Why Steve Smith is still the undisputed second greatest Test batter of all time?

[Narayana59]

What makes Steve Smith better than anyone from last 40-50 years is his batting average in results oriented matches ( non draws matches).

Sachin average dropped to 45 in non draws matches and just 42 in away condition which suggests that he would have struggled badly in WTC era where draws are very very rare.

While Smith averages 10 + point than Sachin in non draws matches.
In away 53 AVG, overall 54-55 AVG.

 

[Narayana59]

Zim and ban makes all the difference in career average.

 

[Ab Fan]

Sadly you can't
Sachin Tendulkar played 31 percent of matches against the best bolwers of his times But Steve Smith is playing 56 percent of matches against the best bolwers of this generation -
View attachment 157099View attachment 157100

Cricket is not a 1-vs-1 sport. A batter faces a team’s bowling unit, not just one ATG.
Example: If a batter scores a hundred against Australia in 2000s under pressure situation , he didn’t just face McGrath — he also faced Warne, Gillespie, Lee, Kasprowicz etc.
Runs against the team represent performance against the collective challenge. Runs vs. only McGrath tells you just one slice of the story.

A batter may face an ATG bowler only a handful of times (e.g., due to injuries, formats, rotation, or batting position). As one Example: A No. 6 batter might barely face Dale Steyn or Glenn McGrath with the new ball. Judging him based on “runs vs. McGrath or Steyn” is unfair. Moreover, a batter may do well vs Anderson but struggle against Broad so how can we give them a pass for doing well vs Anderson when he might have overall not done well vs England. Smith struggled vs Neil Wagner, there was so much talk about that. But Wagner is a forgotten player already.

Btw, why you have not included the likes of Shaun Pollock, Courtney Walsh, Shoaib Akhtar but feel worthy to include Anderson, Ashwin or Jadeja in these lists? You are not showing only away performances . Anyways, it is the performance vs team that counts. Not just whether a specific player is featured or not because then there are so many variables like pitch, overall opposition strength, current form of batter all that counts.

 

[Ab Fan]

Lol on which world 90s Murali who had 25-26 AVG at home with 4 wpm is better than Jayasuriya who has 27 AVG with 7 wpm.
Steve Smith faced roach, seales and josheph in west indies.

And Roach has 6+ wpm vs aus in wi and Joseph have 7+ wpm vs aus at 16 AVG
No way sachin faced better bowlers.

Smith faced peak hearth too who was a below average bowler till 30 age in sachin er

Do you understand what you are talking even? You wanna say Sachin didn’t faced Murali in his prime years?


Btw, What did Smith do against Rabada in his prime years? Smith peak was in 2015 where he allowed Faf led SA to win the series in SAlol) and then in 2018, he did nothing against the peak Rabada and with de Villiers back in the SA side. We saw the result, Aussies lost 3-1. That is two back to back series loss vs SA when they had their best players. Post that, SA declined in test cricket and have found ground only recently.

 

[Narayana59]

Performance of Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Smith in Matches involving bowlers with< 30 AVG (min 50 wickets)-View attachment 157102View attachment 157103

@Ab Fan all great Bolwers are added jowll

 

[Ab Fan]

@Ab Fan all great Bolwers are added jowll

The fact that you are basing all your arguments including choosing which bowlers to pick based on some statistical rule tells us how big a fallacy is it. As I said in my above post, comparing 1 to 1 vs individual fast bowlers is not taking anyone anywhere.

Cricket is a sports of 11 players and when a player scores a hundred vs any opposition, you don’t see how many he scored again X and how many against Y. Best metric is simply look at performance both home and away. Away deserves a bit more attention because the game has produced far more Home Track Bullied than Away track bullies.

Based on away performances , I have no issue with someone picking Smith above Tendulkar but at the same time, no one should have issue with anyone picking Tendulkar ahead. The margin is very minimal.

Away averages excluding BD and Zim :-

Sachin - 7600 runs, Avg 52
Smith - 5300 runs, Avg 54

Rest all average below 50 but among them, Lara deserves a bit more credit due to very low not outs which is down to his aggressive approach of batting.

 

[Narayana59]

The fact that you are basing all your arguments including choosing which bowlers to pick based on some statistical rule tells us how big a fallacy is it. As I said in my above post, comparing 1 to 1 vs individual fast bowlers is not taking anyone anywhere.

Cricket is a sports of 11 players and when a player scores a hundred vs any opposition, you don’t see how many he scored again X and how many against Y. Best metric is simply look at performance both home and away. Away deserves a bit more attention because the game has produced far more Home Track Bullied than Away track bullies.

Based on away performances , I have no issue with someone picking Smith above Tendulkar but at the same time, no one should have issue with anyone picking Tendulkar ahead. The margin is very minimal.

Away averages excluding BD and Zim :-

Sachin - 7600 runs, Avg 52
Smith - 5300 runs, Avg 54

Rest all average below 50 but among them, Lara deserves a bit more credit due to very low not outs which is down to his aggressive approach of batting.

Steve Smith never faced lower quality bowlers in away condition like sachin in 90s sl , eng and nz against whom he scored 3000 runs at 76 AVG with 13 centuries.

I have already calculated his away average against 90s Pak, wi, sa,aus and 00 eng, sl, aus,pak - 46 . Xy AVG with 12 centuries

Smith average in Senai -53 AVG with 13 centuries .

The fact is that without minnows or below average attack sachin is a tier below Smith.
You can calculate them too manually by using statsguru

 

[Narayana59]

One of the funniest things about Sachin fans is their claim that he faced the best West Indies bowlers, when in reality, he barely played against them, and the ones he did face were well past their prime, with a significant reduction in their pace.

Yet, the same nostalgic merchants believe that players like Joe Root and Steve Smith are playing against weak Sri Lankan bowlers, despite both of them having faced Rangana Herath at his peak on challenging turning pitches

 

[Ab Fan]

Let me post the away averages again excluding BD and Zim for everyone:-

Tendulkar still has most runs and avg is also right up there- 7600 runs at avg 52.

Smith undoubtedly had a better peak but he is declining- 5300 runs at avg 54.

Lara averages 47 but it is low due to just 1 not out. Ponting was simply not as great away as he averages 45.

 

[Narayana59]

Even Virat Kohli is better than Sachin against full strength sena teams in sena and we are comparing him with Smith who never plays against plumbers level attack

 

[Ab Fan]

One of the funniest things about Sachin fans is their claim that he faced the best West Indies bowlers, when in reality, he barely played against them, and the ones he did face were well past their prime, with a significant reduction in their pace.

Yet, the same nostalgic merchants believe that players like Joe Root and Steve Smith are playing against weak Sri Lankan bowlers, despite both of them having faced Rangana Herath at his peak on challenging turning pitches

You don’t need to tell anyone whether Ranagana Herath was present in 2021 SL bowling attack that Root faced and cashed in heavily. It is not up for discussion because everyone knows he didn’t . Anyways, Herath is not some kind of ATG bowler anyways. What are you even discussing. That SL side was nothing to write about so there isn’t even a scoreboard pressure to work on. India have beaten them fair and square in last 10 years.

 

[Narayana59]

I am very sure kohli would have statpadded heavily against 90s sl , eng , nz - he would have 45-50 in 90s given the amount the matches Indian team played against minnows in 90s.
He is very unlucky that he played 78-80 percent matches against top 4

 

[Ab Fan]

It is getting funnier now as we have got a new evidence which suggests that this time it is turn of Virat Kohli to be greater than Sachin Tendulkar lol. Go and tell this to whole world, people don’t have time to come up and debate on these out of context illogical stats guru numbers. They will simply label such posts as irrelevant.

 

[Narayana59]

It is getting funnier now as we have got a new evidence which suggests that this time it is turn of Virat Kohli to be greater than Sachin Tendulkar lol. Go and tell this to whole world, people don’t have time to come up and debate on these out of context illogical stats guru numbers. They will simply label such posts as irrelevant.

So everything becomes irrelevant for you when someone doing deep analysis.

So according to you the real greatness comes from hyping fake stats like sachin averaged 57+ throughout till 177 Tests, and his career high average where he scored 1700+ runs against mighty zimbabwe and Bangladesh at 90-100 AVG, 3000 runs against mighty sl,nz,eng at 76 AVG.
So all these are relevant for you if someone compare him with a superior batsman by including these 5000 minnows bashing runs? Right else everything is irrelevant

 

[Narayana59]

Root vs Sachin against the best pacers of their Time

 

[mominsaigol]

So everything becomes irrelevant for you when someone doing deep analysis.

So according to you the real greatness comes from hyping fake stats like sachin averaged 57+ throughout till 177 Tests, and his career high average where he scored 1700+ runs against mighty zimbabwe and Bangladesh at 90-100 AVG, 3000 runs against mighty sl,nz,eng at 76 AVG.
So all these are relevant for you if someone compare him with a superior batsman by including these 5000 minnows bashing runs? Right else everything is irrelevant

I'll tell you what's happened. After years on PP we have finally had a poster like you who not only has the stamina and drive to continue but also has the stats and argumentation to back it up.

While I have kept these guys at bay, you have exceeded it and have ultimately shattered them by pure objective facts and amazing qualitative analysis.

They are currently in the denial phase and are unable to understand how one poster cam just dominate them so much with pure objectivity.

Even their attempts at insulting have unphazed you. Keep doing you fam. You're a breathe of fresh air on PP.

 

[PAKFAN12]

Some people's are really underestimate SRT performance. Maybe they are the only ones who read the game from the scoreboard .

 

[mominsaigol]

Some people's are really underestimate SRT performance. Maybe they are the only ones who read the game from the scoreboard .

Yeah man, a Pakistani Fan like you would share that sentiment

 

[kron]

Lol on which world 90s Murali who had 25-26 AVG at home with 4 wpm is better than Jayasuriya who has 27 AVG with 7 wpm.
Steve Smith faced roach, seales and josheph in west indies.

And Roach has 6+ wpm vs aus in wi and Joseph have 7+ wpm vs aus at 16 AVG
No way sachin faced better bowlers.

Smith faced peak hearth too who was a below average bowler till 30 age in sachin er

Smith faced prime Rabada, philander, Morkel and Abbott too

Ngidi Rabada philander etc are phenomenal in SA. Their averages are insane

If they had 2 3 great batsmen they would wallop teams in seaming conditions. Most teams I.e

 

[kron]

I'll tell you what's happened. After years on PP we have finally had a poster like you who not only has the stamina and drive to continue but also has the stats and argumentation to back it up.

While I have kept these guys at bay, you have exceeded it and have ultimately shattered them by pure objective facts and amazing qualitative analysis.

They are currently in the denial phase and are unable to understand how one poster cam just dominate them so much with pure objectivity.

Even their attempts at insulting have unphazed you. Keep doing you fam. You're a breathe of fresh air on PP.

I am in total agreement with Narayana
But the thing I would want to understand is, could Sachin have averaged more than he did. Like 4 5 points higher should he be supported with a great bowling attack which he dint have at his peak.

That’s the only counter argument. But otherwise, stats, metrics, match winning performances all equate to smith being far superior.

He’ll even a case for root.

 

[Bewal Express]

Good player, but not anywhere near. For me guys that played in the unlimited bouncer era could have played in any era, this isnt true of the modern greats or they wouldn't have been as successful. Although great players in the own right and with amazing statistics, they will never go out to bat fearing for their physical safety with dodgy protection