Quote: Sobers bat on a cracked and crumbling hell hole at Sabina and punished england and very nearly pulled off an astonishing win...
and that innings was against England and heir bowling attack was John Snow, David Brown and Jeff Jones..2 right handers and left arm Jones..one of the best, varied and fastest ever of English attacks.
John Snow is among the best ever English fast bowlers
When taking all the extenuating circumstances into consideration , it goes without saying that all the achievements by players during the Sobers era were superior to the present time.
Those extenuating circumstances are namely .. lack of protective gear , uncovered pitches , unlimited bouncers and in the case of Sobers and the windies team , racially biased umpiring , the only conclusion that one can come to is that Sobers was light years above any other all rounder in the past or present.
Number therefore are meaningless if it to used to compare Sobers to anyone else and while you may claim that numbers dont lie , it does not in fact tells the whole story.
Sobers .. greatest all rounder , greatest cricketer ever .
[quote author=midwicket link=topic=45351.msg541127#msg541127 date=1388351149]
Don Bradman had said that Sobers was the greatest All Rounder ever
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There are many who says that Khanai was the greatest batsman ever.
Ian botham Kapil and Imran come close to him in terms of bravado or sheer arrogance or on cricketing skills, Richard Hadlee did not do much with bats so I would not consider him up there at all. But above all, Sir Gary stands. Kallis..not even close.
and Rev while we are at it , why don't you equalize the the number of games that Sobers played to that of Kallis and then extrapolate Sobers numbers , using his batting and bowling averages and see what you will arrive at in comparison with Kallis.
You being the numbers guy.
You will find that Sobers aggregate in runs and wickets would be higher and with a higher batting average than that of Kallis