Ian Chappel, while not very famous for thorwing his mouth, has come close to that task by writing this article, asking Tendulkar to retire and telling us lesser mortals that Lara is a better cricketer.
I don't think Sachin should retire. I wanted to write a long drawn argument about that one, but I found it better captured here (along with many commets made under that article). To summarize, it is a ridiculous argument. He can still add value to the team. The team is better with him than without him. He is physically fit enough to play. He wants to play.
My 2 cents regarding this issue is this: Yes, he may not be as good as he used to be. That is no reason to retire. In fact, if he retired because his glory days are behind him and not because of his position relative to the team, that would be a very selfish decision. Even out of prime, he holds a spot in the team.
In the same article, Chappel also re-kindles the age old debate between Lara Vs Tendulkar, and it seems that his conclusion is that Lara was, is and will always be the better one. I have no problem with Chappel's conslusion. He is entitled to his wrong opinion.
But I would like to look at it a little more more objectively. How about some stats?
I know I know, statistics are lies. Well, they are lies only is the reader is brain dead or if we draw ridiculous conclusions from them. Let's try and stay away from the crazy conclusions.
"No no no, you can't do that. Sachin has already won the stats game, especially if it comes to one days." you might say. Well, let me know if there is a better way to compare two players whose career has spread over a cpouple of decades with lots of ups and downs. Can't do it on a game by game basis.
Also, I am limiting all these stats to one day internationals. Will do the tests after India loses to Bangladesh in the test series in May.
So I am a finance guy. For me, the better asset to invest in is the one that generates better overall value. If I had to pick between one thats lasts longer and generates value (runs, in this case) at a faster rate (average) and entertains more in the process (4s and 6s) vs some other asset that works lesser time (matches) and delivers relatively lower value and so on and so forth, then I would pick the former. Oh, I forgot to mention, Sachin bowls as well.
"Tendulkar has been a very selfish and building up his stats while his team was going down the dump, but Lara has been winning more matches while accumulating fewer stats", you might say.
I say look at the number of Man of the Match awards. SRT = 48, Lara = 30 (I counted them on Cricinfo StatsGuru page). Implying that SRT was the MoM for 12.5% of the games he played whereas Lara was MoM for 10.2% of the games Lara played. Talk about match winning performances.
Also, SRT has 190 wins in his career Vs 138 for Lara. Normalizing against the number of games played, SRT has won 49.5% of the games he played whereas Lara has won 46.8%.
"Forget the overall wins, India played a lot more games and many of those wins are against minnows" you may say.
First of all, I say "ignore the minnow at your own risk". Then I say, lets look at the statistics for "finals" of tournaments. Thanks to StatsGuru, we should be able to nail that sucker as well.
Wallah, we can. Tendulkar has played 47 (12.2% of his games) finals as opposed to Lara's 27 (9.2% of his games). SRT has won 22 finals (46.8% of the finals he played) vs Lara's 12 (44.4%). Added to that, SRT scored 1954 runs (13.2% 0f his overall runs) in finals Vs Lara's 866 (8.4%).
I could have looked into semi finals, but after a while, it would be like beating a dead horse, so I give up.
Well, in spite of all the numbers, I don't say that SRT us unequivocally a better cricketer than Lara. All I want people to understand is that Chappel has reached an incorrect and hasty conclusion. Even the health issues that Chappel talks about do not hold water. SRT started before Lara and was utilized a lot more by his country and has at least two to three more years of solid cricket under him (irrespective of what Chappel thinks!!). So there goes the fitness discussion.
Ian Chappel has probably forgotten more about cricket than I can ever know. However, in this case, either he has forgotten a lot more than I credit him with, or he just wanted to say something outrageous to elicit such a response from a strong fan base.
I don't think Sachin should retire. I wanted to write a long drawn argument about that one, but I found it better captured here (along with many commets made under that article). To summarize, it is a ridiculous argument. He can still add value to the team. The team is better with him than without him. He is physically fit enough to play. He wants to play.
My 2 cents regarding this issue is this: Yes, he may not be as good as he used to be. That is no reason to retire. In fact, if he retired because his glory days are behind him and not because of his position relative to the team, that would be a very selfish decision. Even out of prime, he holds a spot in the team.
In the same article, Chappel also re-kindles the age old debate between Lara Vs Tendulkar, and it seems that his conclusion is that Lara was, is and will always be the better one. I have no problem with Chappel's conslusion. He is entitled to his wrong opinion.
But I would like to look at it a little more more objectively. How about some stats?
I know I know, statistics are lies. Well, they are lies only is the reader is brain dead or if we draw ridiculous conclusions from them. Let's try and stay away from the crazy conclusions.
"No no no, you can't do that. Sachin has already won the stats game, especially if it comes to one days." you might say. Well, let me know if there is a better way to compare two players whose career has spread over a cpouple of decades with lots of ups and downs. Can't do it on a game by game basis.
Also, I am limiting all these stats to one day internationals. Will do the tests after India loses to Bangladesh in the test series in May.
So I am a finance guy. For me, the better asset to invest in is the one that generates better overall value. If I had to pick between one thats lasts longer and generates value (runs, in this case) at a faster rate (average) and entertains more in the process (4s and 6s) vs some other asset that works lesser time (matches) and delivers relatively lower value and so on and so forth, then I would pick the former. Oh, I forgot to mention, Sachin bowls as well."Tendulkar has been a very selfish and building up his stats while his team was going down the dump, but Lara has been winning more matches while accumulating fewer stats", you might say.
I say look at the number of Man of the Match awards. SRT = 48, Lara = 30 (I counted them on Cricinfo StatsGuru page). Implying that SRT was the MoM for 12.5% of the games he played whereas Lara was MoM for 10.2% of the games Lara played. Talk about match winning performances.
Also, SRT has 190 wins in his career Vs 138 for Lara. Normalizing against the number of games played, SRT has won 49.5% of the games he played whereas Lara has won 46.8%.
"Forget the overall wins, India played a lot more games and many of those wins are against minnows" you may say.
First of all, I say "ignore the minnow at your own risk". Then I say, lets look at the statistics for "finals" of tournaments. Thanks to StatsGuru, we should be able to nail that sucker as well.
Wallah, we can. Tendulkar has played 47 (12.2% of his games) finals as opposed to Lara's 27 (9.2% of his games). SRT has won 22 finals (46.8% of the finals he played) vs Lara's 12 (44.4%). Added to that, SRT scored 1954 runs (13.2% 0f his overall runs) in finals Vs Lara's 866 (8.4%).
I could have looked into semi finals, but after a while, it would be like beating a dead horse, so I give up.
Well, in spite of all the numbers, I don't say that SRT us unequivocally a better cricketer than Lara. All I want people to understand is that Chappel has reached an incorrect and hasty conclusion. Even the health issues that Chappel talks about do not hold water. SRT started before Lara and was utilized a lot more by his country and has at least two to three more years of solid cricket under him (irrespective of what Chappel thinks!!). So there goes the fitness discussion.
Ian Chappel has probably forgotten more about cricket than I can ever know. However, in this case, either he has forgotten a lot more than I credit him with, or he just wanted to say something outrageous to elicit such a response from a strong fan base.
7 comments:
Just for curiosity...
Compare Sachin of 1998 with Sachin of 2007
Compare Jayasuriya of 1996 with Jayasuriya of 2007
Why is Chappel asking Sachin to Retire and not Jayasuriya...
ANy Ideas
When Ian Healy was dropped by Australia, they had Gilchrist in Waiting…. and hence healy was “not dropped”… But Gilchrist was “selected” as he was “better” than Healy….
The only time, our selectors did this was in April 1996…. Other than that, our selection policy had been either “Reward” or “Punishment” including once dropping Kapil for a bad shot he played as a batsman, when it was very evident that he was the best bowler in the country at that time…
While every one shouts loudly that “inclusion” in the team should be based on evidence and not on emotion, I am surprised as to why they want “exclusion” based on Emotion rather than evidence….
Learn from what South Africans did with Pollock after World Cup 2003… If he had been in India, we would have wasted his bowling also by dumping him totally !!!
This really surprises me
Comparing performance of both Sachin and Ponting from Jan 1, 2006
Ponting
at I NO Runs HS1 HS2 HS3 Ave 100 50 0
unfiltered 273 267 31 10118 164 145 141* 42.87 23 59 16
filtered 35 35 3 1505 164 124 113 47.03 5 10 2
Sachin
Mat I NO Runs HS1 HS2 HS3 Ave 100 50 0
unfiltered 384 374 37 14847 186* 152 146 44.05 41 77 18
filtered 26 25 4 938 141* 100* 100 44.66 3 6 3
How come Sachin with an average of 44 is to be dropped as he is "out of form", while Ponting with an average of 47 has never been "out of form"
is there just 3 runs which differentiate between "always in purple patch" and "unfit for One Day Cricket"
THis exactly is our problem... thinking with emotions and not with evidence....
Mat Runs HS BatAv 100 50 W BB BowlAv 5w Ct
LifeTime 384 14847 186* 44.05 41 77 149 5/32 43.76 2 115
2004 21 812 141 40.60 1 5 19 4/54 24.26 0 4
2005 16 412 123 27.46 1 2 8 5/50 31.50 1 6
2006 16 628 141* 44.85 2 3 3 1/27 72.00 0 6
2007 10 310 100* 44.28 1 3 6 2/25 39.16 0 2
From the above stats (thanks to StatsGuru), it's obvious Sachin is still in the runs and an important piece for India's cricket.
However I don't think everyone's reading Ian Chappell's article with objectivity. Ian is challenging Tendulkar at a different level. Sachin's been playing forever now. The reason why Sachin became so popular is that he stood up to the challenge when the whole of Indian team were pussies - and he won us matches with reckless abandon!
Now in all fairness India has a much better squad, more youth and what is Sachin's role? I think with his experience and reputation he would take us to the next level - make Indian team more mentally tough to stand up take anyone on. That's not what he does anymore. Nope that's not what I want Sachin to be - scoring regularly and collecting runs even now is mediocrity to me. If Sachin cannot take this team to the next level and cannot lead us by example, yeah so be it but that's a tough pill to swallow.
I think what Ian Chappell is saying is that if Sachin cannot step it up - he should hang his boots. In some wierd sense though I want to see Sachin play, I agree.
Sachin is clearly better than Lara but I say it is time to retire for Sachin. Too much mileage on the little frame. Stick to tests like Inzy as it is only down hill from this point. He is too big a hero to go through that. It is too late for him to rediscover himself. Get some one with more upside. Going by Sridhar's comments he has 2-3 years to go ? For what ? to win agianst Bangladesh, Pakistan etc. in meaningless encounters.
Get rid of the disease and make a statement with the biggest name and follow up with the potbellied banger (sehwag). Make Dhoni captain and re-emphasize the importance of milk and aggression. Jai Hind.
Well Maakhi Kirkiri,
Does Sachin really need to re-discover himself to stay in the team?
Read this article and see what the "recent" numbers say:
http://www.rediff.com/cricket/2007/jan/29guest.htm
All I see now is Sachin getting cleaned thorugh the gate to mediocre pace bowlers. I am not just talking about the WC either. What numbers are you referring to ? He will go score a couple more centuries against Bangladesh in June and will improve on his numbers. The Sachin you have in your mind is gone buddy. Wake up.
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