Is Sachin Tendulkar the greatest player of his generation?

Much has been made by pundits in the press, the commentary box and sitting around the bar in various establishments around the country this summer about Sachin Tendulkar's race to a century of international centuries.  Such discussions are often supplemented by a discussion about Tendulkar's legacy with most anointing him as the player of this generation and second only to Bradman.

I will be up front here: the focus on Tendulkar's search for his 100th 100 has done nothing for me.  Personally I have been overjoyed every time an Australian bowler has bested him.  I think Tendulkar is an exceptional player, particularly in his home conditions and I think that anyone who has had to live with the pressure of basically being a living deity deserves nothing but the utmost respect and admiration.

Tendulkar's statistics speak for themselves: 33,543 runs in both international forms of the game, 99 centuries, a test batting average of 55.71 and 199 wickets in both forms of the game.

Do those statistics mean he is the greatest player of his generation?  A consideration of the other "candidates" leads me to an answer that many will disagree with: No he is not!

Who are the other candidates?  I will consider 4 players for the purpose of this exercise:

1. Ricky Ponting
2. Jacques Kallis
3. Muttiah Muriliduran
4. Brian Lara

There are two aspects to consider here in my view:

1. A pure review of the statistics of each player.  For this purpose I will combine the efforts of the players in both tests and one day fixtures; and
2. A consideration of how each player has faired against the best team of this generation at their home venue: Australia.  Simply put, Australia in Australia has been the toughest test for any player during the span of the career's of all players a part of this discussion.

So the pure statistics first:

Player	Matches	Runs	Averages	100s	Wickets	Average	Catches
Tendulkar	640	33543	49.47	99	199	46.49	248
Ponting	531	26605	46.92	70	8		348
Kallis	469	23741	50.84	58	541	32.14	303
Muralitharan	483	1935			1334	22.85	202
Lara	430	22358	46.29	53	4		284

I will start by saying this: no matter the player we are talking about there is no team in the world that would not find a place in their best team during this period for them.

These numbers show that, in the grand scheme of things, each of the batting records of Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis and Lara are pretty even.  On a percentage basis, if you extrapolate the runs scored by each player forward to the number of games Tendulkar has played then Kallis comes on in front but not by much.

Additionally the numbers show that Muralitharan is a freak.  His sheer weight of wickets will never be beaten in my view.  The record of Kallis though is also alluring.   541 wickets at 32.14 is nothing short of impressive.

So where do the numbers above leave us: as noted, the run scoring of the batsmen comes out pretty even and the wickets of Muralitharan are amazing.  The only batsmen to contribute with the ball are Kallis and Tendulkar.  When you compare Kallis to Tendulkar with the ball you are frankly comparing apples and oranges: one is a full time bowler and the other is a part timer.

Thus I come to the conclusion that, strictly on the numbers, Kallis is the superior player.

That view will not be a popular one: hence why I think it is necessary to consider how each player has gone against the best team in world during this period in their own conditions.  During the period 1990 to present day that team has to be Australia in Australia.   At the outset, based on my theory, this means that Ricky Ponting can not be the greatest player of his generation.  He has played in the best team of this generation and has been its star no doubt.  However, he has not played against the best on their home turf.  Therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, Ponting is removed from consideration.

So then: who has performed best in Australia against Australia between Tendulkar, Kallis, Lara and Murali?  For the purpose of this part of my theory I will focus on the test records of the players.  In Australia, the following is each players' record:

Player	Matches	Runs	Averages	100s	Wickets	Average	Catches
Tendulkar	20	1809	53.2	6	7	44.22	16
Kallis	12	915	45.75	2	19	43.78	16
Muralitharan	5	42	0	0	12	75.41	6
Lara	19	1469	41.97	4	0	0	19

The immediate thing that strikes one on considering these statistics is that of all of the players, Tendulkar has performed closest to his statistical average performance.  Murali only played 5 tests in Australia: frankly that was his choice and when he did come to Australia he did not bowl well.  Lara, 277 in Sydney and 210 in Adelaide aside, struggled with the conditions and the crowds and did not lead his team any identifiable victory in Australia.

That leaves Kallis: do his performances in Australia stack up or are they explainable for the purposes of this blog?   The short answer is that there are obvious reasons for Kallis' dip in form in Australia.  The most obvious of reasons is that on the recent occasions Kallis has been in Australia he has been injured which has effected the amount he has bowled and his presence at the crease.

Ultimately though: it is hard to argue against Tendulkar in Australia against Australians.

So then: what is the answer?  Is Tendulkar the greatest player of his generation?  Tendulkar is no doubt the greatest batsman of his generation but the question to consider is: if you had a choice between Tendulkar and Kallis who would you choose?  Both are batsmen of the highest quality, both are good in the field BUT one is also a recognised fast medium bowler with over 500 international wickets to his name whereas the other is a part timer.

The answer then is obvious: I choose Kallis.  When it comes down to it for what he brings to his team with ball, when you consider that they are basically even with the willow,  he must be the greatest player of his generation.

ICC and the 2015 World Cup: 10 teams and a massive joke!

News today that only the 10 test playing cricket nations will be represented at the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is frankly a knee jerk reaction to criticism about the length of the 2007 and 2011 tournaments and again shows just how narrow sighted the ICC are.  If they are not being narrow sighted then this is the most obvious case of cutting off ones nose despite ones face you could imagine.

The decision seems so much like a bad joke that I had to check the date to make sure I was not being sucked in by an April Fool's Day hoax.  It is even more of a joke that it is not such a hoax.

For the record, the following nations are test playing nations:  Australia, New Zealand, England, West Indies, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

From the most recent Cricket World Cup, the following nations will miss out: Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands and Kenya.

At the outset, my view is that the failure to include Ireland as a full cricketing nation as well as it not being in the next World Cup is a disgrace.  Nothing less.  The sooner Ireland is placed on the track to becoming a full cricketing nation, the better.

That said, what should be done about the 2015 World Cup, aside from including Ireland as a full cricketing nation?

I come back to the theme of a previous post.  Teams such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe were once (and some would say in the case of the last two teams still are) "minnows" or associate teams.

The story of Sri Lanka's rise from "minnow" to being one of the powerhouses of the game is a great story and is instructive as to why the ICC's decision is just so wrong.

Sri Lanka's initial exposure to international cricket was in the 1975 World Cup (they lost all three games they played).  Then they did not play in another international tournament until the 1979 World Cup (where they won their first game against India and had a match abandoned as well as losing one game).  After the 1979 World Cup, Sri Lanka began playing in Test Match Cricket on a limited basis in the 1981/82 season and played in a limited number of one day tournaments in the meantime.

In the 1983 and 1987 World Cups the Sri Lankan team failed to record a victory from 10 games.  In 1992 the results of the Sri Lankan team started to improve with 2 victories and a no result the positives from 6 games of cricket played.

The tale of the tape then is that before the Sri Lankan team won the 1996 World Cup it had won 3 games from a total of 22 played at World Cups.  Importantly during this period Sri Lanka was offered and maintained test status and started playing cricket regularly.  There is no need to continue to expand on Sri Lanka's results since 1992 - they are one of the dominant forces in the game.

Why shouldn't the current associates be given a chance to emulate what Sri Lanka has done with its chance.   If at any point in those formative years upto and including 1992 the ICC (and its predecessors) had have made a decision like the present one what state would Sri Lankan cricket be in now?  Is it possible that names such as Sangakarra, Malinga et al would have been lost to cricket?

Equally, questions need to be asked as to why Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, as test playing nations, receive an automatic chance to play in the "big show" when their respective results are no better than, for example, Ireland.

Zimbabwe, the country and the cricketing team, are not worthy of a place in the "Top Ten" cricketing nations in the world.  The ICC has always gone against public and moral opinion and kept them in the game (albeit with a reduced role) for no cogently explained reason.  It can't be about money, because playing Zimbabwe could not be making anyone any money.  This blog is not the forum for an in depth discussion of this issue.

The inclusion of the Bangladesh team presents even more of a conundrum because they have been playing test cricket regularly but they are not, lets be honest, competitive.  Equally the reasons for Bangladesh's inclusion in the "Top 10" are clear - Bangladesh has a fanatical base of supporter, a large TV market and form part of the all conquering Asian bloc of international cricket.  Whether one likes it or not the Bangladesh cricket team is in the "Top 10" to stay.

So in the current "Top 10" we see 2 minnows of the game who will be at the next World Cup.  Frankly, Zimbabwe do not deserve to be an automatically selected team for the next World Cup by any measure.   Setting aside the problems with the regime in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe cricket team is a minnow by any measure and, indeed, has not played a Test Match since 2006 and has only been involved in a limited number of limited overs matches in recent years.  

It is abundantly clear from this decision that the ICC wishes to limit the number of teams at the next World Cup to 10 teams.  If 10 teams is the maximum (I for one do not believe that 12 teams would be out of the question but will focus on the 10 team scenario for the moment) then the answer must be for their to be a qualifying tournament before the World Cup to be held with each of the associates, including Zimbabwe, Ireland and the Netherlands playing off for the final spot in the "Top 10".

Any tournament that includes a team of Zimbabwe without at the very minimum allowing teams like Ireland and the Netherlands to compete with it for the last spot in the tournament is, simply, a joke and the sooner the ICC reconsiders this ridiculous decision the better.

World Cup 2011 - some lessons and the Team of the Tournament

The Cricket World Cup is finally over after spanning 46 days and many many games that really did not seem to mean anything.  India won what really was a great game of cricket.  What lessons have cricket fans learnt from the 2011 World Cup?

After pondering it overnight I have come up with the following:

1. The best team won in the end.  India may not have had the best bowling or fielding line ups but their powerhouse batting, coupled with an excellent captain and seemingly cohesive team spirit won out the day.  They lifted in the field when it counted.  Forget the ICC ratings – this is the best team in all forms of the game at the moment.
2. Australia simply picked the wrong bowling lineup.  Fast bowlers on the wickets of the subcontinent were always going to be hit and miss and in the big moments the triumvirate of Lee, Tait and Johnson were simply too wayward and, if it makes sense, fast to win those big moments.  The selectors “jobbed” it and the captain has taken the blame.  Sad state of affairs in Australian cricket at the moment.
3. None of the New Zealand players would make a world’s best eleven (Ross Taylor the possible exclusion) but they are a united team.  They played as a team and, as always seems to happen, they sucked every bit of talent they had out of their team.  How good is it to see Jesse Ryder get a run and go well – make one ponder what might have been for M Cosgrove in the Australian line up.
4. Sri Lanka is one quality batsman away from dominating the cricket world.  They have a replacement, of sorts, to Murali in Mendis (their failure to select him in the final may have been decisive) and have a great top 4 in the batting order.  One more batsmen of the quality of Yuvraj Singh or Ross Taylor to support Sangakarra and Jayawardene and they would truly be dynamite.
5. In the form of Dhoni, Sangakarra, Afridi and Vettori the four teams in the finals possessed the 4 best captains in the tournament.  Afridi has bound together a notoriously fractious team into a united outfit with weapons across the park.

The above is the top 5 lessons I came up.  I have culled about another 10 which are likely to become the fodder of later blogs (indeed one already has been in a blog regarding the place for the “minnows” in the World Cup).

Before this tournament many pundits considered the 50 over game to be dead but some of the games of cricket we have seen over the last month and a half will go down in the annals of limited overs cricket as classics.   We have also seen the end of an era inasmuch as the next World Cup will be played without the names Tendulark, Murali and Ponting in the teams lists.  

All that is left then, aside from saluting the victors, is to pick my “Team of the Tournament”.  What follows is the team that I consider to be the best team from all of the players who played in the World Cup.  It is not a collection of the 12 best players of the last 12 months nor is it supposed to represent the best one day players in the game.  Simply I have tried to pick the best team solely based on performances in this tournament.  In batting order, my team is:

1. Tendulkar: simply the best ever.  I am sorry Sir Don but he just is and his batting this tournament has shown age has not wearied him.  The biggest wicket in any game played.  Nothing more needs to be said.
2. Dilshan: was dominant at the top of the order for the Sri Lankan’s and scored the most runs in the tournament.  Can not look past him to partner the Great One.
3. Sangakarra: plays as a batsman in this lineup given that Dhoni is selected and gets picked at 3 because he is the best number three in the tournament and in the game.
4. Jayawardene: Scratchy tournament really book ended by two hundreds but his hundred in the final was sublime.  The innings of the tournament selects him in this team.
5. De Villiers: despite South Africa going out early had a tournament that showed just how good a player he is.   353 runs in 5 knocks is evidence of that.
6. Singh: have never really been a fan till this tournament but with the bat and the ball was the quality allrounder of the tournament.  Lifted in the field in the final and was in everything.
7. Dhoni: Bats low in this lineup and already have Sangakarra but he gets picked because he is the best captain going around.  Enough said.
8. Afridi: Most wickets in the tournament, streaky with the bat and a great leader.  Gives great balance, on the pitches the tournament was played on, to this lineup.
9. Khan Z: Has there been a better spell in a World Cup final than the first 5 overs Zaheer bowled last night?  Left arm and fast with swing.  To good.
10. Riaz: The find of the tournament.  How much does this guy remind one of Akram?  Brilliant spell in the semi final after getting a run in front of Ahktar.
11. Murali:  Everyone knew the old stager had one more big tournament in him and on one leg he did not disappoint.  Forget all of the crap that has gone in Australia about this bloke – he is a legend.
12. Roach: I know he got 6 for and his hatrick against a minnow but he is quick and bowls straight without a lot of the waywardness of other allegedly express bowlers.

So that is my tournament lineup and some thoughts about the tournament.  Comments and alternate selections encouraged and, indeed, welcomed.

World Cup 2011- considering the place of the “minnows”

Much has been made in the commentary about the present Cricket World Cup about the inclusion of the so called “minnow” teams.  Some commentary has been good, some has been bad and some has focused on entirely another issue, the length of the tournament.

Firstly, which teams are we talking about?  In viewing much of this present tournament I have considered the following terms to be minnows:

• ·      Canada;
• ·      Netherlands;
• ·      Ireland;
• ·      Zimbabwe; and
• ·      Kenya.

These teams are quiet obviously identifiable at the base of the points tables in either of Groups A and B.  To focus though on their respective positions on the table would be to denigrate what some of these teams, at least, have brought to this World Cup.  Who will forget:

• ·      Ireland’s defeat of England – an exhilarating game and one for which the victory of Ireland has frankly been sullied by everyone’s focus on who poor England were.
• ·      The Netherlands pushing England to the limit thanks to ten Doeschate’s ton.
• ·      Canada’s opening batsmen flaying the Australian pace attack with a 19 year old pummeling Messrs Lee, Tait and Johnson.
• ·      Kenya batting through 50 overs against Australia.

Finally, this evening we have been served up a great game of cricket between Ireland and the Dutch to bring a close to the involvement of these teams in this tournament.

Sure there have also been some spectacular failures by these teams, but one could never question their spirit and their keenness to play on the “big” stage.

Pundits are also very quick to forget that in the early 80s Sri Lankan cricket and its team was clearly in the “minnow” category.  They won the whole shooting match in 1996 and are now one of the powerhouses in world cricket.  More recently, Bangladesh would have been considered to be true minnows but they now have Test status and are fast becoming competitive.  What is to say that with another decade of play under its belt, this young team could do a “Sri Lanka” in a decade’s time.

I am all for the “minnows” being in the competition.  It is not their respective faults that the tournament is too long.  Why does it have to be so long?  No matter what the pool and finals format, such a tournament is always going to run long when the timing of games is as it has been in this tournament and the one in the West Indies that preceded it.  It astonishes me that on most days there is only one game of cricket being played; at the most, two games. 

With so many venues available on the sub-continent surely there could have been 2 games per group per day.  Just by planning the tournament in this way the group stages would be compressed by a factor of 2 weeks by my reckoning; if not more.  

Of course this will never happen; TV rights will dictate one game a day OR if there are to be two games a day, then the second game will always involve a “minnow”.  This is ridiculous but is the trade off that cricket consistently faces; viz., playing the game versus who pays for the game.  Until this tension returns to the favor of actually playing the game (and in favor of the fans) tournaments such as this will continue to be ridiculously long. 

The “minnows” are not to blame for this tournament of ghastly length and deserve to be there in their in my view.  For the game to development the minnows are necessary and ought be supported.  Without support in the 80s, Sri Lanka would not be the powerhouse it is today.  Pundits the world over ought remember this the next time they are bagging the inclusion of the minnows.

It is more important to fix the tournament itself than to remove the minnows but I am pretty sure I know which step will actually be taken … and it will be to the detriment of the development cricket worldwide.  

The National Selection Panel and Queensland Cricket - what is wrong with Queensland's players?

Welcome to the Shumpty Sports Dump.  I have been pondering starting a blog to express my opinions about all things sport.  What pushed me to do it is the announcement today of the Australia A cricket squad to tour Zimbabwe today. 


I should start with a confession - I am a rabid fan of Queensland Cricket and specifically the mighty Queensland Bulls.   That confession dealt with, let the blogging begin.


To the National Selection Panel named the following "provisional" squad to go to Zimbabwe:


George Bailey - TAS; 
Michael Beer - WA; 26
Luke Butterworth - TAS; 27
Trent Copeland - NSW; 25
Nathan Coulter-Nile - WA; 23
Patrick Cummins - NSW; 17
James Faulkner - TAS; 20
Callum Ferguson - SA; 26
Aaron Finch - VIC; 24
Peter George - SA; 24
Jon Holland - VIC; 23
Phillip Hughes - NSW; 22
Usman Khawaja - NSW; 24
Nathan Lyon - SA; 23
Nicolas Maddinson - NSW; 19
Mitchell Marsh - WA; 19
Shaun Marsh - WA; 27
Stephen O'Keefe - NSW; 26
Tim Paine - TAS; 26
James Pattinson - VIC; 20
Steven Smith - NSW; 21
Mitchell Starc - NSW; 21
Matthew Wade - VIC; 23
David Warner - NSW; 24


When I first read this this afternoon I thought I must have misread but on a second reading I confirmed what I hoped was not true.  No player on the books of the Queensland Bulls has made the team.  When you add in the squad that is presently playing in the World Cup, that means there are no present Queensland Bulls players in the top 40 or so players in Australia.  Before anyone points out that Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson are from Queensland, they are do not presently play for the Bulls and having chosen to turn their backs on Queensland cricket do not count for the purposes of this discussion.


So what does this mean?  Forget the usual conspiracy theories, they have been put forward enough times to seek to explain any imbalance in selections and do not warrant a repeat.   One would have thought that performances during the season would have played a role in selection.  What do the stats (sourced from the Cricket Australia website) have to say about this team, or better put, say about no Queensland players being selected?


The Top 10 runscorers in Sheffield Shield cricket in 2010-11 were:  Quiney, Cosgrove, Finch, Lynn, Blizzard, Khawaja, Hopes, Voges, Jacques, Manou.  The Top 10 wicket takers in Sheffield Shield cricket in 2010-11 were: Butterworth, Copeland, Maher, Duffield, Faulkner, Siddle, Feldman, Swan, Hogan and Hopes.


I am not for one second suggesting that any of the players selected in this preliminary squad do not deserve to be picked but whatever happened to picking on form?  Aside from Chris Lynn's great run scoring in the Shield this year he is a player of the future and dealt with one of Australia's allegedly premier fast bowlers, Peter Siddle, in his last innings with aplomb and ease.  I know because I was in the members stand watching him bat.  Surely he is one of the form young batsmen in the country and yet he does not get a call up.


Aidan Blizzard and Adam Voges could also equally feel aggrieved by missing out on selection given their form lines. 


What about with the ball?  Luke Feldman has bowled the house down for the second year in the row.  Where is his reward for being consistent and bowling well?  He has not been selected for no real apparent reason.  This is even more confusing when a number of bowlers selected such as Butterworth, Copeland and Faulkner have been picked on form.  


Obviously some of these players selected are project players for Cricket Australia.  How else would, for one, Mitchell Marsh be selected?  He has been injured for the bulk of, if not all, of the domestic summer.  


The selection of this squad really makes me wonder what cricket the selectors have been watching in the last couple of months.  It is easy to "bash" the selectors, indeed it is an Australian tradition.  Equally the failure to pick Chris Lynn and Luke Feldman is so astonishing as to warrant a "please explain?"  After the season that was (losing the Ashes and the present labouring performances in the World Cup) surely the focus of the selection panel would be selecting based on domestic form rather than on the basis of who are project players and who might look good spruiking mobile phones.


Is the NSP selecting players that have done well in all forms of the game?  The statistics do not support this and more to the point what does performing in the Twenty20 hit and giggle fest have to do with playing for your country in 4 day first class cricket?  One should not forget that it is intended that two 4 day games and a one day series (not under the idiotic Ryobi Rules but under international rules) are being played on this tour and NO Twenty20 games.


A final comment on the player who has to have by now taken over the mantle of Australia's unluckiest cricketer from previous holders including Stuart Law and Martin Love.  What does James Hopes have to do to get selected?  He is in the top 10s in both batting and bowling and has proven his mettle this season as a leader when the Queensland team was a certifiable basket case during the middle of the season.  I am one fan who thinks he should be in India / Sri Lanka right now doing the job he has consistently and competently done over the years at number 7 in the order and bowling 10 tight overs.  His replacement, an amalgam of Cameron White and Steven Smith one supposes, has done nothing of merit.   I for one would feel much safer with Hopes walking out at 7 or being thrown the ball.  Alas not only is he not over there, he is not required to train on to go to Zimbabwe.  To say that is astonishing would be understatement.


What is the answer?  I do not know.  I do know that as a fan of cricket I would love to see selection on form be the priority.  I can not say with any certainty that form is presently a criteria that is high on the NSP's list when it comes to selection.  One can only hope that the "three wise men" of cricket (Border, Waugh and Taylor) look at this issue in their upcoming review. 


So that is my first blog.  I know it will have a limited audience but it was fun to write and I would love any feedback.  Tomorrow I will review Australia's performance against Canada tonight.


Yours in Sport, 


Shumpty