Greatness across eras: measures, challenges, and fallacies

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 Support 81allout on Ko-fi Participants: Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (@sidvee) Mahesh Sethuraman (@cornerd) Kartikeya Date (@cricketingview) * Buy Cricket Beyond the Bazaar (recently republished by 81allout) India (hardback) | India (paperback, e-copy); Australia (hardback, paperback, e-copy); USA (hardback, paperback, e-copy); UK (hardback, paperback, e-copy); Canada (hardback, paperback, e-copy) 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