Countdown to Twenty Three Hundreds.

[meninblue]

The bowlers of previous era enjoyed the favorable conditions of bowling on uncovered wickets. However, in spite of batting friendly wickets and covered wickets nowadays the bowlers of today have better or as good a strike rate to bowlers of the past. I wonder how Steyn, Murali, Wasim, Bond, McGrath, Jimmy, Ambrose and many other bowlers would have achieved on those wickets. it cannot be imagined. Bowling was favored then so the batters of that era did a good job. However, bowlers of this era are very very excellent. Imagine Kumble on uncovered wicket

[D/L]

Yes, the game has got progressively easier for batsmen and more difficult for bowlers, sba.

[rich1uk]

yeah D/L i must have clearly misunderstod when you said things like ;

Clearly, with more test innings comes the opportunity to score more test hundred

Given the number of tests played by some players these days

[OffStumpYorker]

the main difference in the careers is as M-S mentioned earlier in the thread we now dont seem to have as many players with the same longevity as we did in the past

It seems to be the trend though with sportsmen/women in general, they retire 4-5 years sooner than they did 30-40 years ago, when you consider Boycott played until he was mid 40's, and Pre WWII being 30-35 was the point you were considered to just be reaching your prime, now you're considered to be almost over the hill.

More likely the early retirement is due to them being more financially secure a lot younger, as well as all the lucrative Media deals that they get offered by local tv channels, columns in the papers.

[Making_Splinters]

I think directly comparing eras is basically impossible and there has been a large degree of mystifying the past from both the "easier" and "harder" camps, take uncovered wickets for example which are often proffered as proof that batting must have been harder but they certainly weren't the matted or under prepared wickets of the late 1800s and pre first world war era and unless it had actually rained they weren't treacherous automatically.

With regards to this thread there is an obvious statement that can be made: It is harder to score more runs and more tons if you are unable to play as many matches but that is really as far as such statements can be objectively taken.

There has been a gradual decline in the age at which people are seen as been at their peak, perhaps it is because these trends were originally born out of the generation of players who lost large chunks of their careers to the Wars so were keen to play on, or perhaps it is a direct product of the lower level of internation cricket played and so prolonged burn out over a career stacking up or maybe we are just all more plugged into to every game a player player and so periods of failure are less tolerated at all levels (unlikely).

[rich1uk]

With regards to this thread there is an obvious statement that can be made: It is harder to score more runs and more tons if you are unable to play as many matches but that is really as far as such statements can be objectively taken.

but the stats show that players from previous eras did play as many tests overall tho and that their ratio of innings:centuries was no better than the current players vying for the record

i know some posters like trying to think that everything in the past was better but in this case the stats just do not back that up and i agree 100% that its impossible to try and compare degrees of difficulty as there are factors for and against each era and they cannot be quantified

[Making_Splinters]

With regards to this thread there is an obvious statement that can be made: It is harder to score more runs and more tons if you are unable to play as many matches but that is really as far as such statements can be objectively taken.

but the stats show that players from previous eras did play as many tests overall tho and that their ratio of innings:centuries was no better than the current players vying for the record

i know some posters like trying to think that everything in the past was better but in this case the stats just do not back that up and i agree 100% that its impossible to try and compare degrees of difficulty as there are factors for and against each era and they cannot be quantified

I was thinking about the way player careers play out the other day - most players tend to go through very productive purple patches where they score above their average number of runs per tests then longer below average spells, so no player is actually scoring a ton per x number of tests over their career tying in with Delta's recent thread.

You might suggest therefore that if you have a lower density of test matches that a player would be less able to make the most out of the productive parts of his career.Just a musing and as much as I do enjoy reading around the game I'm not going to trawl through innings lists for the the names mentioned in this thread and look at how their career scoring paterns were broken up.

[OffStumpYorker]

M_S, interesting point and not something I'd considered, as you say those that played in the days when you would only have 5 tests a summer and could pick and chose the away series you played in, probably did ride out there bad patches as they would have been underperforming in First class games thus wouldnt have been selected, I know Hobbs went through off patches between Ashes series where he would average less than 30 for an entire season or two.

[D/L]

yeah D/L i must have clearly misunderstod when you said things like ;

Clearly, with more test innings comes the opportunity to score more test hundred

Given the number of tests played by some players these days

Hard to believe isn't it?

[braveneutral]

Strauss goes to 21.

[ddb]

30 behind selfish.

[braveneutral]

That is because he plays for his side not his statistics.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Well done Strausser. Didn't get as much applause as Sammy and Samuels though.

[rich1uk]

fun day today AC ?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yesterday was more entertaining. Until KP came in anyway. Should be a great day tomorrow. After Strauss gets out with the addition of four runs to his overnight score.