Cook can go past Tendulkar says Peitersen

[putrevus]

But the same argument applies both in favour and counter to both batsmen. Yes, Bradman didnt face nearly as many amazing bowlers as Tendy has, neither did he bat on that many different types of surfaces. But Tendy never had to bat into his late 30s/early 40s without a helmet and neither did he bat on uncovered pitches, plus Bradman faced bowlers when the front foot noball rule was not in effect, it was the backfoot noball. Can you imagine if a bowler like Harmison or Morkel or anyone approaching 6'5 could bowl at you with the backfoot plonked behind the line instead of the front ? Tendy's resume is easily better in terms of facing more challenging opposition. Bradman's is easly better for facing more challenging conditions ( uncovered pitches). So it evens out on that score IMO. Today the best batsmen average usually in the 50-55 zone when they are done their careers. Best batsmen of the last few eras ( Sobers, Viv, Lara, Tendy) end up averaging 57-60+ overall in their prime. Back then, it wasnt that much different either: almost all the batsmen who played in the pre-WWII era and were considered great( between WWI and WWII periods) averaged 55-60 at their peak or career rates. Its also not like a few were boosting their averages significantly by having some sort of 'pro in the era of amatuers' stuff happening- everyone else too batted in the 55-60ish category. IMO, bradman is to cricket as babe ruth is to baseball: a statistical freak of such proportions that it doesnt matter what Tendy does or anyone else does, unless he too ends up averaging 20-50% better than the next-best guy of his era, he wont be considered better than braddles by history. Make all arguments you like, that is how sporting history reverberates.

Excellent post. Like Ruth Bradman was a freak, some baseball experts tried in vain to discredit Ruth on quality of pitchers he faced. But 714 for Babe which was almost ten times more than his peers you got to give him credit , nothing else matters anymore. 99.96 is such a freak number it eliminates every competition.Quality of bowlers or pitches does not matter any more.

[Muloghonto]

I am not talking about the effect of nonexistence of front foot no ball' date=' but I am contesting the way bowlers used to bowl. You are emphasizing it a bit too much. [b']Firstly, I do not think we had such menacing fast bowlers at that time. Bowling was not the way it developed later on. We hear about one body line series where bowlers used bouncers towards body as a weapon but in consequent years since 60s-70s bouncer became an important weapon of fast bowlers repertoire and they started using it more regularly they way they did it in bodyline series. Against the bowlers likes of Holding, Garner, Roberts, Ambrose, Croft, Sylvester Clark, every series would look like bodyline series.

As usual, you spout a whole bunch of nonsense. 1. We have no reason to think that there wasnt a single 90mph bowler in the 20s or the 30s. As i said, there has been maybe a single year or two- coinciding with the retirement/rise of pacers since the late 70s where the world had no 90+mph bowler in the international rank. I have no reason to believe they didnt exist for a 20 year period in an undocumented period of history where bowlers bowled the same way (over-arm) when they have never gone more than a year or two without existing in 30+ years of documented history.Given that you have not watched a single bowler from the 20s/30s for more than 5 minutes, you are not in position to comment on the differing bowling styles without citing rerefernces. 2. Bodyline was not about danger, it was also about the cheapness of it. Leg theory is still banned and has always been banned in cricket since the bodyline. The entire point of bodyline was leg theory: pack the legside behind the bat with fielders, bowl 99% of the ball shortpitched on legstump and wait for a pull/hook that isnt perfectly placed & timed or a nick. As such, there never has been a series since where 90% of the balls bowled in the match by pace bowlers were short pitched, at the body, with 7 fielders behind and square of the batsman. As for Holding, Garner,marshall, etc. it doesnt matter if they bowl short pitched at you all day. Once you know its their predominant delivery, you can deal with it. But not when there are SEVEN FIELDERS BEHIND THE BAT ON THE LEG SIDE. 3. the front foot no-ball rule not existing makes every single 85mph bowler into a 90+mph bowler, since i too can be faster than waqar younis if i had to bowl from halfway down the pitch.

[Sachin=GOD]

As usual, you spout a whole bunch of nonsense.

the irony

[rkt.india]

the irony

:giggle:

[FischerTal]

the irony

ulta chor kotwal ko datein

[Bumper]

But the same argument applies both in favour and counter to both batsmen. Yes, Bradman didnt face nearly as many amazing bowlers as Tendy has, neither did he bat on that many different types of surfaces. But Tendy never had to bat into his late 30s/early 40s without a helmet and neither did he bat on uncovered pitches, plus Bradman faced bowlers when the front foot noball rule was not in effect, it was the backfoot noball. Can you imagine if a bowler like Harmison or Morkel or anyone approaching 6'5 could bowl at you with the backfoot plonked behind the line instead of the front ? Tendy's resume is easily better in terms of facing more challenging opposition. Bradman's is easly better for facing more challenging conditions ( uncovered pitches). So it evens out on that score IMO. Today the best batsmen average usually in the 50-55 zone when they are done their careers. Best batsmen of the last few eras ( Sobers, Viv, Lara, Tendy) end up averaging 57-60+ overall in their prime. Back then, it wasnt that much different either: almost all the batsmen who played in the pre-WWII era and were considered great( between WWI and WWII periods) averaged 55-60 at their peak or career rates. Its also not like a few were boosting their averages significantly by having some sort of 'pro in the era of amatuers' stuff happening- everyone else too batted in the 55-60ish category. IMO, bradman is to cricket as babe ruth is to baseball: a statistical freak of such proportions that it doesnt matter what Tendy does or anyone else does, unless he too ends up averaging 20-50% better than the next-best guy of his era, he wont be considered better than braddles by history. Make all arguments you like, that is how sporting history reverberates.

Muloghonto, am sorry pretty much all footage of cricket of the yore that i have seen suggests to me that it was a different sport back then. Hardly intense and competitive compared to the modern day version. I refuse to accept some batsman as the greatest ever without being able to see even one footage of a complete innings played by that batsman. At the most we can conclude that Bradman was the greatest of his era, that's all. Anything beyond that cannot be substantiated with data. Bradman played close to 50 tests and Bodyline which is oft quoted as the most intense cricket Bradman played is an insignificant part of his career (in that series, Bradman's avg dropped by 50%) - in terms of percentage of tests played. Anyways, most of what needs to be said on this topic has been already said many times before spanning different threads. This is a polarizing topic and i don't think we'll go anywhere debating it.

[vvvslaxman]

Cookie :phehehe: KP has put a curse on him so that he can overtake Cook.

[kubrickian]

Muloghonto' date=' am sorry pretty much all footage of cricket of the yore that i have seen suggests to me that it was a different sport back then. [b']Hardly intense and competitive compared to the modern day version. I refuse to accept some batsman as the greatest ever without being able to see even one footage of a complete innings played by that batsman. At the most we can conclude that Bradman was the greatest of his era, that's all. Anything beyond that cannot be substantiated with data. Bradman played close to 50 tests and Bodyline which is oft quoted as the most intense cricket Bradman played is an insignificant part of his career (in that series, Bradman's avg dropped by 50%) - in terms of percentage of tests played. Anyways, most of what needs to be said on this topic has been already said many times before spanning different threads. This is a polarizing topic and i don't think we'll go anywhere debating it.

Cool story bro. :hatsoff:

[rkt.india]

Cool story bro. :hatsoff:

Cricket was very amateur back then and that cannot be denied.

[skindia]

Cook will score more than 500 runs in next 3 tests

[The Outsider]

LOL! The same BS again and again. If cricket was so crappy back then, how come Sobers was able to beat the daylights out of Lillee? 4SzfWtTZOtA

[Bumper]

Does anyone see Bradman on that Sobers clip ? Tryin to sell cricket in the early 70s as a representative sample of the 40s, LOL!, when you really need to be looking at something like this: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/cricket-highlights I dont see any Dennis the menace in the above footage :-)

[The Outsider]

Does anyone see Bradman on that Sobers clip ? Tryin to sell cricket in the early 70s as a representative sample of the 40s, LOL!, when you really need to be looking at something like this: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/cricket-highlights I dont see any Dennis the menace in the above footage :-)

When did Sobers make his debut and when did Bradman retire?

[The Outsider]

Yes I think its a damn tough attempt and a fruitless one as well one would think whos to stay they are not strictly equals but if u want to play around well - i think the max one can really do is separate the big4 out - bradman sobers richards and tendulkar. The last 3 purely because u put them on the cricket field and u know in an instant that they belong and can do practically anything on it - bat bowl and field and bradmans numbers r so off the charts. I hate to point flaws but one thing that goes against bradman is the apparent lack of communication diffusion back when he played. I draw a comparison here again I hate to do such stuff but imagine a mendis back then with his mystery right for all u know he would never be found out - so it is possible that bradmans numbers could be an artifact of such a phenomenon. Again the numbers are so mindboggling one has to resort to such nonsense really :).

That's not true. Mendis like bowlers, Iverson and Gleeson were ineffective after initial success like Mendis.

[Number]

He already has in terms of match winning performances.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[maniac]

Cricket was played by women in France and these women played with damaged "balls and bats" in tougher conditions....surely someone might have had better averages than bradman :phehehe:

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Sachin=GOD]

No.of matches where Bradman faced these bowlers ( which is what Ethos was asking ) = ZERO

:hysterical:

[bulbul]

Time to change thread title :winky: