81 All Out - A Cricket Podcast

Greatness across eras: measures, challenges, and fallacies

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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
      • ...more
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