Jac Jack Hobbs-greater than even Don Bradman?

[Harsh Thakor]

Today ,on December 21st we commemorate the 50 th death anniversary of the legendary English batsmen,Sir Jack Hobbs.who died on December 21st in 1963.He was simply an ornament to the game and carved out a permanent niche in the history of cricket.Hobbs is a strong contender for the best cricketer of all time with Bradman,Sobers and Grace.It is difficult for adjectives or metaphors to describe Jack Hobb's presence on a cricket field reflecting his characteristic,cool demeanour. He exuded charm and grace like few great sportsman inspite of posessing the command of an emperor. In the eyes of some critics of the game it is Jack Hobbs and not Sir Don Bradman who was the best of all batsmen.Afterall remember how Hobbs coped with the treacherous ,wet tracks like a medical surgeon peforming an operation on a patient considered incurable or like an army batallion winning a battle in the most alien conditions.No batsmen may ever reach the staggering figure of 61,237 runs and 197 first-class centuries or score 98 centuries after the age of 40.Hobbs remained at the zenith of his game for a phenomenal period of 25 years.In winning causes in test matches he averaged above 96 runs.Above all,Hobbs never played for himself.In terms of pure match performance ratings he was awarded around 24+ in an analysis of Anantha Narayana which was better than Tendulkar,Lara,Gavaskar,Gary Sobers or Viv Richards.Inspite of a shorter career he was overall ranked ahead of Gavaskar,Sobers and Viv Richards overall.To me Jack Hobbs is the 3rd best cricketer of them all behind Gary Sobers and W,G.Grace.In the modern day and age with pitches much flatter Hobbs may well have averaged around even 70 runs. In my personal book Jack Hobbs stands at the echelon amongst great batsmen.I give Jack Hobbs my vote as the best batsmen of all time ahead of even Don Bradman or Sachin Tendulkar of modern times as he consistently performed outstandingly on bad pitches and had an unprecedented longevityof around 30 years..I very much doubt Sachin Tendulkar,Viv Richards,Gary Sobers or Brian Lara would have performed as well as Jack Hobbs on bad wickets or amassed such a huge haul of runs and centuries in first-class cricket.To me only Victor Trumper was Hobb's superior on wet pitches.From a biography written by leo Mckinstry called "England's greatest cricketer ' I wish to quote some old cricketers. Warwickshire allrounder Bob Wyatt said , "Inspite of Bradman's great records ,I've l always thought Bradman was the better batsmen.I'm taking into account the art of batsmanship in every department.Hobbs got many of his runs on difficult wickets .When he was in his prime it was absolutely impossible for any bowler to keep him quiet on any type of wicket.Whenever Bradman encountered a stick wicket he hardly bothered to try." The old Australian wicketkeeper Bert Oldfield stated "Under all types of conditions ,on a fast,rain-affected or crumbling wickets ,against the swinging ball or turning old ball,Jack Hobbs was the cleverest batsmen I ever saw." Quoting Sir Geoff Boycott " In terms of figures and performances, making runs, and helping win matches, it has to be Don Bradman. The best. But the people in the era he played, think that on all types of pitches, and I repeat, on all types of pitches, John Berry Hobbs was the best player the world has ever seen." Hobb's passions extended far beyond cricket and he was a keen supporter of charities,giving away most of his memorabilia to well-wishers.Above all he was a gentleman and posessed a divine grace of his very own.He identified greatly with the common man and became an inspiration for the working class to excel against all odds. Long live memories of this immortal legend! In his everlasting memory I am registering some posts of the past.I reccomend readers to read thew Biography writen by Leo Mckinstry and tributes by Wisden.They reveal the depth of an epic novel. Gideon Heigh in cricinfo: Hobbs was the only Englishman garlanded as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Century. His status as the greatest first-class run scorer (61,237) and century-maker (197) clearly counted for something; his serene and sportsmanlike demeanour for something more. Yet 70 respondents to the survey did not figure him in their calculations, and the editor Matthew Engel's Almanack tribute seemed somewhat tepid: Hobbs was called "pragmatic", "businesslike" and "the supreme craftsman", though "not an artist". But was Hobbs really like that? Study the images in that much-neglected 1926 primer The Perfect Batsman and one obtains a different impression. The book's "98 Cinema-Photographs of JB Hobbs at the wicket" were taken for author Archie MacLaren in 1914, when Hobbs felt himself at his peak. And they are anything but staid, or even conventional, and not a bit "pragmatic": the bat speed and brio are breathtaking. In Jack Hobbs, John Arlott remarks on his subject's tight bottom-hand grip - "contrary to the advice of most coaches" - and it is evident in the sequences that illustrate "Driving to the Right of Cover Point" and "A True Cover Drive Along the Ground". It is batting at its most spontaneous and original; "The Master" and "The Master Blaster" were not quite so distant as might be imagined. Hampshire's Alex Kennedy once recalled bowling the first ball of a match to Hobbs at The Oval. It was a late outswinger on off stump; Hobbs dispatched it through square leg for four. The anecdote's only un-Vivish aspect is that Hobbs smilingly apologised: "I shouldn't have done that, should I? I was a bit lucky." To appreciate Hobbs' full significance, however, we must contemplate the class rigidities of his time. The discrimination that placed amateur and professional in separate dressing rooms and hotels, and had them enter the field by different gates and travel in different railway carriages, now seems as remote from our experience of cricket as sectarianism or McCarthyism. Yet it was very real and even seemed the natural order, not least to Hobbs, who enumerated his Surrey colleagues thus: "There was Tom Shepherd, Andy Ducat, Mr Jardine, Mr Jeacocke, Mr Fender, Bob Gregory, as well as Andy [sandham]." Hobbs was called "pragmatic" and "businesslike" and "the supreme craftsman" but at his peak he was anything but: his bat speed and brio were breathtaking. Quoting Sir Geoff Boycott " In terms of figures and performances, making runs, and helping win matches, it has to be Don Bradman. The best. But the people in the era he played, think that on all types of pitches, and I repeat, on all types of pitches, John Berry Hobbs was the best player the world has ever seen." Quietly but categorically, Hobbs upset that precedence. Before him professionals had been largely chained to the bowling crease. Only a handful of "players" had represented England as batsmen: Arthur Shrewsbury, Bobby Abel, Johnny Tyldesley, Tom Hayward. And these were business cricketers. When Hayward received merely a fiver in talent money for scoring 315 not out at The Oval, he remarked: "Well, it's no use me getting 300 again." Heavily influenced by Hayward, Hobbs was clear-eyed about his vocation. "Unless you get to the top where the plums are, it is a bare living, and when your cricket days are over, you have to find a new career." Yet he bucked the stereotype of the workman pro. Commercial realities never restrained his adventure or compromised the pleasure he took in his craft. "Of course I was earning my living," he said. "But it was batting I enjoyed." Hobbs was not an agitator for the rights of the professional; rather, the excellence of his example provided a personification of the cause. His Surrey captain Percy Fender was one of the first to lead his team through a single gate, earning him a reproach from Lord Harris: "We do not want that sort of thing at Lord's, Fender." It was because of Hobbs that Fender felt free to advocate the unthinkable notion of professional captaincy: "My experience of professional cricketers does not teach me that cricket would necessarily go to the dogs if a professional happened to be in charge." And it was Hobbs that Cecil Parkin invoked as the best leader he had played under in his famous January 1925 article in the Weekly Dispatch disputing Arthur Gilligan's captaincy credentials, provoking Lord Hawke's even more famous retort: "Pray God that no professional will ever captain England." The ire Hawke incurred after that address was the greatest testimony to Hobbs' renown. Even the former Australian Governor-General, Lord Forster, weighed in, stating that he would "never hesitate to play under the captaincy of a man like Jack Hobbs". So it came to pass that on July 26, 1926, Hobbs was asked to lead England when Arthur Carr fell ill during an Ashes Test at Old Trafford: the first professional appointment since Shrewsbury. Hobbs was reticent. He disliked the responsibility of leadership and said publicly that "most professionals" preferred an amateur skipper. But he took the job, drew the Test and foresaw others following in his footsteps. "We are such sticklers for tradition in insisting on an amateur captain, regardless of the question of whether he can pull his weight as a player," he wrote in My Life Story. "The time is coming when we will have to change our views... when there will be no amateurs of sufficient ability to put into an England side." Jack Hobbs and Archie MacLaren go out to open the innings, England v Australia, Edgbaston, 1909 Hobbs was one of the first professionals to walk out through the same gate as amateurs © ESPNcricinfo Ltd Enlarge Cricket, as so often, found ways to defer change. And as a standard bearer for the exploited, Hobbs would not appeal to a Marxist: he overthrew nothing, stormed no citadel. Yet, in a way, he so dignified his profession that the archaisms of class distinction in cricket had ceased to matter long before the annulment of the gentleman-player divide. Alec Bedser commented that using the players' gate at The Oval was no hardship, because if it had been good enough for Hobbs it was good enough for him. That Hobbs became the first professional games player to be knighted in 1953 is one of cricket history's better coincidences: England was in the course of winning the Ashes under its first professional captain, Len Hutton. If all this seems like history - and there's no remark in the contemporary sporting vernacular more dismissive than "that's history" - Hobbs' career had two other trappings of modernity that loosely link him with Waugh. Hobbs was the first professional to take his wife on an Ashes tour. He did it characteristically, initially declining to make the 1924-25 trip, then agreeing to join the team as an "extra member" when Lord Harris granted Ada Hobbs permission to accompany her husband. Waugh took up a similar cudgel, championing a new Australian regime that welcomed players' partners on tour. Likewise did Waugh follow in Hobbs' literary path, capitalising on his fame through the publication of books. Nine books bear Hobbs' name. Nine* bear Waugh's. S.Rajesh on cricinfo statistics analysis Jack Hobbs was, quite simply, the most prolific batsman in cricket. His Test record is imposing enough - he finished with an average of almost 57, and was, at the time of retiring, the highest run-getter in Tests - but his overall first-class record continues to be quite staggering. Here are a few of his records, which will probably never be surpassed: With a gigantic tally of 61,760 first-class runs, Hobbs is the leading run-getter by far, and the only one to go past 60,000. England's Frank Woolley comes in next on 58,959. (To put things in perspective, Sachin Tendulkar's first-class tally is 22,336, and no one who has played beyond 1952 has an aggregate of more than 50,000.) It boggles the mind to think of what Hobbs' tally would have been had he not lost six years due to the Great War. Along with the record for most first-class runs, he also holds the record for most first-class hundreds, with 199. Patsy Hendren is next on 170, and only four others have more than 150. Hobbs scored his last Test century - 142 against Australia in Melbourne in 1929 - when he was all of 46 years and 82 days old, which remains a record. Hendren comes in second again, at 45 years and 151 days, while the oldest since 1980 is Geoff Boycott, at 41 years and 63 days. Those are records that will almost certainly stay forever, not least because of the nature of the game in the modern era. While some of those first-class stats are staggering, his Test record is outstanding too, with 15 centuries in 61 Tests at an average of 56.94. Hobbs started his Test career with 83 against Australia in Melbourne, but he didn't exceed that score till his 10th Test, when he made an unbeaten 93 against South Africa. In fact, in his first 11 Tests Hobbs had eight fifties but not a single hundred. That landmark only came in his 12th Test, when he scored 187 against South Africa. That was the beginning of a prolonged prolific passage for him: of the 12 years he played between 1910 and 1929 (there was no cricket between 1915 and 1919), only once, in 1921, did his average for the year slip below 50. In 44 Tests during this period, Hobbs' average soared to more than 65, and his conversion rate improved dramatically too, with 15 hundreds and 17 fifties. Jack Hobbs' Test career Period Runs Average 100s/ 50s First 11 Tests 786 41.36 0/ 8 Next 44 Tests 4261 65.55 15/ 17 Last 6 Tests 363 33.00 0/ 3 Career 5410 56.94 15/ 28 With the conditions loaded in favour of batsmen over the last decade, several of them have joined the list of 50-plus averages: with a cut-off of 5000 runs, 77 are in this league today, while there were only 44 before the start of the 2000s. However, Hobbs' average of 56.94 remains among the top five. It's in fifth place, next only to Bradman, Barrington, Hammond and Sobers. Obviously Hobbs is among the top openers in Test history as well. Only Herbert Sutcliffe and Len Hutton have a higher average, among openers who've scored at least 4000 runs. Among modern-day openers, India's Virender Sehwag comes closest to the legends, with an average of almost 55. Best openers in Tests (Qual: 4000 runs as openers) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s Herbert Sutcliffe 83 4522 61.10 16/ 23 Len Hutton 131 6721 56.47 19/ 31 Jack Hobbs 97 5130 56.37 14/ 27 Virender Sehwag 120 6312 54.88 18/ 19 Graeme Smith 136 6564 51.28 20/ 24 Matthew Hayden 184 8625 50.73 30/ 29 Sunil Gavaskar 203 9607 50.29 33/ 42 Justin Langer 115 5112 48.22 16/ 18 Geoff Boycott 191 8091 48.16 22/ 42 Herschelle Gibbs 116 5242 47.22 14/ 21 At the time of his retirement, Hobbs was also easily the highest run-scorer in Tests. His tally of 5410 was almost 2000 more than Clem Hill, who was the second-highest, on 3412. Only five players had scored more than 3000 runs in Tests at the time. The small group of Test-playing nations at the time also meant Hobbs played most of his Tests against Australia - 41 out of 61 were against them, and he scored 12 centuries in those games, at an average of more than 54. Leading run-getters in Tests till the end of Hobbs' career Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Jack Hobbs 61 5410 56.94 15/ 28 Clem Hill 49 3412 39.21 7/ 19 Herbert Sutcliffe 36 3396 66.58 13/ 16 Victor Trumper 48 3163 39.04 8/ 13 Frank Woolley 61 3160 37.17 5/ 22 Warwick Armstrong 50 2863 38.68 6/ 8 With Herbert Sutcliffe, Hobbs formed an opening combination that remains the most prolific in Test cricket in terms of average opening stands. In 38 innings in which the two opened together, they managed an incredible 15 century stands, including a highest of 283 against Australia in Melbourne, a match England ultimately lost by 81 runs - it remains the third-highest partnership by a pair who ended up on the losing side. Twice the pair recorded century stands in three consecutive innings. Not only does Hobbs top the list of leading opening pairs, he also comes in second: his 36 opening stands with Wilfred Rhodes were worth 2146 runs, at an average of 61.31. Among the modern-day pairs, India's Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir have the highest average partnership (with a 2000-run cut-off) - they average 60.06, with seven century stands in 50 innings. Geoff Boycott on 2nd best to Bradman In terms of figures and performances, making runs, and helping win matches, it has to be Don Bradman. The best. But the people in the era he played, think that on all types of pitches, and I repeat, on all types of pitches, John Berry Hobbs was the best player the world has ever seen. Now, nobody can compete with Bradman on good batting pitches. His record is unbelievable. But you have to remember, right up to the 1970s, cricket was played on uncovered pitches in Test matches. In many of the hot countries, they didn't get much rain, so you hardly ever got a wet pitch - or a sticky dog, as they call it in Australia. But in places like New Zealand and England, where we get lots of rain, you never quite know what you are going to get. The pitches would be juicy. Even if they were not wet, the grass would make the ball move around. Hobbs played 61 Tests. Remember, only England, Australia and South Africa played then. He averaged 56.94. It doesn't even come close to Bradman's 99.94. He played his first Test in 1907-08 and his last one in 1930. He was the oldest of 12 children. He taught himself the game by actually using a cricket stump and a tennis ball in the fives court - which is very much like a squash court - at Jesus College, Cambridge, where his father was the groundsman and umpire for the college. With no formal coaching, Hobbs practised on his own through the long vacations, hitting the ball with a stump. He said in his autobiography, years later, that this was responsible for his ability to play predominantly off the back foot and to place the ball accurately. I think this simple practice laid a wonderful foundation. As a boy Hobbs watched the older boys playing cricket at the college and tried to pick up things. He had no formal coaching; he became a natural batsman with hand-eye coordination and footwork, the neat, quick footwork you need to hit a tennis ball with a stump on a fives court. This, to me, is what made him a great player on all sorts of pitches, where the ball turned alarmingly, where it jumped when it was wet. It was fascinating when I read that the greatest batsman ever, Bradman, born a few years later, used the same method as a child when he was growing up in Bowral on the other side of the world. When you think about it, Bradman hitting a golf ball with a cricket stump was making the same type of cricket match for himself as Hobbs was doing on the other side of the world. Hobbs was more or less brought up on the principle laid down by the first great batsman, WG Grace, which was to get the left leg forward to the length of the ball and the right foot right back to the short ball. That's how Hobbs played, from Grace's way of playing and by watching his elders. He made his first-class debut for Surrey in 1905 and scored 197 hundreds. He is known to have been the best player anybody has ever seen. Now how do I know this? I never saw him play, but I've read so much about him by the doyen writers of the day, who wrote about the way Hobbs played and what he did, and the batsmen of that era who talked about him. Hobbs had never played on matting wickets when he went to South Africa for the first time to play. The ball turned alarmingly on matting pitches there, but in five Test matches in 1909-10, he worked it out and scored 539 runs at an average of 67. The key is not the 67. It's that it's double the average of the next four run-makers for England - George Thompson, Frank Woolley, Lucky Denton and Wilfred Rhodes. They averaged 33, 32, 26 and 25. He more than doubled their averages, which showed how good he was compared to everybody else, which is how we rate Bradman. We look at how many players average 50 in Test cricket and they are the iconic greats of our era. Yet Bradman averaged twice as much. Hobbs' nickname was "The Master", because he played on all types of pitches. He had a great opening partnership with Herbert Sutcliffe of Yorkshire. They were fantastic players on sticky pitches, when it rained overnight and the ball jumped. At The Oval in 1926. In Melbourne two years later, they just played out of this world. Hobbs was just an outstanding player. Wilfred Rhodes, the great allrounder of the time for Yorkshire and England, said, "He was the greatest batsman of my time. I learnt a lot from him when we went in first together for England. He had a cricket brain, and the position of his feet as he met the ball was perfect. He could have scored thousands more runs, but often he was content to throw his wicket away when he had reached his hundred and give someone else a chance." Sutcliffe, who formed the greatest opening partnership ever for England with Hobbs, said: "I was his partner on many occasions on extremely bad wickets and I can say this without any doubt that he was the most brilliant exponent of all time and quite the best batsman of my generation on all types of pitches. On good wickets, I do believe that pride of place be given to Sir Donald Bradman." Jack Fingleton played with Bradman and became a great writer. He wrote, "Although figures indicate the greatness of Hobbs, they don't convey the grandeur of his batting, his faultless technique and the manner in which he could captivate those who could recognise and analyse style. Australians who played against him believe cricket never produced a more correct batsman but it is well to note Hobbs' claim that he never had an hour's coaching in his life. He was a self-taught cricketer, observing, thinking, and executing for himself." Very interesting, that. And the great doyen writer of the time, Neville Cardus, wrote: "Immediately the bowler begins his run, Hobbs seems to have some instinct of what manner of ball is on the way. Rarely does he move his feet to an incorrect position. His footwork is so quick that even from behind the nets it is not always possible to follow its movement in detail." Mouth-watering stuff, eh? What a player he must have been.

[FischerTal]

[Crookbond]

^ :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical: :hysterical: Harsh Thakor = Muloghonto * 2

[Trichromatic]

How on earth can anyone read that?

[GoldenSun]

This bloke has returned :cantstop: Anyway, I prefer Bradman, and unfortunately Ive never seen videos of Hobbs playing.

[SLICKR392]

:hysterical:

[EnterTheVoid]

Mate, did you write all that? Muloghonto would be proud at the amount of BS in the article.

[Lord]

[Gunner]

^ :cantstop:

[moniker]

Har Harsh Thakor-greater than even Neville Cardus?

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Raghav_12]

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-life-of-jack-hobbs-reel-1 watch thegreat hobbs at about 5:50 where he shows how to drive in slow motion at one point both his feet are in the air ... aint nobody doing that today ... hence why OP is drooling so profusely

did you actually read OP :omg:

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Harsh Thakor]

:agree:

This ideally reveals that figures just does not depict the true story.Remember Victor Trumper arguably the best of all batsmen averaged only 39 .On bad tracks no batsmen was his equal.Rohan Kanhai averaged 11 runs less than Gary Sobers but many critiques rated Kanhai a better batsman than Sobers.Gundapa Vishwanath although averaging around 9 runs less than Sunil Gavaskar was rated by many on par or even better than Gavaskar at his best,particularly in winning causes.Similarly although Ian Chappell averaged 10 runs less than brother Greg was rated by many as the better batsmen.It is about how batsmen coped in crisis,on bad pitches etc.Infact George Headley v.Don Bradman is the best example.

[Sachin=GOD]

:agree:

:headshake: - he is doing a project on bullsh!t in cricket and these threads are meant as examples of how not to make a thread.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[gslv]

itna kon padhega yaar. my mbbs course was less than this.

[Raghav_12]

:headshake: - he is doing a project on bullsh!t in cricket and these threads are meant as examples of how not to make a thread.

and Muloghonto on bullshit in general :hysterical:

[vvvslaxman]

NZ vs Wi series is going on Pakistan vs SL series is going on England vs OZ Ashes series is going on India (world no.2) vs SA (world no.1) series is going on. Lot of young talents are putting up fantastic display all over the world. Some high class fast bowling, stunning catches.. but our Harsh has nothing to say about it. lol But enough time to do this lol Sorry man.. Try to post these kind of comparisons when there is no cricket. May be you will get some people to read it.

[Sachin=GOD]

and Muloghonto on bullshit in general :hysterical:

I guess Vijay.Sharma is their teacher :hysterical: