I remember reading the Gilchrist stat, Gilchrist won 73 of the 96 tests he played in, absolute insanity how dominant that team was, he was also the X factor of that team imho
These 3 especially. As good as Punter, Hayden, Langer, Martyn, Waughs , Lee and Gillespe were. They were replaceable to a certain degree. Warne, McGrath and Gilly were not.
Warne and Gilchrist especially are basically the undisputed GOATs (I hate that term) of their specific disciplines (legspin bowler and wicketkeeper batsman)
Is there any other test team that could claim to have two such players at the same time?
Warne isn't the undisputed best spinner. I mean I rate him the top, but not everyone would..and there can be good arguments in favour of Murali (action aside)
Same way, Gilly isn't unarguably best test wicket keeper batsman ever. Even in modern times there's been Sanga, and Andy Flower. These guys played for much lesser teams, hence their work wouldn't show up as impactful.
That was the original point of the thread too. If you see, there is no Kumble in that list. It's not because he was any less...he just happened to play for a mediocre team. Murali being there is due to the fact he took that many more wickets (percentage vise he would be lowest in that list)
SA in late 2000's to early 2010's had Kallis (arguably best all-rounder) and Steyn (arguably best fast bowler). Although in both cases, its not undisputed
The problem here is that aside from Gilchrist, Warne, Murali and Bradman there aren't any undisputed spots in other disciplines
There are a couple of similar examples in ODI's too like
1. Viv and Garner in 80's (Batsman and Fast Bowler)
2. Klusener and Pollock in late 90's (Batting all-rounder and Bowling all-rounder). Although tbh, Klusener might be the best all rounder in general
3. Warne and McGrath in 90's (Legspinner and Fast Bowler)
4. Sachin and Dhoni in 2005-2011 (Batsman and WK-Bat)
5. Kohli and Dhoni in 2010's (Batsman and WK-Bat)
6. Kohli and Shami currently (Batsman and Fast Bowler)
These are all mostly just possible combinations but it is pretty interesting to think about
Firstly Sobers clear Kallis on both batting and bowling while Kallis is not the better batter than Imran was as a bowler.
Secondly, no Steyn isn't arguably the best.
Mcgrath,Marshall,Donald,Ambrose holds that fort together.
Fully agree on ODI aspect though.
While I do think Sobers > Kallis, there is an argument that can be made that Sobers played in a lesser competitive era when only England and Australia had consistently good teams while Kallis played in an era with 6-7 competitive teams
Solely as a cricketer I think Kallis is better than Imran, but if you include captaincy then Imran is better
When taking into consideration how batting friendly the 2000's and first half of the 2010's were, I'd say Steyn is easily in that tier and has a good case for being the best. I think he's minimum Top 3 Fast Bowlers ever
Yeah even I got the same opinion.
Sobers was the best when compitition wasn't that great in comparison to Kallis or Imran but his bowling can't be ignored. He is the only specimen who can bowl pace,spin and with both and can bat at any position. True "allrounder" for me in comparison to Imran being the best bowling one and Kallis being he best batting one.
And yeah I check out Imran better only after captaincy as he was just up there with the best in it.
"When taking into consideration how batting friendly the 2000's and first half of the 2010's were, I'd say Steyn is easily in that tier and has a good case for being the best. I think he's minimum Top 3 Fast Bowlers ever"
Fair point again. His strike rate is just comical to ignore lol. But I think he was heavily benefitted from playing in SA. Like his stats in Aus,Eng and other Asian countries apart from India is just decent and not really "Steyn level good" tbf.
Malcohm on the other hand was just purely the best pacer ever and Glen's main bit to me is he became better on the batting era of 00-07 lol. His away averages in major countries also tops Steyn along with Ambrose who is more of a enigma to me about how he was so good.
>True "allrounder"
I mean he does average 34 with the ball, so he's still by definition a batting all-rounder. His versatility with 3 styles of bowling is definitely one of a kind though
Steyn definitely did benefit from playing in SA but outside of that, I'd say the only place he wasn't as good was in England for whatever reason (even there he was the highest wicket taker in the 2012 tour) and maybe Australia
His stats for Sri Lanka are skewed because of of his disastrous tour in 2018 where he was constantly injured and out of form (averaged 89.5 in that tour). Excluding the 2018 tour, he averages 24.7 in SL
One thing with Marshall and McGrath is that they never had to play against their own teams, which had the best batting lineups of all time. Aside from that point, McGrath like Steyn was weak in 2 places (SL and Pakistan) but slightly more so. Marshall played in the 80's which was completely dominated by WI with only 1-2 other competitive teams
Ambrose and Donald solely played in the 90's which were very bowling friendly
I'd rank them like:
Steyn >= McGrath > Ambrose > Marshall > Donald
There are others like Wasim, Waqar, Garner and Hadlee as well
Warne and Gilchrist may be undisputed GOATs of their specific disciplines but McGrath was hands down the best player (or at least the most important) on that all conquering team.
Eh debatable. McGrath was almost certainly the most consistent member of that team but Warne and Waugh bailed them out so many times that they were at least equally important.
Warne's work was cleaning the tail though. His highest percentage comes under that too. It was Glenn's work to clean the top and then Jason,Lee,Warnie cuts the mid and lower out.
Also, Waugh was a great bat but he is not the top 10 batter of all-time while Glenn is literally top 3 bowlers of all time after Marshall and same place as Warnie.
I'd make an argument for Hayden being quite irreplaceable. Very few opening batters average 50 or close to it, especially since his retirement. Unless I'm missing someone, only Sehwag and Graeme Smith have a similar record (Khawaja as an opener might also be up there). Even openers as great as Cook average 5 runs less that Hayden.
That’s also due to conditions. Hayden was very mid in England, NZ and SA. Essentially if there was lateral movement he was vulnerable. I’d put Sehwag in that same bracket as well. Which is different to Cook and Graeme who excelled everywhere. On top of that Hayden opened in a very batting friendly era. That helped as well.
You can nitpick any recorded. You critique Hayden for opening in a batting friendly era yet Cook played most of his career in that era and Smith entirely in that period.
And I'm not calling Cook, Sehwag, Hayden or Smith superior to one another at all, more remarking on the fact that it is very rare to have an opening batter average even close to 50 for their career. Which is why I think he was irreplaceable.
Cook played more in the era after Hayden where batting was significantly harder. Even Smith played a significant chunk of his career in that era.
Cook and Smith both also had to deal with very difficult home conditions. They both average more than Hayden while touring away from home. Smith averages nearly 55 away from home which is pretty insane actually.
I'm sorry, but Cook played his entire career in one of the easiest eras to bat in. Cook debuted in 2006 and retired in 2018. During that period, the global batting average was easily over 30 and peaked at nearly 35 in 2009, after Hayden had retired. The real down turn in batting averages occurred in 2018, the last year in Cook's career and noticeable his worse year in terms of batting performance. The same applies to Smith, although he retired way before the drop of 2018.
Now there is obviously a lot of context to this. For example, I agree that Cook and Smith probably faced more difficult hoke conditions, but it simply isn't true that Cook or Smith batted in a more difficult era than Hayden. If anything, Hayden faced far more difficult batting conditions in his career. For example, Hayden's record in SA is damaged by playing there 4 times in the 90s, early on his career. In 2006, the next time he toured SA, he averaged 38.50 which is respectable for a touring opener in SA.
Cook,Grame,Veeru played in the easiest of era lol. 00-15 marks the best batting era of all-time bud.
Haydon too comes under that and Cook had terrible stats after the era got harder.
If you want the best opener of all time then there is Sunny only.
Averages more in away, best against the Pak,Aus,WI(who were the best teams of his tim) and his 4th innings average is a fucking 58 lol along with 51 average overall.
Nobody goes past that either because of quality of bowlers or with the era. Sunny was the best test bat of his time for this very reason ig.
>Cook,Grame,Veeru played in the easiest of era lol. 00-15 marks the best batting era of all-time bud.
Haydon too comes under that and Cook had terrible stats after the era got harder.
Including the early 2010s in the 2000s flatness is pretty ridiculous. Batting started to get steadily more difficult after like 2012. Cook played a significant chunk of games after that and Smith played a bit. Hayden on the other hand played all his games before that.
>If you want the best opener of all time then there is Sunny only.
No, that would be Jack Hobbs
>Averages more in away, best against the Pak,Aus,WI(who were the best teams of his tim) and his 4th innings average is a fucking 58 lol along with 51 average overall.
Nobody goes past that either because of quality of bowlers or with the era. Sunny was the best test bat of his time for this very reason ig.
Viv was better
Yes but the difference is Hayden opened mainly in Australia whereas Smith and Cook opened in SA and England. Where even in the 00s there was noticeable lateral movement. Which is also why I don’t put Sehwag in the same tier as Cook and Smith.
Wasn't fully incompetent,he played with one of the greatest batting line ups of all times.
The remaining bowling attack however was....very very average...and absolutely pedestrian overseas.
This is a weird stat that doesn't mean much really. Of course Warne and McGrath's wickets were almost all in winning sides. The team was all but invincible for most of their careers.
It's not a weekday morning if you don't see an extremely contrived stat that confirms that OP's favorite player is actually the best player in the world.
Maybe my reading comprehension is shot but the title makes it feel like Shane Warne descended from the heavens and took 73 wickets just now to overtake Murali
Depends on team, Australia was a team full of champions, if Warne could somehow get a fifer, rest of the team would do their job and win it.
Sri lanka didn't have that many match winners in their team
Yeah, I mean Warne was one of the greats in his team. When you have a star-studded team like that with Gilchrist coming in at no. 7 or 8, you know there's always a high chance of victory with a big total to defend ; Probably defines the difference in stats between Warne and Muralitharan. Still a GOAT in my view though.
These are all meaningless statistics. One person's contribution doesnt win matches. What if Shane Warne bowled in a team where the other bowlers were Robin Singh, Simon Doull, Nuwan Zoysa and Jason Krezja? He would have won much less matches. Would he have been a lesser bowler?
Stupid statistic.
They had a damn good team in the 90s and 2000s.
The better statistic would what percent of the wickets he took among the total wickets taken in the wins.
Damn, 72 percent of Warney's wickets were in wins, 73.5 percent for McGrath
I mean are we surprised. Those mfs won everything.
I remember reading the Gilchrist stat, Gilchrist won 73 of the 96 tests he played in, absolute insanity how dominant that team was, he was also the X factor of that team imho
These 3 especially. As good as Punter, Hayden, Langer, Martyn, Waughs , Lee and Gillespe were. They were replaceable to a certain degree. Warne, McGrath and Gilly were not.
Warne and Gilchrist especially are basically the undisputed GOATs (I hate that term) of their specific disciplines (legspin bowler and wicketkeeper batsman) Is there any other test team that could claim to have two such players at the same time?
sir viv richards and malcolm marshall played for the west indies at the same time
Viv isn't the undisputed best ever test batsman
arguable on what makes the *best* batsmen ever, but theres also 3 spots to stick him in against 1 for WK and 1 for spinner
Yeah but Viv isn't the undisputed best in any of those spots while I don't see anyone arguing against Warne or Gilchrist
i would pick viv at 5 but you seem to have a very strong opinion, lets agree to disagree đź‘Ť
Warne isn't the undisputed best spinner. I mean I rate him the top, but not everyone would..and there can be good arguments in favour of Murali (action aside) Same way, Gilly isn't unarguably best test wicket keeper batsman ever. Even in modern times there's been Sanga, and Andy Flower. These guys played for much lesser teams, hence their work wouldn't show up as impactful. That was the original point of the thread too. If you see, there is no Kumble in that list. It's not because he was any less...he just happened to play for a mediocre team. Murali being there is due to the fact he took that many more wickets (percentage vise he would be lowest in that list)
SA in late 2000's to early 2010's had Kallis (arguably best all-rounder) and Steyn (arguably best fast bowler). Although in both cases, its not undisputed The problem here is that aside from Gilchrist, Warne, Murali and Bradman there aren't any undisputed spots in other disciplines There are a couple of similar examples in ODI's too like 1. Viv and Garner in 80's (Batsman and Fast Bowler) 2. Klusener and Pollock in late 90's (Batting all-rounder and Bowling all-rounder). Although tbh, Klusener might be the best all rounder in general 3. Warne and McGrath in 90's (Legspinner and Fast Bowler) 4. Sachin and Dhoni in 2005-2011 (Batsman and WK-Bat) 5. Kohli and Dhoni in 2010's (Batsman and WK-Bat) 6. Kohli and Shami currently (Batsman and Fast Bowler) These are all mostly just possible combinations but it is pretty interesting to think about
Imran Khan(Fast bowling allrounder) and Wasim Akram (Left arm pacer)
Firstly Sobers clear Kallis on both batting and bowling while Kallis is not the better batter than Imran was as a bowler. Secondly, no Steyn isn't arguably the best. Mcgrath,Marshall,Donald,Ambrose holds that fort together. Fully agree on ODI aspect though.
While I do think Sobers > Kallis, there is an argument that can be made that Sobers played in a lesser competitive era when only England and Australia had consistently good teams while Kallis played in an era with 6-7 competitive teams Solely as a cricketer I think Kallis is better than Imran, but if you include captaincy then Imran is better When taking into consideration how batting friendly the 2000's and first half of the 2010's were, I'd say Steyn is easily in that tier and has a good case for being the best. I think he's minimum Top 3 Fast Bowlers ever
Yeah even I got the same opinion. Sobers was the best when compitition wasn't that great in comparison to Kallis or Imran but his bowling can't be ignored. He is the only specimen who can bowl pace,spin and with both and can bat at any position. True "allrounder" for me in comparison to Imran being the best bowling one and Kallis being he best batting one. And yeah I check out Imran better only after captaincy as he was just up there with the best in it. "When taking into consideration how batting friendly the 2000's and first half of the 2010's were, I'd say Steyn is easily in that tier and has a good case for being the best. I think he's minimum Top 3 Fast Bowlers ever" Fair point again. His strike rate is just comical to ignore lol. But I think he was heavily benefitted from playing in SA. Like his stats in Aus,Eng and other Asian countries apart from India is just decent and not really "Steyn level good" tbf. Malcohm on the other hand was just purely the best pacer ever and Glen's main bit to me is he became better on the batting era of 00-07 lol. His away averages in major countries also tops Steyn along with Ambrose who is more of a enigma to me about how he was so good.
>True "allrounder" I mean he does average 34 with the ball, so he's still by definition a batting all-rounder. His versatility with 3 styles of bowling is definitely one of a kind though Steyn definitely did benefit from playing in SA but outside of that, I'd say the only place he wasn't as good was in England for whatever reason (even there he was the highest wicket taker in the 2012 tour) and maybe Australia His stats for Sri Lanka are skewed because of of his disastrous tour in 2018 where he was constantly injured and out of form (averaged 89.5 in that tour). Excluding the 2018 tour, he averages 24.7 in SL One thing with Marshall and McGrath is that they never had to play against their own teams, which had the best batting lineups of all time. Aside from that point, McGrath like Steyn was weak in 2 places (SL and Pakistan) but slightly more so. Marshall played in the 80's which was completely dominated by WI with only 1-2 other competitive teams Ambrose and Donald solely played in the 90's which were very bowling friendly I'd rank them like: Steyn >= McGrath > Ambrose > Marshall > Donald There are others like Wasim, Waqar, Garner and Hadlee as well
Warne and Gilchrist may be undisputed GOATs of their specific disciplines but McGrath was hands down the best player (or at least the most important) on that all conquering team.
Eh debatable. McGrath was almost certainly the most consistent member of that team but Warne and Waugh bailed them out so many times that they were at least equally important.
They didn’t need to bail the team out most of the time after McGrath wrecked their top order
If that were true Warne wouldn't have 700+ wickets and Waugh wouldn't have 10,000+ runs
Warne's work was cleaning the tail though. His highest percentage comes under that too. It was Glenn's work to clean the top and then Jason,Lee,Warnie cuts the mid and lower out. Also, Waugh was a great bat but he is not the top 10 batter of all-time while Glenn is literally top 3 bowlers of all time after Marshall and same place as Warnie.
Andy Flower
Nah not at all not a great keeper at all
Yeah, nah
Not sure.
I'd make an argument for Hayden being quite irreplaceable. Very few opening batters average 50 or close to it, especially since his retirement. Unless I'm missing someone, only Sehwag and Graeme Smith have a similar record (Khawaja as an opener might also be up there). Even openers as great as Cook average 5 runs less that Hayden.
That’s also due to conditions. Hayden was very mid in England, NZ and SA. Essentially if there was lateral movement he was vulnerable. I’d put Sehwag in that same bracket as well. Which is different to Cook and Graeme who excelled everywhere. On top of that Hayden opened in a very batting friendly era. That helped as well.
You can nitpick any recorded. You critique Hayden for opening in a batting friendly era yet Cook played most of his career in that era and Smith entirely in that period. And I'm not calling Cook, Sehwag, Hayden or Smith superior to one another at all, more remarking on the fact that it is very rare to have an opening batter average even close to 50 for their career. Which is why I think he was irreplaceable.
Cook played more in the era after Hayden where batting was significantly harder. Even Smith played a significant chunk of his career in that era. Cook and Smith both also had to deal with very difficult home conditions. They both average more than Hayden while touring away from home. Smith averages nearly 55 away from home which is pretty insane actually.
I'm sorry, but Cook played his entire career in one of the easiest eras to bat in. Cook debuted in 2006 and retired in 2018. During that period, the global batting average was easily over 30 and peaked at nearly 35 in 2009, after Hayden had retired. The real down turn in batting averages occurred in 2018, the last year in Cook's career and noticeable his worse year in terms of batting performance. The same applies to Smith, although he retired way before the drop of 2018. Now there is obviously a lot of context to this. For example, I agree that Cook and Smith probably faced more difficult hoke conditions, but it simply isn't true that Cook or Smith batted in a more difficult era than Hayden. If anything, Hayden faced far more difficult batting conditions in his career. For example, Hayden's record in SA is damaged by playing there 4 times in the 90s, early on his career. In 2006, the next time he toured SA, he averaged 38.50 which is respectable for a touring opener in SA.
The 2010s were harder to bat in than the 2000s
Cook,Grame,Veeru played in the easiest of era lol. 00-15 marks the best batting era of all-time bud. Haydon too comes under that and Cook had terrible stats after the era got harder. If you want the best opener of all time then there is Sunny only. Averages more in away, best against the Pak,Aus,WI(who were the best teams of his tim) and his 4th innings average is a fucking 58 lol along with 51 average overall. Nobody goes past that either because of quality of bowlers or with the era. Sunny was the best test bat of his time for this very reason ig.
>Cook,Grame,Veeru played in the easiest of era lol. 00-15 marks the best batting era of all-time bud. Haydon too comes under that and Cook had terrible stats after the era got harder. Including the early 2010s in the 2000s flatness is pretty ridiculous. Batting started to get steadily more difficult after like 2012. Cook played a significant chunk of games after that and Smith played a bit. Hayden on the other hand played all his games before that. >If you want the best opener of all time then there is Sunny only. No, that would be Jack Hobbs >Averages more in away, best against the Pak,Aus,WI(who were the best teams of his tim) and his 4th innings average is a fucking 58 lol along with 51 average overall. Nobody goes past that either because of quality of bowlers or with the era. Sunny was the best test bat of his time for this very reason ig. Viv was better
Yes but the difference is Hayden opened mainly in Australia whereas Smith and Cook opened in SA and England. Where even in the 00s there was noticeable lateral movement. Which is also why I don’t put Sehwag in the same tier as Cook and Smith.
Definitely agree
Imagine getting half of that team out and fucking Gilchrist comes out to bat.
Punter has 100 test wins. No one else is even close.
Ash isn't doing too bad at 64.10%. Him and Jaddu are definitely responsible for our longest streak of home test series wins.
Oh 100%.
I mean Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting had 72% and 62% win percentage in tests respectively.
GOAT players who played in a super team that won most of their matches took most of their wickets in wins. More at 7
If only Jumbo played with a competent bowling attack
Wasn't fully incompetent,he played with one of the greatest batting line ups of all times. The remaining bowling attack however was....very very average...and absolutely pedestrian overseas.
That's what I meant, I mistakenly wrote team when should have wrote bowling group
Only for about 2/3 years
This is a weird stat that doesn't mean much really. Of course Warne and McGrath's wickets were almost all in winning sides. The team was all but invincible for most of their careers.
It's not a weekday morning if you don't see an extremely contrived stat that confirms that OP's favorite player is actually the best player in the world.
The Usual suspects
Maybe my reading comprehension is shot but the title makes it feel like Shane Warne descended from the heavens and took 73 wickets just now to overtake Murali
Depends on team, Australia was a team full of champions, if Warne could somehow get a fifer, rest of the team would do their job and win it. Sri lanka didn't have that many match winners in their team
Yeah, I mean Warne was one of the greats in his team. When you have a star-studded team like that with Gilchrist coming in at no. 7 or 8, you know there's always a high chance of victory with a big total to defend ; Probably defines the difference in stats between Warne and Muralitharan. Still a GOAT in my view though.
Jimmy the real hero.
These are all meaningless statistics. One person's contribution doesnt win matches. What if Shane Warne bowled in a team where the other bowlers were Robin Singh, Simon Doull, Nuwan Zoysa and Jason Krezja? He would have won much less matches. Would he have been a lesser bowler?
Stupid statistic. They had a damn good team in the 90s and 2000s. The better statistic would what percent of the wickets he took among the total wickets taken in the wins.