bigfluffylemon wrote:Also, you say it was harder to bowl in the 2000s than 2010s in support of Flintoff's bowling performance as averages have gone down, but you can't have it both ways. Stokes higher batting average comes in an era when statistically it was harder to bat than Fred's career
The first question is indeed a very natural one to assume/ask, but it leads us to false assumptions when looking at the data as a whole. The real question I am trying to posit is.... what are their relative worths as players when comparing them to their contemporaries? Many people make cross era comparisons without appreciating that these can be utterly null and void, and do not tell a true story of someones contributions. I see a lot of people talk of Flintoffs figures not being that good, even poor, when considering his bowling for instance, and people often talk of "the peak" being his only value.
The truth is, if we take the point pitches upturned in scores massively in 2002 (2000 was actually a historically low scoring year with averages under 30, 2001 pretty average historically), whch is also the point Flintoff became a regular in the side, and then remove Zimbabwe (as they were stripped of test status for being unworthy of it in this period) and BD (who Flintoff averaged 11 against so I am not cherry picking it to remove other players, but everyone destroyed them, so the more players played v BD the more it abnormally affects the data)....
Only 3 bowlers averaged under 25 (Akthar, McGrath and Steyn).... all of which are legends of the game.
Another 4 bowlers averaged between 28 and 30 .... Pollock, Mitch, Dizzy and Ntini
After that, you have a glut of around 31.5 to 32.5 .... Flintoff, Vaas, Lee, Nel and Hoggard
Here it is worth noting a couple of things
1. Out of any player, batters or bowlers, Flintoff played most against the top teams. 36 matches v IND/SA/AUS.... the next best is 24 for Hoggard, and non-English Ntini and Brett Lee at 22. This is incredibly significant in bowling terms, because only one bowler averaged better in these games than their entire period averages, Dizzy Gillesipe. The average differential ranges from slightly more to extremely more in these games, and is clearly consistent.
2. South African pitches bucked the trend, and remained historically average for scoring. Every single player above averaged below the period mean in SA. Flintoff took 23 @ 24 in 5 matches there, but all quality bowlers did better, and in some cases much better. So South Africans averaging slightly better having played half their games in more friendly conditions is hugely favourable to them.
3. Flintoff and Ntini are the only players to have played in every year of the decade, and the only players to have played in the three highest statistic batting years.
4. The Australian's on the list had the grace of never having to play against their own team ...that averaged 420-430 an innnings across the decade. As we can demonstrate, these Australians also averaged more against top teams, so confronted with a team that averaged 60 runs more per innings, its almost certain the Lees/Dizzy/Mitchells averages would have vastly increased had they had the misfortune of bowling to their own bats.
5. Some consider Anderson England's greatest seam bowler.... he averaged 36 in this period in nearly 50 tests, so was considerably worse than Flintoff playing the same teams on the same pitches.
The trends here are so strong, its very debatable to aside from Steyn and McGrath, you could make a case that anyone else given the same schedule and batting line ups to bowl to as Flintoff, did as well as him. Hoggard averaged slightly better, but played 12 matches less vs top class opposition, and his average factored up to the same matches would push him over Flintoff.
The bottom line is, I think there is a convincing case to state that Flintoff was a top 5 seamer across the 2000s span in world cricket. In comparison, Ben Stokes is 35th across his career span for players with 100 wickets based on average. Even without the context above, that is considerably distant from Flintoff in his own era.
Batting? Well you would expect it not to be close, but for each in their own span, Flintoff is 85th best average for players over 1000 runs in his era... Stokes is 64th... There isnt that big a difference.
which surely by that logic magnifies the difference even more (and further doesn't support the claim that Flintoff faced better bowlers).
I think even you would have to appreciate that lowering test match scores are not being caused by an upturn in quality of bowling or noteworthy changes in pitches, but by the game being dominated by T20 format that produces players of little technical value?
