Overrated cricketers

[StinkyBoHoon]

i don't how you can cope with the channel 9 commentary team.

I wouldn't really object if someone was to take them all out and shoot them, except bill lawry, but only because he deserves to suffer first.

 

[Ahmad94]

All that was about Bradman? Wow, just wow.

To be fair we have no solid evidence of his batting. We can not say what cricket was like then

 

[cricket_icon]

Shahid 'pop-gun' Afridi as a batsman surely tops Pollard for being over-rated, for a while you'd think his batting was of Sehwag proportions

ODIs

Shahid Afridi : 6893 runs @ 23.69 (SR 114.14) & 333 wkts @ 33.27
Kieron Pollard : 1066 runs @ 23.69 (SR 102.30) & 37 wkts @ 35.00

I wasn't expecting their averages to be the same to 2 dp. Afridi's SR is remarkable, but both averages are well bp (below par) Six hundreds for the pop-gun says it all in 310 innings

2 or 3 years ago I would agree iwth you but Afridi has become one of the best bowlers on the planet in that time and his batting is a bonus. If he can keep taking wickets then fast scored of 20 odd are pretty useful. Pollard is just poor all over.

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I don't have a problem with him being number one in ODIs, but I don't think he deserves that in test cricket. I think he is being helped by the fact that guys like Mathews, Watson haven't been fully fit and performing that well in recent times and Kallis has lost his ability to take wickets regularly.

That's my take on why Shakib is the no.1 test allrounder, there really is noone to take that title from him Kallis these days is a batsman who bowls and like you said, Watson and Mathews have not been fully fit.

 

[Jagar]

Brad Haddin, I think Australia really wanted the next wicket keeper batsman to be permanent regardless.

 

[Jagar]

Is there any way you can prove that Bradman could have averaged 99.94 in the current era against the level of bowling and the invention of reverse swing, mystery spinners, doosra, etc.?

Would he have averaged 99.94 if he faced bowlers like against Ambrose-Walsh-Bishop, Wasim-Waqar-Akhtar-Saqlain, McGrath-Lee-Gilespie-Warne, Donald-Pollock,Steyn-Morkel,Murali- Vaas and many more?

Would he have been fit enough for the workload of modern cricket?

We cannot find a proper answer for such questions, because its impossible to know how a player would have performed in another era.

I'm probably late to the party as I haven't read the whole thread, but a lot of people use the argument that bowlers weren't as refined in techniques, special balls etc., but don't mention that batsmen also had less shots to their reportoir due to not using padding the hook shot wasn't played as often for example.

Add to that the fact that cricket was a hobby for rich gentleman at the time and Bradman came from a poorer background and gave up (at the time) more profitable careers to play cricket and you get a sense of the devotion to the sport he had.

And I'm not 100% sure but I am fairly certain he had to work a job as well as play cricket to feed his family.
And many of his records are overlooked other than the phenomonal average, take a look at the amount of innings it took players to get from 1000 to 2000 runs (or any 1000 interval) and you'll find the Don scored quicker than most.