashraful

Forget Ashraful, these days Bhajji is better than Dravid. :D

[Rajiv]

Ashraful can walk into the Indian lineup - and walk right out