In the latest episode of the podcast, we discuss the idea of greatness in cricket. What do we mean when we say a player is 'great', how does one compare across eras, and what are the pitfalls we fall into when discussing greatness.
Talking Points:
- Greatness as a measurement of a player's performance against their peers
- The habit of putting down one player as one elevates another
- The need for a transcendent moment for a player to be anointed 'great'
- The fallacy of the match-winning innings
- Lillee v Cummins: the complexity of comparing two great bowlers
- The power of nostalgia in talking about greatness - the Andy Roberts problem
- Great batsmen in weak teams and great bowlers in strong teams
- The problem with recency bias when judging greatness
- Is this South African team better than the teams from the 1990s and 2000s?
- The high benchmark for subcontinental players in foreign conditions
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Participants:
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (@sidvee)
Mahesh Sethuraman (@cornerd)
Kartikeya Date (@cricketingview)
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Related:
- The line of greatness - Siddhartha Vaidyanathan - The Cricket Monthly
- Wisden 100 - Wikipedia
- Who are the greatest T20 players of all - Kartikeya Date - ESPNcricinfo
- Who are the best batsmen of each decade - Anantha Narayanan - ESPNcricinfo
- The Richards standard for ODI batsmen - Kartikeya Date - ESPNcricinfo
- A new measure for cricketing greatness - Andy Bull - Guardian
- An all-time world Test XI, according to ICC rankings - Rupin Kale - Wisden
