Print

[The_Bird]

Just watching the thousandth rerun of ESPN Classics and made me think;

Do we consider Atherton, Thorpe, Robin Smith, Stewart, Hussain to be better batsmen than the current England players such as Bell, KP, Cook, Trott.

The older guard faced proper scary attacks like Walsh/Ambrose, McGrath/Warne, Wasim/Waqar. Whereas the latter face some pretty poor attacks. Should we be applauding the old guys for averaging 38-44 against world class attacks or are we inflating the current crops egos for averaging 45-55 against poor attacks.

Just a thought..

[Vantage_Cricket]

Just to spin this around, maybe is was the poorer batting that made these bowlers look better than they were? I'm not saying that's the case, however no-one will ever know.

[Johng]

Current crop would not survive against the bowling attacks of the past

[mr_wickets]

Alot of factors make the current players stats look better. Take the bat, ones used 10/20 years ago were a fraction of the size and clearing the rope was alot harder.

The game has also moved on and batsmen want to score at around 4 an over in tests, whereas years ago 2 an over was acceptable.

[Kulli]

Alot of factors make the current players stats look better. Take the bat, ones used 10/20 years ago were a fraction of the size and clearing the rope was alot harder.

The game has also moved on and batsmen want to score at around 4 an over in tests, whereas years ago 2 an over was acceptable.

On the other hand, the standard of fielding is out of sight compared to even 20 years ago, so that'll cost the batsman more runs than his bigger bat would gain him I'd think.

[Buzz]

Kulli - tell that to Jonty Rhodes or Colin Bland.

However - where does this leave Dale Steyn - there is a good argument for him being one of the best fast bowlers in history.

[uknsaunders]

I think it's a bit of both - in the 90s the bowling was better and the batting wasn't quite as good as it is now. Good bowlers create soft dismissals though. Batsman now have better tools and training methods compared to the early 90s. Grounds are smaller, wickets flatter.  I do think we are in a period with very few exceptional quick bowlers or spinners, good bowlers but not great.

The likes of Cook, Bell would still prosper in the 90s but their averages would be lower, but maybe 5 runs per wicket higher than players of that era due to the performance benefits they had?

[Cover_Drive]

Certainly, I would say so.

Old guards played in 'bowlers era' where bowlers would be dominating, pitches would be fair unlike today how they are more flatter. Apart from pitches there would be many other external factors such as smaller grounds, better bats, more batting friendly game rules et cetra.

I can firmly say that so called "bug guns" of current era ala 'batsman era' would not be able to dominate if played in past.

Average in 40s of that era would be equivalent to todays 50s.

[Kulli]

Kulli - tell that to Jonty Rhodes or Colin Bland.

However - where does this leave Dale Steyn - there is a good argument for him being one of the best fast bowlers in history.

I meant the overall standard, I doubt either of them would stand out (or certainly not as much) for their fielding in the current game. Traveling back the idea of your opening bowler sprinting 40 yards and diving just to turn a 4 into a 3 would have been crazy, half them barely stuck out a size 10 even when the ball went 3-4 meters either side of them!

[trypewriter]

You also need to consider the arcane selection systems that were in place many years ago - the batsmen weren't always facing the best bowlers!

EG: Ultimately, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jackson's omission was partly due to snobbery. Derbyshire was an unfashionable county; Jackson was a coal miner. His biographer, Mike Carey, lays the blame at the door of Freddie Brown and Gubby Allen.
Brown, who captained England in 1949, 1950 and 1951, apparently decided that Jackson lacked the stamina to come back for a second spell - a ludicrous criticism of a man who would bowl an average of 886 overs a season between 1949 and 1963.
Gubby Allen, an Old Etonian who played in 25 Tests but never took 100 wickets in a season (a feat Jackson achieved 10 times), was chairman of the Test selectors from 1955 to 1961, when Jackson was at his peak. "My information is," Fred Trueman observed, "that he [Allen] would not have Les at any price and if that's true it's criminal." Even when Jackson played against the Australians in 1961, it was at Peter May's insistence.
Tom Graveney, reflecting that RWV Robins played 19 times for England against Jackson's twice, called this discrepancy "sacrilege". But Jackson himself never complained, either privately or in print. For him, playing cricket at any level was preferable to working in the pits.
Trevor Bailey wrote that professionals around the country were aghast when John Warr, of Cambridge University and Middlesex, was preferred to Jackson for the 1950-51 trip to Australia.
Don Bradman, who batted against him in 1948, the day after his 173 not out in the Headingley Test had won the Ashes for Australia, reckoned he was one of the best bowlers he encountered on that year's tour; while Freddie Trueman rated him "the best six-days-a-week bowler I ever saw in county cricket."

[PedalsMcgrew]

Good point Trypey!

I think it's so hard to judge. If you look around at the attacks back in the 80's and 90's with guys like Marshall (my personal favourite!) Garner, Wasim, Waqar, Walsh, Ambrose, Warne, McGrath plus 5-6 others then there is obviously much, much more strength in depth than there is now. Only Steyn and at a push Jimmy A can even be compared to these guys currently and even then it's a push!

With bat technology improving and fielding improvements maybe negating that a bit the only variables left are the pitches which I honestly think are a lot less 'competitive' than they used to be. It's become more of a batsmens game and the pitches reflect this.

Are the batsmen better now than then? Well, I think the likes of Sachin, KP, Gayle, Ponting, Kallis, Cook etc would be good in any era but I honestly think the likes of Bell, Clarke, Sehwag, Dhoni, Strauss would probably get found out fairly quickly and not enjoy the decent careers they have got/had. I've just used names off the top of my head. Could name most batsmen in any international team. (And I had to mention Bell because I don't rate him!  )

[Nickauger]

Good point Trypey!

I think it's so hard to judge. If you look around at the attacks back in the 80's and 90's with guys like Marshall (my personal favourite!) Garner, Wasim, Waqar, Walsh, Ambrose, Warne, McGrath plus 5-6 others then there is obviously much, much more strength in depth than there is now. Only Steyn and at a push Jimmy A can even be compared to these guys currently and even then it's a push!

With bat technology improving and fielding improvements maybe negating that a bit the only variables left are the pitches which I honestly think are a lot less 'competitive' than they used to be. It's become more of a batsmens game and the pitches reflect this.

Are the batsmen better now than then? Well, I think the likes of Sachin, KP, Gayle, Ponting, Kallis, Cook etc would be good in any era but I honestly think the likes of Bell, Clarke, Sehwag, Dhoni, Strauss would probably get found out fairly quickly and not enjoy the decent careers they have got/had. I've just used names off the top of my head. Could name most batsmen in any international team. (And I had to mention Bell because I don't rate him!  )

Not quite made up my mind about Clarke yet. Having a phenomenal spell atm.

[trypewriter]

... and when you consider that when Marshall first got into the team he was viewed as the runt of the litter!

[Manormanic]

Interesting topic this; I don't believe there to be an easy answer tot eh question posed, but a few thoughts...

1. I don't think it is quite simple as to say that there is a one size fits all answer to this question.  For some batsmen - Hick is one that springs to mind - a career beginning ten years later would have been massively different because he would have played on a central contract and under a coach who understood that continuity was the way to go, whilst the comparative lack of super fast wickets and genuinely nasty bowlers would eliminate his single major technical issue.  For others - Robin Smith perhaps - I doubt it would have made much difference because he would still have been a comparatively poor player of spin.

2. It makes a huge difference playing in a winning side as against one that loses for fun.

3. The biggest change in the game has been the speed of run scoring - it went up by near enough a run and over around the turn of the century.  This means that stats are not so easy to compare - if someone like Alec Stewart had been looking to score a bit quicker, would he have made more of the chance he had to score?  Flipped on its head, would someone like Big Bird have seemed quite so awesome if batsmen had actually tried to challenge him?

4. Equipments has all gone in the way of the batsman. Not just willow, we're talking lids, padding, even tougher shoes...

[uknsaunders]

myth - Robin Smith was a bad player of spin. Didn't he get a ton in Sri Lanka, not many have done that! Certainly with the exception of Mumbai I doubt Robin Smith would of struggled against India.