Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Top Contributors
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Eddie wouldn't know the stumps from the pitch.

When Eddie talks cricket he is either intentionally slanging off any player who doesn't play from Victoria, especially if they play for Qld or NSW, or he is promoting Victorian players ranging from Frankston 3rd grade teams to hacks in the Victorian team.

I read his stuff for a laugh, nothing else.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

brickwaller99;394237 said:
whoops I forgot Steyn. Johnson is the only proven one from australia all the rest have had a good series that's it.

Weren't you making a point about how the bowlers were so fast and deadly now compared to then and you add in medium pacer Asif?

Eddie makes a good point in that pitch preparation is getting better and better for batting.

For once I almost entirely agree with eddie.
Click to expand...

LtD is making rubbish up to suit his argument, hilarious to add in Ryan Harris on test debut who has been rubbish at first class level and call him a world class bowler :D

Ponting would average 80 if the bowlers in the 90's were at the same level as Harris and Asif and Tendulkar would probably have beaten the Dons record
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Come on Eddie - I never called Harris a 'world class bowler' at all.

You wanted to know who the 'decent' bowlers were in world cricket.

I provided you a brief list off the top of my head.

You going to try and tell me that all those bowlers I mentioned wouldn't be classified as 'decent'.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Put the handbags away, ladies. Back on topic please.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

At the moment clarke needs to improve consistently to reach the status of great batsman. At the moment he is a test batsman not a great test batsman and I doubt if he will get better if he continues 2020 which he obviously is not suited for. Ponting for me will still be better. Who can argue with 11000 runs history shows that there's less than a handful that good, no matter how batsman friendly the pitches are getting.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Clarke will struggle when asked to make the step up to no4 which will probably happen when Hussey is finally dropped
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

aah
good old eddie
still as opinionated as ever. I won't ask why hussey should be dropped for fear of being told too much garbage to handle. Who would replace him? oh of course the amazing brilliant white who can't average 50 in state.

Yes i agree to a point that while clarke plays some good inns under pressure he is not consistent enough under pressure to succeed. Ponting is and was.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Well Hussey is nearly 35 years old, cant see him surviving another 12 months, as for replacement depends on who is in form then

But surely you cant argue that Husseys test career has more than 12 months left, can you? By then he will be nearly 36 years old and given recent form he may not make the Ashes

Plus it would allow them to give Clarke more pressure to deal with to see if he is up to it, he is supposed to be the test captain in the next 2 years
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

I wouldn't quite put 12months on it. If he's in form he hasn't had all the pressure of international cricket for that long so he may have 2 years but i see your point and his and ponting's retirement basically simultaneously will put a lot of pressure on clarke and he will have to prove it he is up to it. If he is he may just end up better than ponting but personally i don't see his technique holding up.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

The other thing is the selectors may push him out the door in the next 12 months so they dont lose 3 players at once as Katich will be around the same time as Ponting and Hussey potentially
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

I don't think it will worry the selectors, McGrath, Warne and Langer left at the same time.

We have a good supply of bowlers and a good supply of batsmen.

It won't be a massive problem replacing the likes of Hussey and Katich.

Ponting will be missed to the same degrees as Warne and McGrath. People don't realise that it is not often you have a batsmen averaging 60 at number 3.

Of late if Ponting falls early then we seem to stutter. If Ponting bats for an hour or two then we seem to fire.

We saw it in the first innings against New Zealand, we lost a quick one early but Ponting comes in and lifts the scoring taking the team total to 2/110 until he was run out.

Ponting may have only got 40 but he seems to have a calming influence on the rest of the innings.

In that regard when Ponting does retire he will have to find a new number 3. They are hard to find, especially good ones.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Ponting isn't averaging 60. He's averaging low 40s, and has been for a good couple of years.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Low 40's - so what?

I couldn't give a stuff what Ponting averaged in the 08/09 season? It is irrelevant now.

I only care about how he has gone in the recent past?

Fact is, Ponting averages 60 batting at 3, with nearly 10 000 runs scored in that position.

I'm sorry, but you don't get better batsmen at 3, other than Bradman. When he retires we will have a massive gap to fill.

Hussey and Katich will be a piece of cake, however, finding someone to replace Ponting at 3 is a different matter. That position is pivotal to the innings, averages don't tell the entire story either.

Ponting scored 40, but steadied the ship after a early wicket, and took the team past 100 for the loss of one wicket.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

You said it's not often you have a batsman averaging 60 at number three. I was merely agreeing, by pointing out that we don't have one now. ;)

Regardless of your unrequited infatuation with the boozy bruising bogan who captains our fair side, he currently contributes at a quite acceptable but nonetheless unremarkable 43 or so an innings. Unlike Warne and McGrath's returns in the twilight of their careers, this is not irreplacable by any stretch of the imagination.

He is undoubtably one of our alltime great players, but as impressive as his career statistics are, contributions from 5+ years ago do not reflect his current value to the side.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

Well your wrong.

KP averaged 50+ in the 2006 Ashes series, but he was batting or rather, 'hiding' at 5 for most of that series before relenting and moving to 4 as a token gesture with one test match left in a lost series.

KP was more concerned with averaging 50+ for the series, than he was helping his team.

Instead, plonkers like Ian Bell went ahead of him, like lambs to the slaughter. Often England were 3 down for not many when KP strode to the crease. KP couldn't do much from there, he even holed out a few times because he was left with the tail.

If KP was batting higher, say at 3, them IMO England would have been better off. KP might have averaged, say mid 40's, however he would have been best equipped to deal with the new ball and he would have set the innings up.

Inferior players to KP would then have been better suited coming in after him, rather then trying to deal with the new rock with McGrath steaming in.

Steve Waugh showed a similar resistance to moving up the order when Australia needed him to in the mid 80's.

It is a perfect example of why averages don't tell the story. KP left Australia averaging 50+, but in reality his influence on proceedings was minimal. As I said, I can remember him holing out with the tail at both Perth and the MCG. Way to go to maximise your best batsmen isn't it.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

That is a perfect example of the value of Ponting - he may only be averaging mid 40's, but his value to the team is immense.

Just look what happened at Perth when he wasn't at 3 in the 2nd dig because of injury.
 
Re: Who will finish their careers as the better batsmen? Clarke or Ponting?

That's a whole lot of writing to say basically nothing of relevance. If we don't have another batsman in the country who can average low-to-mid-40s at number 3 then things are far worse than I thought.

Undoubtably Ponting has something of an aura around him given his career achievements, but I suspect you are grossly overstating it due to your immense mancrush. Anyone would think from reading your posts that Ponting and Watson could beat South Africa with the assistance of the St Kilda U/12s and half a bottle of Suisse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top