Ian Botham or Imran Khan in peak period?

[vamos_rafa]

And kapil moved the ball more. Pollock was a bit better but nit by a whole lot. This is evident in the sharp drop in his numbers once donald retired and he became lone striker...just like kapil. Err no. pollock did not have all the shots in the book and he was not a destructive batsman, which is mandatory for a #7 facing 5 or 6 overs at average. Their odi bowling is quite comparable. Pollock is nowhere close to kapil the baysman in any format. Aggressive batsmen do throw it away more. Tendulkar threw away a lot more starts than chanderpaul. But pollock, like chanderpaul, was not in the same league as kapil on masterful innings against the best. Kapil was easily a beyter fielder than pollock or lance. Lance's batting avg is more but on the back of two amazing seasons, he lacked consistency. And I already explained why kapil is a better 3rd seamer than lance. Lance did not have the control and accuracy to b a third seamer. I already explained dhoni and symonds are not #7 bats. Not in contention. what is ideal for a #7 is an accurate bowler and destructive batsman. Nobody satisfies the criteria better than kapil. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

I have not seen Kapil play but is it actually true that Pollock the bowler was better than Kapil Dev? If you could shed some more light on it then it would be great. What makes you say so?

[Muloghonto]

I have not seen Kapil play but is it actually true that Pollock the bowler was better than Kapil Dev? If you could shed some more light on it then it would be great. What makes you say so?

Its hard to pick between the two IMO because they are similar bowlers but operating in vastly different conditions and support level. Pollock indisputably had more support: coming in at the height of Donald and honing his craft without undue pressure: its a good gig when you get to stick to your strengths ( line and length) and not be pushed out of comfort zone because you pick up wickets anyways as batsmen get frustrated at you while seeing off a much superior bowler (Donald) at the other end. At the same time, I'd say Pollock was slightly better. He got the ball to move more off the pitch (Kapil certainly moved the ball more. He swung it a bit and then got healthy nip off the pitch. Whereas Pollock rarely swung the ball but got a more deviation from the pitch). Over time, movement of the pitch is more consistent to produce and Kapil's bad days were flatter than Pollock's bad days. At their peaks, they both were roughly the same pace but Kapil settled into being a distinct medium pacer by the mid 80s while Pollock was fast medium till the last couple of years. They were both very accurate, Pollock perhaps a tad bit more but Pollock had more bounce than Kapil, which is where the difference is, in Pollocks favor IMO. Kapil though, had jawdropping stamina. He could literally bowl all day at 80-82mph with very little compromise to his line and length. Not many can say that. Ironically though, despite Pollock troubling batsmen more with his bounce, i think Kapil's bouncer was more effective and menacing.

[vamos_rafa]

Its hard to pick between the two IMO because they are similar bowlers but operating in vastly different conditions and support level. Pollock indisputably had more support: coming in at the height of Donald and honing his craft without undue pressure: its a good gig when you get to stick to your strengths ( line and length) and not be pushed out of comfort zone because you pick up wickets anyways as batsmen get frustrated at you while seeing off a much superior bowler (Donald) at the other end. At the same time, I'd say Pollock was slightly better. He got the ball to move more off the pitch (Kapil certainly moved the ball more. He swung it a bit and then got healthy nip off the pitch. Whereas Pollock rarely swung the ball but got a more deviation from the pitch). Over time, movement of the pitch is more consistent to produce and Kapil's bad days were flatter than Pollock's bad days. At their peaks, they both were roughly the same pace but Kapil settled into being a distinct medium pacer by the mid 80s while Pollock was fast medium till the last couple of years. They were both very accurate, Pollock perhaps a tad bit more but Pollock had more bounce than Kapil, which is where the difference is, in Pollocks favor IMO. Kapil though, had jawdropping stamina. He could literally bowl all day at 80-82mph with very little compromise to his line and length. Not many can say that. Ironically though, despite Pollock troubling batsmen more with his bounce, i think Kapil's bouncer was more effective and menacing.

That's quite an assessment there! Thanks. I have seen a lot of Pollock and always felt that he was deadly accurate. He was in the McGrath mode isn't it? And you are right, it's the seam movement which troubles the batsman more than swing. I think Pollock has troubled all the top batsman including Sachin and Lara which is an attribute to his bowling style. Having said that, Pollock, as a bowler, was never in the top 3 of his generation isn't it? You had Wasim, Ambrose, Donald and all those bowlers. So, yes, having Donald in the backdrop also helped him a lot.

[undisputed chap]

pollock was head & shoulders above kapil with the ball. Battingwise not much difference

[rtmohanlal]

pollock was head & shoulders above kapil with the ball. Battingwise not much difference

I have always thought that we can't look at mere over all stats, be it batsman or bowler and conclude the performance of the player.Based on this I have always thought that Shaun Pollock's record were a bit over rated because of the towering presence of Allan Donald at other end.Out of sheer curiosity i went into the details in cricinfo. what i could gather were the following details . When Donald was there he averaged 20.72 in 63 of the total 108 matches he played. but with out Donald he could avg: only 27.02 in 45 remaining lesser no: of matches.these surprised me very much to say the least.then going by this data had he played only 45 with Donald and 63 with out Donald his record would have been even worser than 27.02.yes ,we can claim that age was catching up with him and hence this affected a bit.but even then there were some good bowlers like Ntini, Nel, Haywad and 'Dale Steyn in his first couple of years' etc to support him. now what if he didn't play with Donald at all? in the worst case what if he had average bowlers only in his career thru out to support him? i fear to think of it. w.r.t Kapil he didn't have adequate support thru out his career.he played 27 tests more than Pollock and over all maintained 29.65 avg:.so based on these we can say that there was not much difference between the 2 as bowlers. batting wise it is the exact opposite. you must not go by mere averages.Pollock's bat avg: is hugely boosted by notouts. he didn't have that much impact inns like Kapil had.

[Marut]

I have always thought that we can't look at mere over all stats, be it batsman or bowler and conclude the performance of the player.Based on this I have always thought that Shaun Pollock's record were a bit over rated because of the towering presence of Allan Donald at other end.Out of sheer curiosity i went into the details in cricinfo. what i could gather were the following details .

Stats aren't every thing, you can allow for 10-15% differences to account for various factors, but it is difficult to equate two bowlers with averages 30 and 23, a difference of nearly 30% in averages.

When Donald was there he averaged 20.72 in 63 of the total 108 matches he played. but with out Donald he could avg: only 27.02 in 45 remaining lesser no: of matches.these surprised me very much to say the least.then going by this data had he played only 45 with Donald and 63 with out Donald his record would have been even worser than 27.02.yes ,we can claim that age was catching up with him and hence this affected a bit.but even then there were some good bowlers like Ntini, Nel, Haywad and 'Dale Steyn in his first couple of years' etc to support him. now what if he didn't play with Donald at all? in the worst case what if he had average bowlers only in his career thru out to support him? i fear to think of it.

Where did you get these stats? Pollock average 23.01 off 108 Pollock average with Donald - 21.65 in 47 Pollock average without Donald - 24.31 off 61

w.r.t Kapil he didn't have adequate support thru out his career.he played 27 tests more than Pollock and over all maintained 29.65 avg:.so based on these we can say that there was not much difference between the 2 as bowlers.

Kapil did not perform well in many countries like England, NZ and Pakistan, whereas Pollock was exceptional against every one except Australlia, that is why his career averages are very impressive. Kapil's lows were really very ordinary, and some times he went wicketless after conceding a lot of runs, Pollock rarely had these days.

[rtmohanlal]

Stats aren't every thing, you can allow for 10-15% differences to account for various factors, but it is difficult to equate two bowlers with averages 30 and 23, a difference of nearly 30% in averages. Where did you get these stats? Pollock average 23.01 off 108 Pollock average with Donald - 21.65 in 47 Pollock average without Donald - 24.31 off 61 Kapil did not perform well in many countries like England, NZ and Pakistan, whereas Pollock was exceptional against every one except Australlia, that is why his career averages are very impressive. Kapil's lows were really very ordinary, and some times he went wicketless after conceding a lot of runs, Pollock rarely had these days.

see.... i am not an expert in filtering out stats.yet what i did for Pollock was i gave Feb 22 2002(the day after Donald's last test) as start date and then his last test day as end date in cricinfo and then filtered out the data. hope you got my point.i know this data can be a little inaccurate because there can be tests where 'Donald didn't play due to injury or other reasons and Pollock played' before Donald's last test.any way how did you filter out this data? i also need to know as to how it is done. now w.r.t Kapil we must not forget that he played 23 more tests than Pollock.another point is w.r.t Kapil as we all know he didn't get enough support at all thru out his career. there are times when you need much support at other end when you are not fully at your 100% best .in Kapil's case especially towards the end of his career he ought to have played only as a support bowler at the best.but unfortuntely there were none good enough to take the role of strike bowlers. if that wasn't the case then Kapil could have fed on the pressure created by other bowers and could have bought cheap wickets which could have bettered his figures considerably in the countries you mentioned. i am not saying all these to defend Kapil.Pollock indeed was the better bowler, but the gap was only a small one unike what their avg: reveals for me.

[Muloghonto]

The thing with support and kapil, is that he probably had the worst cast of bowlers supprting him than.anyone else in history. Except.fpr 4-5 years od doshi, kapil didnt wven have a good spinner comming after him. Imran atleast had iqbal qasim in a class folowup bowler evwn in his loneliest years being incisive. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

[Marut]

The thing with support and kapil, is that he probably had the worst cast of bowlers supprting him than.anyone else in history. Except.fpr 4-5 years od doshi, kapil didnt wven have a good spinner comming after him. Imran atleast had iqbal qasim in a class folowup bowler evwn in his loneliest years being incisive. Sent from my GT-S5830D using Tapatalk 2

Kapil dev did have decent support at home - Playing along side Kapil dev at home - Doshi averaged 25 in 21 matches. Hirwani averaged 15 in 5 matches. Raju averaged 18 in 7 matches Kumble averaged 19 in 7 matches Ayub averaged 25 in 7 matches All these bowlers outperformed Kapil at home, while playing with Kapil, so we can't say Kapil lacked support at home. Prabhakar averaged 27 in 9 matches Chauhan averaged 28 in 7 matches. Siva averaged 30 in 4 matches. Maninder averaged 31 in 18 matches. These bowlers too offered decent support to Kapil in many home matches. While playing away, Kapil often got poor support at the other end. But Hadlee too had a similar problem, yet Hadlee was able to perform very well away.

[rtmohanlal]

Kapil dev did have decent support at home - Playing along side Kapil dev at home - Doshi averaged 25 in 21 matches. Hirwani averaged 15 in 5 matches. Raju averaged 18 in 7 matches Kumble averaged 19 in 7 matches Ayub averaged 25 in 7 matches All these bowlers outperformed Kapil at home, while playing with Kapil, so we can't say Kapil lacked support at home. Prabhakar averaged 27 in 9 matches Chauhan averaged 28 in 7 matches. Siva averaged 30 in 4 matches. Maninder averaged 31 in 18 matches. These bowlers too offered decent support to Kapil in many home matches. While playing away, Kapil often got poor support at the other end. But Hadlee too had a similar problem, yet Hadlee was able to perform very well away.

first of all i have to admit that i made a mistake in analysing Pollock with and with out Donald. when i went a little deeper what i could find out was that he really performed very well with out Donald in those matches where Donald didn't play before Donald retired.in my first filtration i didn't take these matches into count. Any way yet i feel that Pollock got very good support all thru out his career in Ntini,Kallis,Nel etc,etc apart from Donald. now w.r.t Kapil getting support i do admit that he got much support at home than he got abroad.but yet for some one who played 65 matches at home i assume that wasn't enough. if we go thru the list of bowlers you specified we can see that all of them combined would have played in much lesser no: of matches in those 65.for eg: Kumble, Raju, Chauhan all played in the same set of matches.So too Manoj.similarly others too.so we can easily assume that in a fair share of these 65 he didn't get enough support at all. now coming to abroad it was lot worse. some days back i filtered out the 'combined bowling average of all the support bowlers' of both Kapil and Imran in all the test matches they played.this was time consuming, but i could do it.i found out that 'combined bowling average of all the support bowlers' for Imran was slightly better than that of Kapil himself.do i need to say much about 'combined bowling average of all the support bowlers' for Kapil? i don't remember the figures exactly now, but i am sure there was a difference of about 11 between the 2 values.W.R.T Imran, Sarfraz, Qadir, Iqbal qasim, Akram, Waqar all supported him over much more extended periods with much more effectiveness in some or other parts thru out his career.for eg: Sarfraz and Akram has better records than Imran in AUS. In ENG Qadir and Akram supported him. the main point is i am not saying Kapil didn't get support , but yet what he got was far lesser than say Imran or Pollock especially away from home. w.r.t Hadlee what you said is correct .he did it all alone.and that is why he remains my greatest fast/seam/swing bowler from 80 onwards.but then as we all know he was too much a bowler and too little a batsman to be called a genuine all rounder.