"I've played my last Test match": Adam Voges

First class batting average of 48 and bowling average of 36. What a rubbish player ;)

Fairdinkum Freo, do you ever tire of the alternate universe you live in? To school you again: Bradman averaged just on twice as much as anyone in his day. And what batsmen averaged in his day are pretty much what they average now. That is called parity. Your failure to grasp even the most basic concepts of parity is truly holding the class back.

Same with Bradman. No outstanding bowlers. Bedser was medium pace..Voce was medium slow and Larwood was a little guy who scared him but achieved little.

Voges did okay, but scored most of his runs against easy opponents. A statistical anomaly, like Gillespie's 200 not out against Bangladesh.

Whilst everyone is frothing about his average, their is a far more concerning story here that I'm surprised no one is talking about... Here was a cricketer averaging around a hundred that just basically couldn't get out. He then gets hit in the head in a freak accident in county cricket and is concussed. He plays a handful of more tests, almost halves his average and is concussed again. Then career over. Pretty concerning.

I'm sure we haven't seen the end of it. Some of the "statistics" they come up with are pretty hilarious (though cricket is prone to it). You gotta admit, there is something quite odd about Voges career averages: West Indies (away): 167 England (away): 28.71 New Zealand (home): 71.25 West Indies (home): 375 (wasn't actually dismissed, so not really an average) New Zealand (away): 154.50 Sri Lanka (away): 19.66 South Africa (home): 7.50 The fascinating thing is that there are a lot of players, George Bailey comes to mind, who would have been dropped for their performance in England. At his age, that was a more likely outcome than not. Instead, thanks (I believe in no small part) to a slightly unforseen retirement by MIchael Clarke, his career is saved. He then goes on a mind blowing run scoring feast across eight tests, before it's resumption of what I think was his more likely batting ability (at this level and at his age). In many ways a very average test career. No one can take away his average, but when we needed his experience etc, he was nowhere to be found (England, Adelaide against New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Hobart collapse).

Nah, it's great. In a couple years it'll make a good pub trivia question.

Lol...of course not. Just enjoy the hilarity of it. There are querks on the bowling lists as well that we just all have to live with and accept. Wisden is wisest.

Wisden and cricinfo use 20 innings, so that's that. LOVING that channel 9 are using a whole variety of different statistical minimums to remove Voges from that list and instead insert Smith up near the top. So far I've seen "2000 runs", "50 tests" "15 or more centuries". Brilliant.

Bigbaz. If someone comes along with 35 innings that prove to be as insubstantial as Voges' 31, than yes, we move it to the next qualification. See, what we've found is 19 is not enough, so we excluded Syd Barnes, now we've found 31 is not enough. Whatever way, 31 innings, 7 or 8 of which were red inks, has proven to be too low. Voges' was a hack who couldn't make a run when the going was tough and his career has proved a litmus test about what qualifies for substance

Till of course someone comes along with 35 innings that we don't agree with.

Just where do you draw the line? For many years, 20 Test innings has been the qualifying standard for assessing a Test batsman's career average. This meant that just four players completed their careers averaging over 60 _ Herbert Sutcliffe (60.73), George Headley (60.83) and Graeme Pollock (60.97), with Don Bradman out of sight on 99.94. Some good ones missed out through not having quite enough qualifying innings. Sid Barnes walked out to bat 19 times in Test cricket and averaged 63.05. Stewie Dempster had an average of 65.72 but batted just 15 times. Adam Voges has joined the ranks of the elite 60-plus club, with an average of 61.87 for his 31 innings. But it is hard to accept that he truly belongs with the greats. Do we need to lift the qualifying standard to 35 innings, just to put Voges in his rightful place?

What do some of you want him to do? Get out cheaply just so your assessment of him is correct? He did the exact thing we want our test players to do. He tried...and he did ok.

Good on him! While I think he is probably anomaly, I can't begrudge him his place in the History Books. If we are honest, he should of been picked a long time before he was and would of certainly resolved the anomaly calls..... But Australian selectors continual desire to play All-rounders and Project players really stopped Voges from playing the true amount of games he should of played for his country.

I agree he's an anomaly/quirk. I could even potentially agree that it raises questions around whether or not there needs to be a reassessment of the statistical cut off. It certainly raises serious questions about the present make up of Test cricket (not just the quality of some sides, but the manner in which pitches are prepared etc). But Mick B used the phrase "shouldn't they add to that "if you consider a small sample size". I was pointing out that it's not a small sample size, at leats not by historical standards, hence why 20 innings has traditionally been used as the cut off point for these sorts of statistics.

Good player, good guy.

History will register this guy as second to bradman with the best average ever if doesn't play test cricket a gain ,therefore CA needs to do the world justice by giving him 3 more series to drop his average to mid thirties which is what he deserves .

And yet it produced an anomaly. 19 innings, and Syd Barnes is number 2 to the Don. Let's not kid ourselves: Voges' is a quirk. You wouldn't have him in the top 100 batsmen to have played test cricket, let alone the top 200.

Except he meets the statistical sample size most statisticians use to remove anomalies (20 innings).

Thanks Adam, a better test career than I managed, make that a better cricket career, I never made it out of 2nd grade. Don't let the keyboard warriors belittle what they will never achieve.