Yes, an average of 40 isn’t what it used to be. Of course stats don’t tell the whole story- I still regard Mark Waugh as the best Australian batsman I’ve ever seen (not necessarily the greatest, just the best).

Something else is that bowlers’ strike rates are also going down. Three of the greatest bowlers in history are Ray Lindwall, Alan Davidson and Alec Bedser- just compare their strike rates with those of Malinga, Jermaine Lawson and James Franklin. It seems to me that strike rates are no longer the most important indicator of a bowler’s quality.

I was having a similar discussion yesterday regarding test centuries, started by the following observation:

Kevin Pietersen’s century yesterday was his 9th, in just over two years of test cricket. When Graham Gooch hit his 333, it was viewed as the crowning achievement by one of England’s most dedicated and consistent cricketers (give or take a dodgy tour to South Africa), and it was his 9th test century.

Andrew Strauss, 10 test centuries; Alastair Cook, 6; Ian Bell, 6. All these players look set to rival Gower, Gatting and Gooch by the end of their careers, which may not be so surprising now that there is more cricket played and the England team is clearly stronger than it was in the 80s and 90s. But, at the risk of sounding like an old git, another Alastair Cook century doesn’t seem to have quite the same heroic quality that those of the three G’s or Alan Lamb or Robin Smith did. It seems like less an act of personal heroism, and more a symptom of endless work with the sports psychologist and computerised analysis of foot movement.

Most of all, it was not made in defiance of Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Donald, Waqar, Wasim or any other truly great fast bowler, for the simple reason that there aren’t any playing. Then again, to repeat the usual cliche, you can only beat what’s put in front of you…

Averages are sadly misleading, as I’ve said before. Robin Smith never had the luxury of playing against the shower that is currently misrepresnting itself as the West Indies “attack”. As it was, he averaged 44.43 against Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Patterson and Bishop. I imagine that you could comfortably add 10 or 15 to that average had he been facing the pie-chuckers that have just come over.

Likewise Ian Bell’s average of 42.59 is bolstered by 227 runs for no dismissal against a Bangadeshi team that was an embarrasment (and remains one - I reckon they should be kicked out of Test cricket, and told to play against A-teams until they are competetive. This won’t happen though, as it would weaken the Asian block-vote, and would mean that Tendulkar wouldn’t be able to score any more hundreds). When you take the Bangladeshis out of the equation, Bell averages a much more, well, average, 37.43.

Finally, imagine if Hick and Ramps had been able to start their careers now! We’d have two world beaters I reckon…

Good point Yobbo. When Ian Bell is facing Warne and McGrath his average drops to 25.10. And he still averages 42.59. He made a load of runs against a rubbish Pakistani bowling side too.

And as for your rose tinted spectacles, are you really telling me that the bowling today is as good as the bowling 10 years ago? No, thought not.

Yobbo - I wrote “it was not made in defiance of Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Donald, Waqar, Wasim or any other truly great fast bowler”.

Obviously Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath are both great bowlers. But what I was getting at was the sheer intimidation of facing truly fast (i.e. not McGrath speed) bowling consistently coming into the ribs. It was this kind of bowling that prevented Hick from ever making it as a world class (or even consistent international) batsman; it was this kind of bowling that Atherton had to cope with for much of his career, and which probably explains the fact that he ended up with an average under 40.

Just remember that spin-bowling was judged almost dead when Warne came along in 1992, and people were worried the game had become one dimensional (i.e. too much fast bowling). But looking back, batsman might have benefited from the transition to a more varied, intelligent type of game that is, as you say, typified in McGrath and Warne.

It’s interesting to consider that Steve Waugh era Australia not only drove the game forward in terms of upping the scoring rate, they also dominated the world without a really quick and high quality bowler. Not sure what that signifies, but it’s certainly the period in which things changed.

Will

“it was this kind of bowling that Atherton had to cope with for much of his career, and which probably explains the fact that he ended up with an average under 40.”

And yet the person who truly gave Atherton the most trouble in his career was….Glenn McGrath.

Some evidence to back up your claim- If you take three of the most dominant batsmen of the last 5 years (Ricky Ponting, Md. Yousuf and Mathew Hayden) and you look at their averages prior to 2002, then you can see how much they’ve gone up. Ponting’s average between ‘96 and ‘02 was 44.2- now it’s 59. Yousuf’s was 43, and is now 56, while Hayden’s has shot up from 21-odd during the ’90s to 52 now.

And don’t forget that the man with the highest average of all time, Bradman, was feared not because he’d bat for 3 days like Geoffrey Boycott, but because he would spank the bowlers all around the park for as long as he remained at the crease.

It’s hard to find stats on test batting strike rates, but I would be willing to bet that all the players averages 55+ have correspondingly high strike rates. Except maybe Dravid heh.

Actually it’s not obvious at all.

England teams facing a plodding attack of Craig McDermott, Carl Rackemann and Tim May and Greg Matthews scored much more slowly than they currently do against Australia.

Players don’t just up their strike rates against Zimbabwe. Australia scored plenty fast against England in either of the last 2 ashes series, despite an attack of Flintoff, Hoggard, Panesar and Harmison.

And England equally, scored quickly against Australia, despite an attack featuring McGrath and Warne. Especially Peitersen.

The lesson of the last 10 years that to score quickly, you simply have to want to. Players now leave a lot less balls than they used to, and running between wickets has also greatly improved.

Ricky Ponting quite regularly drops the ball at his feet and takes a single in Test Matches. Players in the 70’s wouldn’t have dreamed of taking such a risk for 1 run.