Indian Cricket Thread

[Arthur Crabtree]

Might as well...

Gavaskar/Sehwag/Dravid/Kohli/Tendulkar/Dhoni/Ashwin/Kapil Dev/Kumble/Bumrah/Shami.

Jadeja for Shami if in Asia.

So I've changed my punt to 'sometimes'.

[sussexpob]

There is always an inherent bias in play when discussing these sorts of questions, because if we were talking about a batsman that averaged 65 at home for Australia or England, or a seam bowler that was unplayable in England, we would judge the lack of away form not on a lack of quality but on the unfairness of home banker conditions in Asia that make it impossible for a seamer to thrive there (while ignoring Bumrah has the best average recorded since WWII on India pitches as a seamer). And yet, it never seems to work in the counter.... no one questions Andersons pretty meh away record as being representative of him being only great on green pitches in England, and therefore tear his legacy apart. But they will accuse Jadeja of being only useful on pitches that turn sideways and being not that great.

No player since WWI has retired having taken at least 50 wickets under 20 runs a piece. The average of 20 for a bowler is therefore the absolute cusp of what can be deemed possible judging on 110 years of modern day cricket. Those that get to that 20 wicket mark are representative of the pinnacle of all bowlers performance.... Jadeja has 215 wickets in India at 20. In Indian conditions, which I may add have since the 1990s produced the statistically toughest bowling conditions for bowlers on the amount of runs scored, Jadeja is as good as any bowler that has ever lived. That is not an easy thing to throw away. We aren't talking about someone who is merely ok or good on occasions, we are talking a decade of play that has never been surpassed in the history of the game.

Those bowlers that do get close... how many average 40 with the bat? How many are even worthy enough of mention in the same breath as Jadeja as a fielder?

I think, and I say this with no hyberbole, that Jadeja's performances at home not only make him an India all time XI candidate, or even a World XI all time candidate..... but if we consider just his home form, as an overall player, he's second only to Bradman in the history of the game. No one gets as close to his all rounder contributions... maybe Sobers, but I personall think an average of 40 with the bat gets you into all but the best line ups of all time as a specialist bat, a bowling average of 34 gets you nowhere near a 4 man specialist attack of decent quality.

Its hard to under-estimate just how great those figures are.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not playing Test cricket at a time of great strength though. It's hard to allow for, but is the game now really as strong as 20 years ago?

Even so, he stands out as a spinning allrounder.

[meninblue]

Thanks for the detailed response, Adi.

I think its fair to say that money plays its part; Mumbai is rich, a capital of wealth, and therefore has some infrastructure. I just wonder how much talent exists bubbling under the surface, and how hard the game in India is looking. Cricket in many ways is a different reality to other worldwide sports; it needs a certain degree of space, and a certain degree of equipment when getting to an organised format .... the big metropolis may have that in India, as you outline... but where it does not, I would guess no one is looking.

Football is much simpler to play, the main reason its the world's adopted sport..... but in football, how many of the best talents came from the slums of South America where no infrastructure existed? In places like Argentina, its the barrios that produce your Maradona's and such....

I wonder how many ridiculously talented cricketers exist outside of the system in India.... and fear that, once India start looking for them, no one has any chance left in the International game.

Other Tier 1 , Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities have also improved the cricketing structure and the number of cricket tournaments being played at grassroot levels. There is rise in number of youth participating in professional cricket. But northeast places like Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland is where cricket is still not upto the mark. Football is widely played in Northeast region.

Zaheer Khan came to Mumbai and with helpful coach in Sudhir Naik who guided him when he was struggling to get a good team was a defining moment in Zaheer's career. Vinod kambli who was not rich made a big name of himself under the eyes of Ramakant Achrekar who coached Kambli alongside Sachin who was from a well to do family. Yashasvi Jaiswal lived in a tents at Azad Maidan and made a career in cricket. So there are examples where the not so well to do club cricketers have managed to become superstar when they have got support.

Dhoni is another example of small town boy making a big name decades back.

Given the growth of cricket in other small places, it is getting better for cricket players. Also now the number of Ranji teams hs increased to 38. No other country has so many teams in thei prime domestic first class tournament. So the cricket ecosystem (now) is well in place. That along with IPL providing opportunities in cricket squad, it will help bring the talented players into some spotlight to get a kickstart.

[meninblue]

Random question i know.....but for you guys does Ravindra Jadeja make all an time test Indian XI?

Ashwin and Kumble are the first two choice bowlers given their skills with spin bowling. Although very successful, Jaddu is a limited spinner in term of variations. He would eb the third spinner if the test match is in Asia. Also, amongst all the test payers in India, Jadeja is the best fielder Indian has seen who has played test forma tin India Robin Singh, Yuvraj, Mohd. kaif could not maitain a spot in test cricket. Also Sir can surely bat and his batting in last 5 years or so has vastly improved.

[sussexpob]

Random question i know.....but for you guys does Ravindra Jadeja make all an time test Indian XI?

Ashwin and Kumble are the first two choice bowlers given their skills with spin bowling. Although very successful, Jaddu is a limited spinner in term of variations. He would eb the third spinner if the test match is in Asia. Also, amongst all the test payers in India, Jadeja is the best fielder Indian has seen who has played test forma tin India Robin Singh, Yuvraj, Mohd. kaif could not maitain a spot in test cricket. Also Sir can surely bat and his batting in last 5 years or so has vastly improved.

I don't get why Kumble should be considered above Jadeja. Jadeja averages 20 to Kumbles 24 in India.... and 32 away to Kumble's 35.... before we consider the fielding excellence and the huge difference in batting. Kumble's away record without BD and Zimbabwe is even less impressive. He averages nearly 40.... which is falling away from bare minimum test standards.

Kumble had to play on helpful tracks because he didnt turn it a lot. On non-spinning tracks, he had to rely on variation of bounce.... even in era's where England couldnt bat against spin for toffee, he did nothing

[sussexpob]

Not playing Test cricket at a time of great strength though. It's hard to allow for, but is the game now really as strong as 20 years ago?

I find discussions about strengths of eras entirely redundant, because too much is based on nostalgia. And even in a scientific way, its impossible to quantify... does a drop in run scoring indicate worst batting or better bowling for instance? I guess some would say both in nowadays terms, but then its an observation made no evidential background. I see these arguments a lot in football, and I am suspicious of them... if you teleported peak Maradona into modern day football, he'd be playing at Boston United. Too slow, too weak, his touch is now equivalent to the average League two goalkeeper, and he would be dead after 15 minutes at the current pace. The game moved on, all that made him special (and he was special) is no longer applicable.

I guess in cricket, the biggest example I can think of is bowling speeds. People always claim in some counter-scientific way that bowlers in 1920s like Larwood would be quicker than Brett Lee.... look at sports now, and tell me one sport where something so based on fast twich muscles and physicality is even comparable to 20-30 years ago? Its not. Yet, we remember the Lilles, thommos, Holdings, Roberts as being quick snarling beasts.... in 1979-80, in the only scientific study they did before proper bowling clocks came into the game, none of that generation of golden mega-fast bowlers actually turned out to be that fast. Thommo clocked one ball over 90mph.... the rest could only muster bests of low to mid 80s.... Hadlee was labelled "fast" and got one ball over 80mph, the rest would be military medium... at his physical peak of his career. I think its needless to say that you go back to bodyline, Larwood was not bowling anywhere near 90 mph. Probably not even 80mph. And for a guy working full time in coke dust, who liked booze and smoked 80 woodbines a day, he probably wouldn't be able to sustain that pace for more than 2 balls.

In all honesty, I reckon if you had Bradman, Hutton, Headly, Pollock, Sobers and Hobbs all in the same line up at their relative peaks, and sent them out against Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar, they'd be back in the pavillion supping tea by midday on day 1. They would never have faced anything comparable to that.... The same with a Lille or Thommo bowling to someone now...how would they react to the alien concept of being dilscooped over the keepers head?

The game has changed, but bowlers are quicker on average, they are fitter and have more endurance.... players go on tour more, spend much more time away from home, play more games, the games they play are beamed around the world, the interest of India makes the money and stakes higher... I can go on... Would any legend before 2000 cope with that? Would they be as good? I am always critical of seeing evolution as negative... why would anyone choose to change the way they prepare, if its clearly inferior?

I guess the bottom line is, you treat everyone the same. India have become as unbeatable at home as any side in the games history, that's enough for me. If Jadeja wasn't doing something special, someone would have worked out in 11 years how to win a series against him.... fact is, no one has come close.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Did Ben ever find himself bowling to Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Symonds and Gilchrist in the same match, then faced up to Warne, McGrath, Lee, Clark and DIzzy when coming out to bat?

I thought I would be on firm ground given your recent discussion!

I was comparing with 20 years ago, which isn't deep history. I accept the golden age is unknowably murky. Though The Don's average being 40 above anyone else from his era still demands respect...

[Arthur Crabtree]

Tommo was clocked at 98 at his peak.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I accept the golden age is unknowably murky.

Though exotic and mistily romantic.

[meninblue]

Random question i know.....but for you guys does Ravindra Jadeja make all an time test Indian XI?

Ashwin and Kumble are the first two choice bowlers given their skills with spin bowling. Although very successful, Jaddu is a limited spinner in term of variations. He would eb the third spinner if the test match is in Asia. Also, amongst all the test payers in India, Jadeja is the best fielder Indian has seen who has played test forma tin India Robin Singh, Yuvraj, Mohd. kaif could not maitain a spot in test cricket. Also Sir can surely bat and his batting in last 5 years or so has vastly improved.

I don't get why Kumble should be considered above Jadeja. Jadeja averages 20 to Kumbles 24 in India.... and 32 away to Kumble's 35.... before we consider the fielding excellence and the huge difference in batting. Kumble's away record without BD and Zimbabwe is even less impressive. He averages nearly 40.... which is falling away from bare minimum test standards.

Kumble had to play on helpful tracks because he didnt turn it a lot. On non-spinning tracks, he had to rely on variation of bounce.... even in era's where England couldnt bat against spin for toffee, he did nothing

On pure bowling skills, Kumble has better variety than Jaddu. He had flipper, Googly, top spin, the one that holds the line. Jadeja and Kumble both need turning wickets. The only similarity between them is both bowl within the stumps.

If we factor in batting and bowling, then Jaddu has better skills in both these aspects.

[sussexpob]

Tommo was clocked at 98 at his peak.

The balls measured in the 1975 test between Windies and Australia can be completely disregarded, because they were measured using a high speed camera that does not measure speed, it just films things at very high frame rates. The assumption would be that each frame can be apportioned a set amount of time based on how many frames there are a second, and then you would observe the ball in ultra slow motion counting each frame over a given distance, allowing you to calculate speed. Shutter lag/latency would significantly distort the measurement of time in this instance, and the "distance" element would be impossible to gauge accurately with a camera filming from the boundary edge. Bowler speed is measured at release point, so how could someone without only an image recording camera adequately measure distance from 100ms away? The only certain way you could do it would be to take the pitch length as given distance, but then the ball decelerates a lot after release, and a lot from the pitch- and the individual resistance from any given surface is not fixed, so you cant reverse calculate release speed based on average distance after its got to the batsman, even things like length it hits the pitch will signficantly alter the speed it gets to the batsman from (and even then, the exact interception and release point is not going to be the total length of the pitch, so you still need to make up a distance assessment on the same flawed criteria).

Short answer.... these figures are worthless. Proper speed guns use radar/doppler effect to measure speed, not such a crude image based S/D/T calculation. The measurements made in 1979/80 were a lot more sophisticated and had a lot more elements to them, and things like distance could be measured accurately rather than on pure guesswork. So the most accurate study before radar cameras would indicate even in conditions where bowling speed was not required to be sustained, and there was no need for accuracy, the quickest bowlers of the golden age were all measured at fast-medium pace, save for Thommo who clocked one ball just over 90 mph.

Typhoon Tyson was measured in some labratory in the 50s using some space age NASA equipment, and he clocked high 70s to mid 80s in his session.

Its all folklore. The sensation of danger and speed is no doubt effected by not wearing a helmet...

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not playing Test cricket at a time of great strength though. It's hard to allow for, but is the game now really as strong as 20 years ago?

Golden age of white ball though. Just in case i sound unwilling to accommodate a changing world, rendering me resentful, negative and narrow minded.

[sussexpob]

I was comparing with 20 years ago, which isn't deep history. I accept the golden age is unknowably murky. Though The Don's average being 40 above anyone else from his era still demands respect...

I think claims that Bradman played through the golden era are themselves indicative of the blind bias that is given to certain eras in the game. I would say without a shred of doubt that Bradman's era is the worst throughout test history, and one of the reasons that you get such a statistical outlier as himself in the game. All the test teams he played were rubbish at this time and new to the game, save for England, who had lost 250 FC cricketers in WWI and struggled to repair the domestic game for decades after.

The game was still about class and wealth. Post-war and depression era meant less amateurs playing on merit, and more on being able to afford to play if you wanted. Counties at this time have many players who wouldn't even get into a bad sunday league team. Yokshire and Lancashire, who won 19 of the 21 CCs inbetween the two world wars, were both captained by players who batted at 11 and didn't bowl, and who averaged 8 and 10 in FC respectively. Bradman scored 900 plus runs in the 1930s Ashes, but the England team had Cambridge University students bowling for it, ones that had never played FC to that point. Another bowler ended up as a senior officer in the RAF in WWII.

Its dubious at this point whether test status should be given to matches. Nowadays we say "England v Australia", but its not true - it was the MCC selection touring Australia, not an England team. And these selections were not based on merit. My favourite stat of this era is, in 1933 England won the Ashes away with a team featuring 14 out 17 players who were amateurs..... The following summer, the players beat the gentleman by an innings and 310 runs, with a sporting declaration included. So Bradman played against an "England side" during a seismic period of recovery the game had to endure, against a side that cannot be described as its best representatives, and even then those that did get to play he did managed through various reasons to dodge.

I mean, take the low point of his career initiated by Larwood.... never had to face him again as Larwood took all the blame for Bodyline. Bowes was a part-time cricketer who didnt have a deal to play as he couldnt afford to be an amateur, and ended up missing tests to groundstaff at Lords for his day job. Verity and Farnes died in WWII. Gubby Allen had a full time job and rarely played.

You can even go into other things like player health. The post WWII Ashes series are noted for the fact rationing meant England's players were under-weight and underfit. Gubby Allen said of his 46-47 away tour in Australia that all the players felt like stepping into the land of milk and honey... they all gorged on food for the first time in 6-7 years, and all of them put on weight... Allen estimated they all put on 5-6 stone each during the tour, and were not in any shape to play. And then in 1948, which was the peak of the rationing period, they all were underweight after returning.

And that's before we get to pitches.... In the handfull of a few years, 3 of Englands 5 top team scorers in history were made including highest one. Same for Australia (and in both cases, highest conceeded). The test indivdual innings record was broken multiple times by both teams, with 3 of England's triple centuries being wracked off quickly, and 6 of Australia's all time top 19 sores being knocked off in the space of 4 years. Bradman's record has been only surpassed twice by Australians since, and no one has got within 31 runs of Hammond's record for England. Individual series runs for batsman..... 7 of the top 10 all time come within this span, and another in the 1948 Ashes.... Bradman has 4, but 4 other batsman feature in the all time list.... both equate to England's highest, Australia's highest, and highest overall..... By all measures, this was a record breaking batting era for both sides.

I think (I can be corrected, its something I remember reading but cant be bothered to check) that Bradman was only top scorer for Australia in 3 of the 8 series he played in Ashes cricket, and in some wasn't even second. So it was farily common to average mammoth runs in series, Bradman was just more consistent. I think in 1948 all the invincible piled up runs, and Bradman was like 4th best with an average in the 70s. I guess you can some up the state of English cricket after two world wars in quick succession by the fact Australia, who didn't win the last away Ashes in 1938 , felt confident in remaining unbeaten in the 1948 tour ont he basis England were so rubbish.

Any team Jadeja played against would be better than any Bradman played against who werent England. And then maybe if we somehow killed off 75% of Australia cricketers, gave them no facilities or players to recover, then set him to play their D team we coulf fully compare eras.

Bradman played in a pants era. Hed never have averaged anything near 100 being born ten years after or before.

[Arthur Crabtree]

It's an interesting and persuasive point of view. Especially about the war dead. Though the Don played for many years after that must have no longer been a factor. The lost generation was soon replaced. South Africa I think were a decent side back then. And I'm not sure it all explains why Bradman was so much more successful than anyone else.

The players who grew up in that era and played in the 50s and 60s and became the commentators of my youth, never gave any impression that the Invincibles were a ordinary players made to look good by low general standards. But maybe that's human nature.

But most importantly, I feel sentimentally attached to our shared past, and I don't feel emotionally up to the job of writing off a two generations of cricketers who lived and dreamed! I accept this may not be realistic. And maybe this is just the beginning of my elderly sensibilities. As I say, you make some excellent points though!