2004 Team v 2024 Team

[eugene]

Jimmy Anderson is the one player who is still around now that was around 20 years ago - statistically he has got better over time. If a fast bowler can adapt to the current game at the age of 41 I'm pretty sure the greats of yesteryear could also.

[andrea lanzoni]

I can hardly figure out a sport where a previous generation can do better than the present one.
In record breaking sports it is easy to reckon.

However, even in motorsport top stars of the past such as Stewart, Senna or even Schumacher couldn't beat Hamilton or Verstappen.
I'm sorry to admit: Marquez was faster than Valentino Rossi, (although the career of Valentino has been much better).

Each sportsman is to be judged for how he stands out in his present time.

Back to cricket: Zimbabwe in 2004 was a truly good squad in comparison to oppositions of its time.

Present Zimbabwe struggles against Namibia and, occasionally, Uganda.
Present Zimbabwe is much farther from India and England than Zimbabwe of 20 years ago.

[Googly]

Bradman hit six 6's in 53 tests and no 6's in 238 first class games. You'd have to move the boundary rope in about 50m before he could clear the rope.

If you stuck him in a time machine and got him to face an over from Brett Lee he'd do worse than Piers Morgan.

Maruma has hit 116 first class sixes. You sure as shit are not picking him ahead of Bradman.

In a T20 I'm picking Maru all day. Dead serious. He plays shots that Bradman would never have heard of. Bradman is a pet topic of mine. I've watched hours of 1930's cricket in morbid fascination at their mannerisms and lack of ability . I'd rather watch Uganda Women play Churchill u13B

[TapsC2]

Interesting points of view. It’s a question people ask in other sports as well when they compare greats. One way of looking at is to say just pure evolution mixed with technological advances would mean that athletes today are better conditioned to compete. At the same time you would expect some of the legends of the past would also have adjusted to modern conditions.

For me if you take the teams of the past as they were they would lose to a modern team. If you train and condition the exact same guys from the past just like how you train and condition the present guys, some of them would still be great. Some wouldn’t. That’s just the nature of life.

An example of this would be how some guys are just struggling to adjust to T20 cricket. Ervine is a good example of this and T20s are the future of cricket. Raza on the other hand is not technically better than Ervine but he has adjusted better to the modern game.

My main issue with guys from the past is that video analysis greatly influences the game now. Once you have played 10 games there is enough footage of a batsman to know exactly how to get them out. It also means you constantly have to adjust your game. The likes of Bradman didn’t have to constantly go through that. The bigger countries have excellent domestic footage as well so you will be going through all those adjustments before you even get to the national team.

[Googly]

People also forget that the population 70 years ago was one third what it is now and on top of that didn't get paid, put in 1/10 the practice, were smaller and significantly weaker and a smaller percentage of that population played sport because they had less free time. Never mind the lack of training facilities, less knowledge, old ways of coaching, old techniques, inferior equipment etc etc .
Absolutely no doubt some of those players would have adapted, but a small minority of them.
Their best 1% would not come close to matching present day 1%. It's just maths at the end of the day.

Bradders was not a particularly nice individual, by all accounts, not that that factors into it, just saying.
He once had the audacity to comment, whilst watching Sachin, that Sachin reminded him of himself. I mean that's like Roger Bannister saying Kipchoge reminded him of himself. Kipchoge could hop faster than Bannister

[secretzimbo]

Three great posts above.

[Pat_Bee]

Quick half hour net session to get used to the feel of these modern bats and a run down on what white ball bowling is about and old Bradman would boss it I reckon. In the absence of video analysis, wikipedia reckons he was stepping outside of leg to manufacture golf and tennis shots into the offside to counter bodyline. Using the crease like that and playing unorthodox shots in 1930 is a total boss move couple of deliveries to get his eye in and he’d be taking 16 off Faraz every over easy.

[Terryalderman]

People also forget that the population 70 years ago was one third what it is now and on top of that didn't get paid, put in 1/10 the practice, were smaller and significantly weaker and a smaller percentage of that population played sport because they had less free time. Never mind the lack of training facilities, less knowledge, old ways of coaching, old techniques, inferior equipment etc etc .
Absolutely no doubt some of those players would have adapted, but a small minority of them.
Their best 1% would not come close to matching present day 1%. It's just maths at the end of the day.

Bradders was not a particularly nice individual, by all accounts, not that that factors into it, just saying.
He once had the audacity to comment, whilst watching Sachin, that Sachin reminded him of himself. I mean that's like Roger Bannister saying Kipchoge reminded him of himself. Kipchoge could hop faster than Bannister

There’s more population but there’s less cricketers!! Don’t you remind us of that! In Australia it’s the case anyway. Basketball has ruined participation amongst kids.

[zimbos_05]

In a T20 I'm picking Maru all day. Dead serious. He plays shots that Bradman would never have heard of. Bradman is a pet topic of mine. I've watched hours of 1930's cricket in morbid fascination at their mannerisms and lack of ability . I'd rather watch Uganda Women play Churchill u13B

You mentioned First Class, not T20. Maruma also has an average of 13.20 in T20's. I don't care if a player can play a fancy shot, what I care about is how much they value their wicket, and how they are able to score runs regularly. Bradman did that. He may have played simple cricket, but that's what made him so good. The difficulty to get him out because he played good cricket shots. Too many players try to be fancy and when it comes off, it looks nice, but it's a high risk shot that not many pull off consistently.

The posts above are swaying away from the actual original post that secretezimbo made. He said that the current team would beat the 90s Zim team. That is false.

All these other things about how the game has developed and so on are fair points. Yes the game has developed. In saying that, it's meant that certain sub-par players are able to do things they technically couldn't. Take bats for example. They are so thick now that it doesn't really take much for a thick edge to go for six. That's not down to the technical skills of the batsman. Bowling is a bit more regulated now in terms of number of bouncers and rules around protection. Batsmen have helmets so are able to be more adventurous in the face of a bouncer or such.

Yes, some players of today would absolutely smash some of the past, but those are the actually technically and talented players we are talking about.

Someone made a point about time for training. Are we genuinely saying that the Uganda team that beat us are training 24/7? I can't imagine that the Uganda team is living off a wage from cricket. So if our "professional" cricketers could not beat them, how can we expect them to beat a team that had chicken farmers that made it to number 5 in the world?

[eugene]

Before people started getting on the turps and claiming Maruma is superior to Bradman, the point of the original post was which scenario would you take? Where we were in 2004 or where we are now? To me, the answer is clear - 2004. We had BT, Taibu, Rainsford, Panyangara, and then Williams, Ervine, etc waiting in the wings. I doubt we have anyone of that caliber coming through the system now who will have similar success in international cricket.