Pollock Retires

Merlin wrote:Great bowler on his day - and a decent bat at times.
Agree though - He probably knows that to get out now, whilst he's at the top, is probably best - as AD did.
Anyway, I'm sure a lucrative TV contract looms with Sky!

Shame - was looking forward to seeing him bowl against us this summer....

He's only 34, I reckon a lucrative county contract and/or a spell with the ICL beckons.

He probably knows that to get out now, whilst he's at the top, is probably best - as AD did.

Nah, AD hung around 18 months too long imo.

I seem to recall he had something like 200 test wkts at under 20 at one stage. Remarkable player.

Paul Keating wrote:I seem to recall he had something like 200 test wkts at under 20 at one stage. Remarkable player.

Aye. Well played Polly. Your country will miss you.

After Test # 50, Pollock had 210 wkts @ 19.86

Waqar had 184 @ 18.35 at one stage and he finished with 373 @ 23.56

Hey, how you doin' tonight, Pete?

pollock will go down as a great player for sure and also be remembered as a gentleman of the game

his career much like waqar & viv will be remembered for two parts. the first 5-6 years when he was pushing towards being one of the greatest ever and the second part where though not as good as before he was still a great player

much like above i agree he would be ranked ahead of kapil and botham in the all-rounder stakes, thanks to his more valuable bowling, but below imran and sobers. will be missed

I'm not sure he's a better allrounder than Botham. Dev, maybe. Botham, no.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I'm not sure he's a better allrounder than Botham. Dev, maybe. Botham, no.

Beefy on his day was more destructive, but Pollock was probably a more consistent contributor.

at his peak botham was the ultimate matchwinner with both bat AND ball, but when considering their whole career, you got to hand it to the consistency of Polly.

Fark! Is there a rather verbose and none too sharp echo in here?

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I'm not sure he's a better allrounder than Botham. Dev, maybe. Botham, no.

We're biased because Beefy was English but i'd say its very difficult to judge the two as they are different.

I've never really thought of Pollock as a true all-rounder, more of a bowling all-rounder in the Hadlee mould.

Botham was a far better batsman than Pollock despite the minor difference in average, as Beefys 14 100's to Pollocks 2 suggest.
Pollock also has 39 not outs compared to Beefys 6 - suggesting as we know they are different types of player.

Pollock has the edge over Botham in the bowling in that he's a genuine strike bowler

I've made this argument a thousand times but Beefy up until his back injury had played 45 Tests (which is a decent career) and had 217 wickets at 21 with a strike rate of 48 and 18 5-fors and a batting average of 33 with 8 centuries and 8 50s.

That is phenomenal by anyone's standards. After that his bowling sharply declined (with the odd wonder spell) and his batting improved a bit.

I can't think of a more strikey strike bowler than Botham.

Almost every player goes through something like that in his career. You can't just selectively look at the peak period. Actually you can, but you'd have to do it for everyone involved in a comparison then.

No they don't. Find me another player that had batting and bowling stats like that in their career. And not for small period. It was 5 years of Test cricket and 45 Tests. If you increase it a year it goes:

58 Tests. Batting average 37. 11 centuries, 13 50s. Bowling average 24. 262 wickets. 20 5-fors.

This is not a short period of time. Keith Miller, another great allrounder, played 55 Tests in his whole career.

And anyway, I don't care whether it's a bit selective, you have to take into account that Botham, after his injury was a shadow of the player he used to be. If he'd cared about stats he'd have retired and probably been regarded as the greatest allrounder of all. But he obviously needed the money/loved the game and even crocked, he was better than anyone else around.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:
If he'd cared about stats he'd have retired and probably been regarded as the greatest allrounder of all. But he obviously needed the money/loved the game and even crocked, he was better than anyone else around.

He should've retired after the 1985 Ashes series, almost certainly the 86/7 Ashes was the perfect opportunity to do so.
Sadly between 87-93 we were so shoite that he got picked on 'name' alone.
I agree with you totally - Beefy was the last person i'd ever call a stats hunter.

And unlike Polly, he's one of the few players I have visibly seen empty bars (until Fred came along 2003-05)

Very big Shame that Shaun won't play in England this year. I personally would have loved for him to play for another year, atleast in India, England and Australia (the big 3 in World Cricket). That would have been satisfying.

Nevertheless, he is a world class player who can bat and bowl and field extremely well. Should have been given the captaincy earlier but Smuth was continued with by the South African cricket board and selectors.

Farewell to an Amazing Player and allround good guy. Lets hope theres more Pollocks to come in the future.

He probably played the biggest part in denying us the series victory in SA last year. It's a shame he had to go now, as the team have made it obvious he doesn't get in as a bowler in front of Nel, Ntini, Steyn and possibly Morkel as well. What the idiots should have don however was play him as an all-rounder. He could have better than a few of their wastes of space in the SA batting line-up.

And I predicted he would retire. Sad. Would have preferred if he hadn't but I can't change the fact that I'm a bloody genius.

Great loss for SA cricket and of course for world cricket as well.

Was very surprised to see him being dumped in favour of Nel by SA in last few tests. May be he was bit miffed with SA's selection policies and thats why he announced his decision to retire at such an early age.

Great cricketer.

Glad to know Indians wont need to face his nagging line again.

Will be a very big loss for the Yarpies, still in more than useful cricketer at a test level.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:I think if you did, more people would sign up. A lot of people on C4 just used to lurk and read and then sign up after a few months. I think people want to see how good the forum is before they sign up.

It's also a pain having to log in when you just want to read, rather than post.

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