I am not a fan of such things, because generally the only people who can bother to respond tend to be younger and often with less awareness of older players. I mean no disrespect in saying this, but I suppose you can only comment on what you know.
A couple of years ago I saw a poll that asked who was Derby County's best ever striker and saw several say Chris Martin. Now he was a decent striker for a couple of seasons, but I can think of ten better without breaking sweat.
The 'best England side' only contained Ian Botham from before the millennium, which seems a little odd to me. Was Graeme Swann better than Jim Laker, Derek Underwood, Hedley Verity or Wilfred Rhodes as a spinner? Was Andrew Strauss better than Boycott, Edrich, Hutton, Hobbs and a good few more?
Although I have run articles in the past on my greatest Derbyshire eleven, they are very difficult to do. How do you compare runs on covered pitches with those on uncovered ones? Or bowling records on the old 'sticky dogs' with those on some of the modern flat tracks? How many runs might Arnold Hamer have made on modern pitches? How much harder would Les Jackson have found it, on the County Ground pitches of the last few summers?
For that matter how do you compare the runs of Barnett against the extreme pace bowlers of the era, with those of Wayne? Yet Wayne has been astonishing in T20, which Kim never played. It goes on and on..
Realistically, all a player can aspire to be is a giant in his own era. Even fifty years from now, any poll on a great Derbyshire eleven would surely have to include Kim Barnett, Wayne Madsen, Bob Taylor and Les Jackson, but after that?
Such a poll in 1930 would probably say there would never be another Arnold Warren or Bill Bestwick. The latter pretty much bowled at one end for much of his Derbyshire career, in the absence of viable alternatives. Now? They likely wouldn't get into the discussion with many more recent options. William Mycroft would likely not be referenced, but 863 wickets at 12, in the formative period of the game, was pretty impressive
Was Geoff Miller better than Les Townsend? He played more for England, so maybe, but the latter scored more runs and took more wickets for Derbyshire. Geoff scored two centuries, 72 fifties and averaged 26 with the bat, took 888 wickets at 28 with the ball.
Les scored 22 hundreds and 102 fifties at 28 and took 1088 wickets at 21, yet played in an era when every county had a good off spinner, England had astonishing middle order options and there were far fewer international fixtures.
You cannot compare them. It was a different game with different pitches. I was lucky enough to watch Geoff many times, but would have loved to see Les, who apparently drove so powerfully that Tommy Mitchell used to bowl at him in the nets and run away to the side! For all the seam talent of the Pope brothers and Bill Copson, producing a pitch to negate them brought Townsend and Tommy Mitchell into play
We have been blessed to see such talent over the years.
How do you compare and rank them?
I have no idea. It can only come down to personal preference and interpretation of statistics. But just like Sky TV seems to feel football didn't exist before the advent of the Premier League (it did and it was better) then cricket fans should perhaps accept and better appreciate the brilliance of those before their experience.
Correct Steve, you can't singles ofvall timecompare. My father, still with it at 96 is convinced his formative years in Hull, were the best of times (and that was during WW2, have a look at Hull during the blitz). For me, the late 70's early 80's. We wished then for the things we have now, be careful what you wish for.
ReplyDeleteBut, in honesty I wouldn't go back to outdoor toilets, decrepit sports grounds, no power steering on cars, frozen windows etc. So the surveys are pointless really. An example, and I don't know why I recall this, but in 1989, Radio 1 came out with one of those greatest 500 singles of all time (as voted by the listener), which they played over the three days of the bank holiday. Bohemian Rhapsody topped it, as it always did in those days, but three of the top ten places were filled with songs from, not The Beatles, the Stones or some such band, but ahem, Bros!
Don't think they'd have one in the top 10,000 now - and quite right toom
It’s an age-old issue. Call it the zeitgeist or regency bias or whatever you will, the majority of people only vote for the dish of the day.
ReplyDeleteThe classic example was around 1990 when Radio 1 ran a listeners’ poll for the greatest album of all time.
The winner was “Stars” by Simply Red.
Enough said.
It might be an elitist argument but these top ten votes are best left to the critics/experts with a deeper knowledge than the general populace.
Are you open to running a poll re Mickey Arthur's contract extension? I'd be interested in the outcome. I'm sure others would be too.
ReplyDeleteNot really, Simon. It is clear that people are not happy and that is their prerogative. But it wouldn't make any difference and the deed is done. We need to wait and see what happens now
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