Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad poised to set an impressive record

I'm sure most England fans will be quite happy with the fact that Jimmy and Stu have both had a huge part in England winning 4 of the 6 Ashes series they have featured in. Probably explains the salty words of several Aussie posters on here!

He got a couple of tests. Made a pair at lords in 1981, got the silent treatment from the members on the way back to the pavilion and got the sack as skipper not long after. He always loathed the members after that. But I am pretty sure Botham got his knighthood for charity work, not for his services to cricket

How is Anderson superior to McGrath? Average? No. Strike rate? No. Economy rate? No. Away average? No.

Very interesting statistics, besides Anderson and Broad, Tim Southy and Trent Boult are still playing. Anderson and Broad have already created history.

I post his averages above - it doesn’t make great reading

How often did Botham captain?

You literally make no sense David. How many runs doesn’t impact your average - how frequently you’re dismissed does. If the Don scored 198 and got out twice, he’d still average 99. Statistically you only need to bat a minimum of 20 times to qualify for most stats. You don’t need 6,000 odd runs. My post, if you could read, was about the lack of good English bowlers over the last decade. If you spent less time being belligerent and more time reading and analysing posts, you’d come across better. How can you not understand this?

How can you even be famous for the amount of runs you scored, if the scheduling was poor during the era. Had he played for England without the world war he would have scored as many runs as Sachin, Ponting, Kallis, Rahul, Lara, Shiv, Border, Amla & Steven Waugh. Eventual run tallies of Amla, Kane, Steven, Root, Kohli & Shaw. He would have played 2 times as many games.

Why would he even replace Hobbs, Hutton or Herbert he was never an opener. Would you expect Kohli, Sachin, Clarke, Greg, Border, Steven Waugh, Steve Smith, Kane, Ponting, Lara, Shiv, Laxman etc to open to innings if the openers in the team are poor. They would only play in middle order their favorite position. Besides England had 3 all time greats as openers during the era, there was never any need to open the innings.

It would be ridiculous to think that Sir Donald wouldn't have scored as many runs as he did if he had legends playing with him in the team. The opposition wouldn't obsess over your wicket, if they focused too much on him. Hutton, Sutcliffe, Compton & Hammond would have taken incredible advantage of it. If you are the only great player on your team, focus of all the players whether it is in team meetings & during match would be on how to make sure that you fail to perform well during the match so that they can win it easily, to ensure you don't have much influence over the result of the match. Muralitharan, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Andy Flower, Graeme Pollock 1964-1969, Shivnarine post 2006, Sunil Gavaskar during the 1970s, Eoin Morgan in Ireland, Sachin during 1991-1996 period, Brian Lara, Allan Border 1984-1992 & Hobbs before 1923 would have performed even better if they were not scrutinized so much. It is extremely tough to be the only great player on your team contrary to popular belief. It would be like saying that when you are studying in High School or College you have one incredibly tough exam but others are easy. Ofcourse, you will spend most of your time, concentration, dedication & hard work on how to clear that main exam, since you will get good marks anyways on other exams since they don't provide any major challenge. If however, you have 4 or 5 very tough exams, your resources & strategy will be spent on a even way so that you get good marks on all of them. So that you don't pass 1 exam with A grade & fail in others. Bradman's teammates took advantage of the fact that the focus of everyone whether it is opposition, media or fans was not on them, they weren't studied rigorously to find out any weakness in their game that existed which could be exploited. So they performed much better. There wouldn't have been extreme pressure on Sir Donald to perform well in every innings to make his team wins. Even if he failed, Hutton, Hammond, Herbert & Denis would have tried their best not to let his failure have too much influence over the match. Eg if Murali failed to perform well, the pressure on his teammates would have been extreme, morale would have taken a major beating & opposition would have taken advantage of your failure so they win the match easily. If Shane Warne failed Aus still had Ponting, Hayden, Langer, McGrath, Gilchrist, Gillespie & Lee to ensure that the team would still win the match. His failure would have nowhere near the massive impact that Murali had. If Sachin failed during 1991-1996 period India lost majority of the matches easily. Even If Kohli fails he still has Pujara, Shaw, Hardick, Ishant, Shami, Rahane, Bhuvi, Bumrah, Jadeja & Mayank who are enough to win India most of the matches in Tests, even in ODIs if he fails team still has Dhawan, Rohit, Dhoni, Pandya, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bhuvi & Bumrah. Since there are so many future BCCI lifetime achievement award winners in the team his failure wouldn't have a major influence in the match if others perform well. India will still be the best team in the world in either format without Kohli but Australia was absolutely nothing without Sir Donald, New Zealand without Hadlee, Zimbabwe without Andy Flower & Sri Lanka without Murali. You are the messiah of the team, the saviour who leads from the front. Your very failure means eventual defeat. Sir Donald would have received great freedom had he played for England. Without incredible pressure to perform & with opposition not obsessed about him. He would have batted smoothly with great dedication without major anxiety of his teammates failing at the other end to ruin his mood & morale. He would have recieved great support to bat till the dawn of the time. In Australia whenever the top & middle order failed to perform, there was lot of pressure to dominate the strike & score quickly so that the team can atleast have good total on the board before they lose the 10th wicket, which often leads to mistakes, trying up the run rate. Since he wouldn't have the luxury of depending on bowlers since they were very poor with the bat. Without these he would have averaged lot more. Team Innings last a lot longer & less pressure.

Enjoy your columns David. I assume Anderson & Broads' records are much more favourable in Tests at home. Does anyone have the comparative stats?

Rubbish, Sir Alec Bedser got a knighthood and never coached or captained England.

See I disagree David, if the Don had more innings cut short due to declarations he'd probably have averaged more than he did. Andy Ganteaume averaged 112 and didn't score anywhere near as many runs as Bradman. Shame you're not this committed to replying to people like myself, Spruce, Christo and others who have taken so much time over the years to point out numerous ways you can improve as a writer.

In fact Bushy the stats are right and Anderson should be regarded as and is a superior bowler to the boring McGrath. McGrath bored out batsman while artists like Anderson do it by moving the ball around. If you doubt me just ask Glen. He got the bounce. Marshall, Lillee and sometimes McDermott here were lethal when they had the blood boiling, as Pattinson was a few years back. But often these guys were flat as well. I watched Barry Richards carve Lillee up in WSC. McGrath is a rusted on Australian favorite but Lillee was a matchwinner when he felt like it. Like when he was up against Viv Richards in Perth. To me he is the best fast bowler I have seen. If you like listening to a metronome you'de love Glen McGrath.

Are these tallies for wickets taken while playing in the same matches or just their career figures? Bit pointless if it's the former.

“England’s greatest new-ballers”??? Seriously? I suppose Alistair Cook is the fifth greatest batsman of all time and twice as good as Bradman? And Daniel Vettori was twice as good as Bill O’Reilly? I mean he nearly scored twice as many runs? Hell, this article not only mindlessly credits quantity over quality, it can’t even give proper numbers to compare. It only makes sense to compare pairs of bowlers over the games they played TOGETHER!, not by combining their respective total wickets. E.g. adding Lillee and Thomson ignores the fact that the number of series and games they didn’t play together – Lillee only 1970-73, 1976-77, Thommo 1977-78, Lillee 1981, Thommo 1982-83, Lillee 1983-84. So there is no 1000 wicket milestone coming up. …. Aggregates are the least meaningful stats to use when comparing players of different eras. Many of the greatest players of all time don’t feature on these list. Sure, aggregates are a reflection of longevity- good performance and durability over a long period. But Broad and Anderson’s numbers just show they play more Tests these days. And remember, Bradman played SIX years longer than Cook – you can only play in Tests that are scheduled! As for suggesting that Broad and Anderson should be mentioned in the same breath as Marshall, Garner and Holding, that’s laughable. Here’s a stat for you – Those three took 190 wickets in 1984, exclusively against England and Australia, nine out of 14 Tests away from home. Have Broad and Anderson ever done anything remotely approaching that? And Anderson’s career average of 29? – not even in England’s top 50, and behind such geniuses as Mike Hendrick, Chris Old and Geoff Arnold!

Nah. He never captained the team. Knighthoods in English sport always go to captains/coaches. Never rank and file.

Anderson will still get a knighthood though to match Cook's.

Mixed up your Jones boys there Lordy. Good to see Simon's dad, I J Jones. get a run on the roar though. Both cursed by injury. Interesting the aves of Mssrs Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard are all 30 or more, while S PJones is at 28, playing only 18 tests. Cos they were the best (just about only) english fast bowling quartet since Bodyline and inflicted a most unexpected defeat on the aussies. Ando and Broad better overall but when the planets aligned it was an impressive team. Best 4 pronger since the West Indies great era.