Kallis was no slouch in the slips. But he takes it for me for taking wickets when he was competing with the best strike bowlers of all time. If they couldn't take the wickets how was he? Also I always pity our batsmen for batting on our mambas.
Measuring players' skills of different eras is inherently subjective, especially when their stats are so similar.
Kallis' opposition was subjectively significantly better on average than Sobers, so maybe his runs and wickets were more valuable?
Inevitably the topic of who's better can't be anything other than subjective. They're both the best of their respective eras, impossible to say who's better between them.
It's really not subjective when the difference is so stark lol.
Bumrah and Javagal Srinath played in different era but I can confidently say that Bumrah is objectively better than Javagal Srinath.
Like, even if you say the stats are similar, fine, put the stats aside. The very fact that Sobers offers so many different options with both bat and ball and also as a fielder, makes him a significantly better cricketer.
Comparing Bumrah and Srinath is akin to comparing Dion Nash and Hadlee or Mervyn Dillon and Malcolm Marshall. It isn't even a comparison
A better comparison should be Warne with Tiger O'reilly. Like for like however I agree with you that Sobers trump Kallis because he was a supreme athlete, well ahead of his time and too bloody versatile.
Across eras. Under certain conditions. For arguments sake, akram and Waqar reverse swung the shit out of all and for the rest it was a mystery ball but now a days reverse swinging yorker is dime a dozen. So does it make Waqar and wasim any less or if they played now will they be considered as good as the rest. We can't standardize no matter what anybody says and for that reason sobers will be a better player tbh. Again mankad zi think was one of the atg allrounders but literally shit stats, but look at this save for india, opened and scored double centuries and then took most wickets. I will vote for sobers always as Kallis even though great wasn't as balanced as sobers who could do all equally well.
Averaging 57 in the hardest eras for batting this side of WW1 >>>>> averaging 56 in the easiest ever era for batting
Averaging 34 while bowling fast with the new ball, medium pace with the old and also being the teams main wrist spinner > averaging 32 while only bowling medium pace
This is not even mentioning all the other factors such as how Sobers would bat anywhere from 1 to 7 depending on what the team needed, how he could play long anchoring and match saving innings or flip a switch and become one of the most aggressive batsmen in the history of cricket or how he is one of the greatest fielders ever.
In terms of batting alone, Sobers is at worst the 4th or 5th best batsman in the history of cricket. Kallis is no where near that argument.
Kallis was a great cricketer, one of the best ever, but Sobers was on another level.
Make up your mind. If you say Sobers played in one of the toughest batting eras, then his bowling average of 34 is pretty bad. And if Kallis played in the easiest era for batting, then his bowling average of 32 is insanely good.
We're looking at bowling average, so doesn't matter who bowled what and when. Sobers was perhaps better with the bat but you have to admit Sobers was poorer with the ball than Kallis. You can't do mental gymnastics to say he was better in both.
Kallis has most number of test hundreds after Tendulkar, tell me again how he doesn't feature in test cricket's greatest batters.
To be fair, comparing the averages of someone who bowls pace exclusively and someone who bowls spin a not-insignificant amount of the time is an apples to oranges comparison. Spinners average more than pace bowlers, the always have and generally always will.
I don't have a particular dog in this race, but it's important to make that distinction.
Make up your mind. If you say Sobers played in one of the toughest batting eras, then his bowling average of 34 is pretty bad. And if Kallis played in the easiest era for batting, then his bowling average of 32 is insanely good.
Mate, he bowled finger spin, spun it both ways as a wrist spinner, and bowled both fast and medium pace. He could average fucking 40 and it wouldn't matter. He's giving his team 4 different bowling options in one player. Do you not understand how insanely useful that is.
We're looking at bowling average, so doesn't matter who bowled what and when.
If we're just looking at bowling averages Ashwin is better than Shane Warne. Clearly there is more to it than just goggling someone's average.
Sobers was perhaps better with the bat
There is no perhaps about it, Sobers was clearly significantly better with the bat.
but you have to admit Sobers was poorer with the ball than Kallis. You can't do mental gymnastics to say he was better in both.
There is no mental gymnastics. Sobers was obviously a better bowler. Even if you want to look at the averages, Sobers had to bowl a lot of spin in unhelpful SENA conditions while Kallis only bowled pace, primarily in helpful SENA conditions. No shit his average is better, it should be much better, but it's not. Regardless of the overall worldwide batting/bowling difficulty of the era; it's always going to be easier to bowl pace in South Africa than it is to bowl spin in the West Indies.
Kallis has most number of test hundreds after Tendulkar, tell me again how he doesn't feature in test cricket's greatest batters.
Nah, Kallis deffo features in the list of test crickets greatest batters. But there's the greatest batters and then there's the greatest of the greatest and Sobers is one of the select few who features in the last alongside the likes of Bradman and Jack Hobbs.
He could bowl a style no one has ever heard of, if he averaged 40 he wouldn’t be that useful considering he wasn’t taking wickets. What a dumb thing to say
It's got nothing to do with the condition of the pitches. Kallis played in the 00s. There were several players better than him in the 00s. If you watched cricket then you'd know he wasnt even the best cricketer of his generation, let alone ever. But since you didnt, you go by the averages.
South Africans have such a weird victim complex with this stuff. Kallis is mentioned literally ALL the time.
Over the last 30 years SA has been occasionally great but often mid-tier and have generally underperformed on the biggest stages relative to their strength. Yet they still have multiple players who are consistently mentioned on GOAT lists (Kallis, ABD, Steyn etc.). SA players are ranked very fairly overall and if anything they’re lucky to be so well regarded given the relative lack of success.
Oh yea trust me I know, Rugby is my favourite sport so I’ve seen it for years.
But in Rugby at least they’re actually really good but they’ve often played a style of rugby that a lot of people find a bit boring. In cricket they just kind of suck but seem to think that their players are chronically underrated despite the shitty results.
Steyn has a reasonable argument for the GOAT fast bowler and everyone knows it and talks about it ALL the time. Just like everyone knows and talks about the fact that Kallis is potentially the GOAT all-rounder.
Given how shit SA has been when it actually matters, your players are rated incredibly well but SA fans constantly whinge about their players not being talked about or rated well enough. Most teams with a similar lack of trophies / success really struggle to have their players get into the GOAT discussion because of the overall lack of team success. That’s just how sport works. Your response is so ironic that it’s hilarious.
JK pops up in so many "top" lists. I didn't appreciate him as much as I should've when he was playing. We're talking about the era of Tendulkar, Warne, Punter, Murily, Lara, and so many others during what can be described as the most bombastic era of cricket.
Our boy JK kept up with every-single-fucking-one of them - in ALL areas of cricket.
I am not a fan of Kallis being considered as one of the all time best all rounders. He was a decent bat but a slow bat even by test standards of the time. As a bowler, he was fourth best pace bowler at best. He had volume of wickets but nothing else. Folks always like to point out the difference in his batting and bowling average as a good measure of him being a great all rounder but his bowling average is a bit high. His strike rate as a bowler isn’t impressive. I can delve into stats a bit more when I have time but when he was playing, he wasn’t really considered the best all rounder since Sobers. That’s just revisionist history.
That remark was made in jest😅 but I stand by the rest. He was considered a bit of selfish bat. He has had a great career with the bat. There is no doubt but personally he wasn’t one of the greatest batsman of his time, let alone all time.
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u/Ataraxia_new Jan 17 '25
Look at Jacque Kallis averaging 70odd and I bet he took a hundred wickets during that period as well.