TheJediBrah
Well-known member
1. that's not what you saidwill elaborate when im home. will also point out for those who can't read (the lil aussie) the original point was 'injury prevented cairns from being an atvg'
2. still not even true
1. that's not what you saidwill elaborate when im home. will also point out for those who can't read (the lil aussie) the original point was 'injury prevented cairns from being an atvg'
Walsh and Ambrose were still playing through most of Cairns peak, and were both better than him. Wasim and too. Then you have guys like Darren Gough and Andy Caddick who were on Cairns level if not slightly ahead of him.he'd easily be a top 10 quick during his peak as well. mcgrath, pollock, donald, young gillespie, shoaib...starting to run out of names.
I would definitely have Cairns ahead of Gough and CaddickWalsh and Ambrose were still playing through most of Cairns peak, and were both better than him. Wasim and too. Then you have guys like Darren Gough and Andy Caddick who were on Cairns level if not slightly ahead of him.
not a chanceThen you have guys like Darren Gough and Andy Caddick who were on Cairns level if not slightly ahead of him.
nice tryThis is worse than my opinion on Southee.
you would get credit for this if you led with it1. that's not what you said
2. still not even true
imagine if he got to bowl with a duke at home thoI definitely don’t remember Cairns swinging the ball much, if at all. That 1999 series with an out of control duke might have been an exception.
I won't bother about arguing whether or not Cairns meets the definition of an atvg, because there is no such definition, it's a nonsense term made up by our fellow dickheads on CW. But as for the question of Cairns v Boult, that's a pretty easy one to actually answer. Boult averages sub-30 v every team he's played against save Australia and SA. Cairns averages over 30 against every team he played save SL, WI and Zimbabwe. Cairns' bowling stats are really boosted by lots of cheap wickets against some pretty feeble Zim sides and arguably the worst team in test history (the 02 touring Bangladeshis) - Cairns picked up nearly a quarter of his career wickets against these 2 sides. Admittedly Boult's played a few tests against Zim and Bangladesh through his career, but modern day Bangladesh are clearly a better side than the Zimbabwe of the 90's and in any case, they make up a much smaller portion of his career tally.cairns entered tests way too early as a 19 year old, similar to the treatment of other atvgs. from 96-04 cairns took 175 @ 27 with the ball (and averaged 36 with the bat) across 48 tests. between 98-04, he took 136 @ 26 from 34 tests (and averaged 37 with the bat).
this is pretty similar if not better than trenty and basically the definition of atvg numbers going on when we started hearing other unnamed bowlers were atgs. i think it is more than fair to say if not prevented by injury and new zealands modest schedule compared to other nations, cairns would be widely regarded as an atvg on bowling alone.
he spent 6-8 years as a high class test bowler alone. this isn't a little peak like southee's where he faded away just as we got comfortable the new version, the alleged mr x is undeniably a woeful human for his treatment of vincent but the **** could seriously bowl.
I don't think he was fortunate to have an average less than 40, I mean he was a good bowler and especially before his 2nd major knee injury in 2000. You're probably right that if his body hadn't given out then he would've been able to push on to a much better overall record. But the very large amount of cricket that we played v Zim around the turn of the millenium definitely benefitted his career record by a good 2 or 3 runs (and you could say he maybe deserved that given he was thrown in the deep end at 19).well rip
will probably delve tomorrow to check whether you're being even more selective than a pom filtering out kookaburra stats or if i have strong memory bias towards my childhood memories of peak cairns and the recent series highlights i've seen, because you've basically painted him as fortunate to average less than 40 with the ball there tbh and i don't think someone that bad would get the press they do even from notoriously derisive (towards 90s kiwis) overseas media.
a hole i can easily poke is modern bangers aren't better than andy flower and heath streak zimbabwe, especially away from home. 90s windies were a real team as well.
ftr the southee example was intellectually honest - i needed a kiwi peak surrounded by mediocrity or less peakyness. boult and wagner have been too consistent and cairns teammates stayed on the park even less than he did.
modern bangers have the same issue. their pace attack is hawke cup level.I don't think he was fortunate to have an average less than 40, I mean he was a good bowler and especially before his 2nd major knee injury in 2000. You're probably right that if his body hadn't given out then he might've been able to push on to a much better overall record. But the very large amount of cricket that we played v Zim around the turn of the millenium definitely benefitted his career record by a good 2 or 3 runs.
Flower and arguably streak are better than anybody who's ever played for Bangladesh, but you've got to remember that Zim in the 90's had some real club-standard cricketers filling in the gaps in their lineup (a consequence of your player pool being barely 30,000 I guess). Zim managed just 2 wins between 96 and 2004 (Cairns' peak) against anybody save Bangladesh (1 apiece v India and Pakistan). Modern
I agree re Headley but he was injury prone. Ironically this perhaps helps his overall record because he was always bowling at the peak of his form. Could he have sustained it like Gough had to? Not so sure about that. Gough was always a danger and he played against arguably the best ever Australian batting line up. His average multiplied by the degree of difficulty makes him considerably better than Cairns. cairns beats Caddick though.Gough had some good moments against Australia but he also had some absolute shockers, all in all his record is decent but to say he did "bloody well" is a bit of a stretch imo
Everyone remembers him carrying on like a **** in the 1998 MCG victory, but he really didn't bowl that well at all that innings. Headley was the man who really got the job done on that occasion. But then Gough gets on and cleans up those noted world class batsman Stuart MacGill and Glenn McGrath, and that is what people remember unfortunately
You've got to remember that "the last proper Windies side" had already been hung drawn and quartered by SA 5-0 the previous summer. They weren't the rabble they became in subsequent years (if only because of Walsh and Lara) but they weren't a good team anymore. But tbf, Cairns' bowling was awesome that series, as it had been earlier in the year v England. I think 1999 was when Cairns really peaked as a bowler.im surprising myself in actually fact checking you, mostly because my statsguru tab was still open.
during the 96-04 peak i left open, cairns bowling includes
33 @ 35 v aus (23 @ 34 in aus) this isn't good but will be used in a later point.
36 @ 27 v eng (21 @ 23 in eng with the cheat ball)
17 @ 9 (looooooooooool) v the last proper windies side before this decade
these are also decent sample sizes. boult in a more complete career faced australia less than cairns did just in that 8 year peak.
some real clangers v india and pakistan and then 3 'fine' tests against sa where he averaged 32. his record supports a compromise between our positions imo. boult is a little better, but boult also has far bigger holes. their australian records are in no way comparable at all. lovely trenty averages 41 against aus, and it would be worse if his hand didn't get busted by starc. boult is also woeful in india (though i remember him bowling better than his figures) and south africa, but has some good hopelessly flat deck wickets in the uae.
having seen both, cairns' best is better than boult's best, and boult really impressed me in the uae. boult has had a more complete career and barring disaster (always around the corner with kiwi bowlers) will be an atvg. peak cairns tho is a new level. i wish the current team had his aura and fire in the soul. we've got wagner, but he could use a friend.
modern bangers have the same issue. their pace attack is hawke cup level.
Very questionableI would definitely have Cairns ahead of Gough and Caddick
Then again I genuinely believe a fully fit Dean Headley was better than anyone else England had at the time so what do I know
lol there's this againYou also have a fair point on Boult's record v Australia, but a part of me just can't help but put that down to bad luck (at least in part). Boult played 5 of his 7 tests v Aus coming off a serious stress fracture that had him bowling barely as quick as Lord Colin in 2015/16. Then when his next series v Aus roles around 5 years later, he's injured again.