Is there room...?

[Manee]

Hi all,

In the age of statsguru and more filters than one can count, is there still room for the simple man's analysis, the man (or woman) who watches cricket and thinks "he's good" because he looks the part or think "he's rubbish" because he has grinded his way to a fifty or the coach who picks a player based on one century or the fact that he has good pace in the hope that he'll improve quickly and find consistency in a high intensity environment or have we reached an age where, given the time, we can base all decisions on statstics. To take this one further, is there room for the common concensus, such as Tendulkar and Lara being great and Ponting being not quite as great - without any sort of given reason.

Moreover, is there room for the rating of a player by his peers for the intangibles, the fear a bowler struck in a batsman's heart or vice versa or the ability to grab the most important wickets or score the most important runs...

What do you think?

 

[Goughy]

Hi all,

In the age of statsguru and more filters than one can count, is there still room for the simple man's analysis, the man (or woman) who watches cricket and thinks "he's good" because he looks the part or think "he's rubbish" because he has grinded his way to a fifty or the coach who picks a player based on one century or the fact that he has good pace in the hope that he'll improve quickly and find consistency in a high intensity environment or have we reached an age where, given the time, we can base all decisions on statstics. To take this one further, is there room for the common concensus, such as Tendulkar and Lara being great and Ponting being not quite as great - without any sort of given reason.

Moreover, is there room for the rating of a player by his peers for the intangibles, the fear a bowler struck in a batsman's heart or vice versa or the ability to grab the most important wickets or score the most important runs...

What do you think?

IMO, there has never been much of a place for the first type of person. Quite simply most people talked bull**** about the game. They were clueless. It hasnt improved much (or at all) but at least when they talk bull**** they have a number to hold their hat on and are not completely naked.

Also common consensus is often just laziness.

The 2nd type is more interesting. By their definition intangibles cannot be measured and can be very important in evaluating a player. Often it can be key. There is still a role for this and a very important one at that.

If a guy played with someone and said that they were a leader who set an example and everyone followed and upped their performance, then that has to a massive positive.

And on the other hand there are the team cancers and coach killers.

 

[Athlai]

Show me a good player and I'll show you a guy with a good average TBH. Cricket is a game where how well you do is easily recorded by numbers since the goals of the game are simple. Either take wickets or score runs, if you do either of these effectively you are a good player. When it comes to the very best players we only have opinion and conjecture, as it should be in my opinion. Because cricket at the highest quality becomes more than just the simplicity of scoring runs and getting wickets, it becomes an art and art is highly subjective.

 

[duffer]

Show me a good player and I'll show you a guy with a good average TBH. Cricket is a game where how well you do is easily recorded by numbers since the goals of the game are simple. Either take wickets or score runs, if you do either of these effectively you are a good player. When it comes to the very best players we only have opinion and conjecture, as it should be in my opinion. Because cricket at the highest quality becomes more than just the simplicity of scoring runs and getting wickets, it becomes an art and art is highly subjective.

Very good summation for me.

 

[Richard]

Looking at a player as he's doing well and thinking "he's good" and looking at a player when he's doing poorly and saying "he's crap" is simplistic nonsense.

And that's all it's ever been. Fortunately as the game's gone on there's become more appreciation of the fact that scoring runs (for batsmen) and not conceding runs + taking wickets (for bowlers) is what makes a player good, and nothing else.

Obviously there are a million different things - some intangible - involved with how, why, when, where, against who, etc. exactly the above was done. But at the end of the day, scoring runs is what a batsman needs to do to be good, and he who does this best (not neccessarily best by simplistic measures [ie, overall career runs and average], but best) is the best batsman.

 

[bagapath]

stats and the quality of a player go together. cant really name too many players who were outstanding in their talents and a treat to watch but were abject failures statistically. a mark waugh, or an aravinda de silva, or a wasim akram was always naturally talented and exciting to watch - and they also have the numebrs to back their claim to be among the very best to have played this gamee. only when it comes to choosing one over the other - m.waugh vs a. de silva for example - the nit picking with the numbers and decimals come into play.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Cricket, much as a few posters on here would wish, isn't a game played by robots. The journey is far more interesting than the destination for me. In fact this point should be obvious or none of us would even bother watching games, we'd just analyse the scorecards after the fact. Whilst stats are indicative of a player's ability, they aren't definitively conclusive.

Example off the top of my head: Kenny Barrington. In terms of brute statistics he's head and shoulders above any other English test batsman to debut post-WW2. How many times is he spoken of as "the best" tho? Peter May, Lord Ted, hell even Sir Geoffrey, who was hardly a study in elegant stroke play, all have their advocates, but not the bloke with the average in the high 50s. The "how" is almost as important as the "how many" for mine.

 

[fredfertang]

Cricket, much as a few posters on here would wish, isn't a game played by robots. The journey is far more interesting than the destination for me. In fact this point should be obvious or none of us would even bother watching games, we'd just analyse the scorecards after the fact. Whilst stats are indicative of a player's ability, they aren't definitively conclusive.

Example off the top of my head: Kenny Barrington. In terms of brute statistics he's head and shoulders above any other English test batsman to debut post-WW2. How many times is he spoken of as "the best" tho? Peter May, Lord Ted, hell even Sir Geoffrey, who was hardly a study in elegant stroke play, all have their advocates, but not the bloke with the average in the high 50s. The "how" is almost as important as the "how many" for mine.

That thought about Kenny Barrington has occurred to me as well. I believe he tends to be overlooked because the 1959-1968 period was without doubt the dullest in English test history - the only truly memorable series in that time was the 1963 W Indies tour and that of 1966 to a lesser extent and by his own standards he certainly underachieved in those