Group: Forum Members
Posts: 192,
Visits: 0
|
Here's an interesting statistics based article from a few years ago on batsmen who have averaged 60 or above (with 3000 runs as the qualifier). So sadly, no Adam Voges. :) It does read like a who's who of all time batting greats...Bradman, Weekes, Sobers, Hobbes, Richards, Lara and so on. Though it also contains a couple of seeming outliers (Neil Harvey, Adam Gilchrist). Ponting never had a match where he finished with a 60 average, though he did achieve it for one innings.
Almost as interesting is who didn't make it, Tendulkar, Kallis, G Chapell, Hayden, Dravid, Miandad and Gavaskar represent some of the tier of batsmen that were close for a time, but never quite achieved it.
It's worthwhile when reading it to note that Smith has carried on since the article where he had only acheived this once, and has already achieved this in 19 completed test matches. Behind Sobers 32, Bradman 30, Hammond 28, and Sutcliffe 22 times according to the criteria as set out.
With a highest average of 64.81 (currently) behind only Bradman 102.98, Hammond 66.62, Sutcliffe 69.8 and Weekes 66.12. So the only modern batsman even close is Sobers with 63.92.
As with all other analysis, Bradman is enough of an outlier to appear a freak. While a small amount of exalted batsmen have reached career averages over 60, for him a separate article would be needed for batsmen who have averaged over 100 :) .
Once again, like all such analysis, it is never meant to be definitive in any way. More food for thought than anything, as there are good arguments both for and against the merits of basing conclusions on such stats. Particularly when it takes in different eras. Still, Smith is a bit of run machine.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/1009335.html
|