Other Sports: Page 9 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

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Timbob

Clarke declares on 329. Fair play, he'll prob never get another shot at the world record, but at the end of the day it's a team game. Triple hundred and a test victory, it wont get much better than that for him.

Burnwinter

Disappointed. I like a good record sprint. He would've been all time top ten in just a handful more runs.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/208504.html

Rohit

He should have gone for it, given himself another hour.

Timbob

Glad he didn't get it tbh. When it goes I want whoever breaks it to be a slightly more iconic player than Michael Clarke, good as he is.

RonBurgundy

Who cares about Clarke? King Kallis notches his 41st test century. Greatest cricketer in test history for me.

Timbob

Test history!? That's quite a claim Ronald. He's certainly not the best batsman in test history, athough he's got to be in the top 4-5 of the last 20 years or so. And as a cricketer, just in his generation you've got Murali and Warne who, I think it's fair to say, won more matches off their own back than Kallis has.

Anyway, brilliant player no doubt.

RonBurgundy

True, Timothy - it is a big claim. But consider the following:

Most hundreds in a career
Kallis currently sits in second place, with a higher average than Tendulkar (as well as most of his competition). Tendulkar is considered the greatest cricketer ever by some - certainly the greatest batsman of the modern era, with Bradman his only competitor in terms of all time greatest batsmen.

Now, what is evident from the above is that if Kallis had never bowled a ball in his life, he'd be one of the greatest test batsmen ever. But he has. He's taken over 270 test wickets. To put that into perspective, that's more than the likes of Jason Gillespie and not far behind Brett Lee (remember Kallis is still playing).

This article from last year is a must-read for any cricket/stats lovers: The Numbers Game: Jacques Kallis, take a bow

This is good too: Kallis is the Sobers of his generation

As an aside, while this proves nothing, I thought you'd be interested in reading two quotes from your beloved Kevin Pietersen:
"I truly believe that Jacques Kallis is the greatest cricketer ever. He's just phenomenal." - from an interview.
"Kallis scores his 36 test ton.. Along with his 250+ wickets & doesn't drop a catch... Is he the best cricketer ever??? I think so!!" - from Twitter.

Timbob

Sport and cricket is about more than stats and numbers Ronald. How and where you score your runs, take your wickets, and how they effect matches counts for just as much. Charisma and attitude can change games too.

Kallis is a very efficient scorer of runs and taker of wickets. Great player. But there are a select few cricketers that I've seen who, imo, effected games more often and to a greater extent.

RonBurgundy

Fair enough, Timothy. I'll concede that I may be slightly biased. What is undeniable, though, is that he's a modern day great.

Stats certainly don't tell the full story. For example, you mentioned Murali and Warne earlier. Murali has taken more test wickets than any man in history but Warne was a clear level above him, for me.

Timbob

This reminds me slightly of an interview I saw with Michael Holding not too long ago. He was talking about the best cricketeres he'd seen and got on to the subject of Viv Richards. He said that because Richards played his whole career in such a dominant team the onus was frequently on scoring at a good rate and just making sure there was always enough time to bowl teams out twice. So he took risks, scored quickly and got the team in positions to win. They didn't need or want big innings leads of 200-300 runs. But if they had needed to play more attritional cricket Richards' could easily have turned more 50's in to 100's, 100's in to 150's and 150's in to 200's. Holding said that if he'd played in a less talented team, or a team with a different style or mentality he would/could easily have had a career average of well over 60.

Burnwinter

Ron Burgundy wrote:
Who cares about Clarke? King Kallis notches his 41st test century. Greatest cricketer in test history for me.

Patters

I hate the Channel 9 commentary. I don't understand how Tony Greig still has a job!

Amazing strokeplay in this Test Match.

Timbob

Laxman is so good to watch.

Burnwinter

India falling apart now. Ball that got Laxman was a beauty.

Timbob

There would have been a time when these Indian top order batsmen would have played the likes of Hilfenhaus in their sleep.

invisibleman18

Not looking like the side who were all out for 47 a couple of months ago or who lost a home test to New Zealand the other week.

Burnwinter

This is a contest riddled with faded grandeur.

Burnwinter

@Invis We're just as likely as India to collapse completely in any given innings. If one of Ponting and Clarke had gone early we could've made 200, not 650. I take no particular confidence into the third Test from this victory.

Timbob

Siddle looks like Ian Dowie.

Rohit

Glad this ordeal is over.

Indian batsmen are like faithful husbands, they perform only at home.

I have no confidence that we can turn this around at the WACA.

We are playing with no pride, no intensity whatsoever. David Warner and Peter Siddle are chasing the ball to the ropes like men possessed even with India 8 down and we havent shown half the energy at any time in this series.

I can only hope we avoid a 4-0 whitewash like against England, that would be highly embarrassing, then we atleast had a few injuries, none now, no excuses here, simply poor from men who earn obscene money and carry the hopes of a nation.

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