How Do The Batsmen Of Yesteryear Compare With Those Of Today?

The contest between Australia and the Rest of the World starts tomorrow with the first One Day International. So I thought I'd indulge in another interesting but ultimately pretty meaningless exercise by comparing the batsman from different eras.

The reason why comparing players from different eras is so meaningless is because they played in different conditions.

WG Grace started his career in 1865 against under arm and round arm bowlers who bowled four ball overs. Bowlers did not need guile as the pitches were so poor; the wicket at Lords for example had stones in it and was not improved until after the death of batsman George Summers in 1870. In these conditions the ability to play shooters was essential for a long innings, a worthless skill today. Grace is the only batsman from his era to have scored a hundred centuries or 50,000 runs. However, due to the poor pitches the bowling was weaker than in later eras. Throughout his career Grace never faced a single googly; it was only necessary to invent it after the pitches had improved and Grace had retired by then.

Don Bradman also towers over his contempories. His incredible Test batting average of 99.94 is nearly 40 better than the next best batsman (Sutcliffe's 60.73) who scored over 4000 Test runs. However, many of the Tests he played in were timeless, with more time to score runs. In these situations captains were less likely to try and prevent batsmen from scoring freely and more likely to set positive fields and try and get batsmen out. The fielding was far poorer than today, with two runs often being taken to fine leg. I believe the bowling was far weaker too. Why else do batsmen wear more protective clothing today?

There are never any comparisons made between the athletes of different eras as the times and distances have clearly improved over the years. The performances have also improved in cricket. Cricketers are competing against each other and so this makes their actual improvement in standard harder to measure. It is iconoclastic to say it, but in truth I doubt a Test side today would want Don Bradman in their side, any more than an international athletics team would want Jessie Owens.

The praise for the players of previous eras is nothing but nostalgia. Enjoy today's cricketers, they are the best there has ever been; even when they take part in the kind of charade that is about to unfold down-under!