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stokesy55 · 3 months

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anon who sent in the ask about wanting to have a discussion about the vk-jos debate here. thank you for answering that!

yeah, you're right it pretty much boils down into what you consider the definition of impact! to me there isn't really a standard definition, because so many external factors come into play, but what i usually do is take a certain player's innings out of the equation while keeping the rest of the stats the same and see what the scores look like after that. also what my broadcast often shows is stats like "x team won this many percent of times when y batter from their team scored a certain no. of runs or y bowler took a certain no. of wickets. and that stood out as very interesting to me, there's some water in that argument there.

which is why i rate vk so high, because more often than not, take vk's runs out of the equation and india 9 times out of 10 wouldn't have won that match. this final is the prime example of that, reddit dudebros were at vk's throat to up the ante, but imo he played exactly as the situation required. in that scenario, vk getting stuck in was the best bet for us to be able to win that match, and we did! imagine instead of scoring 76 off 59 he scored something like 50 off 20 or a 30 off 15. yes he scores at a higher rate, but then we end up with a 20-40 less runs to defend, which is a more difficult job, and dareisay a different result for us.

also I feel like the debate about take vk out of the equation and we lose might be influenced by team combination? this is absolutely not an insult to england or jos, in fact it's a compliment. jos has rarely been needed to be a one-man army for england, because his teammates have hardly ever left him in that situation. vk, on the other hand, has dragged the team to wins with almost no support, and that honestly reflects worse on the other players on our team. i promise you, rohit wasn't always the batsman you've seen in this world cup 🥴 back in 2014/16, he used to be veeery hit and miss, and very often the openers would depart on ducks, and leave vk with a job to do. and madlad actually did get it done most of the times.

that's why i often get annoyed when people call vk selfish or a stats merchant or a statpadder. like yes, he plays slow, but the others didn't really give him an option apart from conserving his wicket? if he too gets out searching for the big shot, who's gonna bat deep and take us home? also, not to mention that vk is probably the best pacer of an innings of the current generation; he's so ruthless at the death, and can find the boundary at will. mohali and melbourne was proof of that.

and again vk is so devastatingly consistent and reliable in t20s. it's like whenever i watch rohit, or surya or even jos play, i have no idea whether they are gonna score 0 or 20 or 30 or 50 or 100, but whenever vk is batting, 9 times out of 10, i can count on him to score at the very least a 20. the big-hitters aren't really as consistent as him. jos definitely is one of the more consistent hitters, as are gayle and guptill, but to me, personally, nobody comes close to vk's consistency in t20s.

i think for me, the consistency is what cements vk as the best T20 batter of this generation to me, because i can't recall anyone else who has sustained their form and their ability to come clutch when necessary the way vk has.

(side note: i hadn't thought about this until this debate came up, but thoughts on a vk/jos opening partnership? it would really work out in my opinion, they complement each other perfectly 😋)

Yeah agree with a lot of what you said, and to reiterate I’m not denying he’s one of the best white ball batters to have ever played the game. I would still say Jos is more impact than VK though, but that’s all down to what I believe is an impact player.

Like I said before, VK sits with Joe and Steve and Kane as the Big 4 for a reason, but to me they’re not impact players. As you’ve said, you want them staying in, batting deep, holding their end of the wicket, slowing the game when it needs to be slowed or speeding it up when it needs to go faster, having that match awareness and that confidence that they’re not going out even when they get set.

That’s just not an impact player to me, that’s a high order batsman or an incredibly good batsman. Impact players, as you said, are a bit more inconsistent with what they score because of the way they play. Jos gets a solid 80 odd against USA with an incredible destructive innings so much so we didn’t even really need a second player, but in other games playing the same way he goes for 10 or less. Ben is the same - if he gets his eye in he’s an absolute machine but he can just as easily score 10 as he can 110.

A Jos and VK opening pair… yeah I’d pay good money to see that 😮‍💨

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stoookes · 4 months

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However however, there will always be some who think he's omega and, irrelevant of accolades, will not think he deserves his spot/only has his stardom because he's married to Pat

This assessment is spot on, and not at all very far from real life, because VK's fans and haters are equally numerous and equally rabid. For every fan calling him "King Kohli" and "chasemaster", there is someone who calls him "chokli" and "statpadder". Obviously, this is going to be even more enhanced in Omegaverse, but like the last anon said, it is important that omega VK reaches a point where such opinions no longer matter to him, and his detractors do not outnumber or drown out his supporters.

Also, VK has been hated, even in India, ever since his debut. Before VK, Indians liked their cricket stars to be quiet, decent, humble, modest and almost even apologetic of their celebrity status. This was the view of the generation who grew up with Sachin, Dhoni, Dravid, etc. who were renowned for their gentlemanly conduct. And VK was the literal antithesis of the Indian hero ideal prized up to then. His first fault was that he was flashy, and flaunted his fame and wealth to the world, which was a big no-no then. He was confident, self-assured, and even rude and arrogant at times, he gave it back as good as he got, and he started fights as well as ended them. This came as a shock to the older generation who weren't really used to Indian players being so aggressive. Honestly, there were players like Ganguly, Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Gambhir, etc who had as short a fuse as VK, and got into more than their fair share of spats, but at that time, on-field sledging wasn't really picked up much on stump mics, and none of them ever really went out of their way to provoke the opposition, like VK did, and if they did, it wasn't recorded, so people had no way of knowing it. However, the younger generation absolutely loved VK's in-your-face, take-no-shit attitude, and in a way VK's behaviour was representative of the younger, changing generation as well as influencing that generation. The arguments against VK's aggression by the older generation fizzled out mostly once VK backed it up with his performances.

In Omegaverse, I can see VK being flashy pissing off many alphas, because firstly an omega has no business in cricket, and now he has the nerve to show off his success, which was most likely a fluke? Unacceptable. I can also see aggression from players like Ganguly, Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Gambhir etc. accepted because they alphas, but VK, as an omega should be demure and quiet as befits one, and if Sachin, Dravid, Dhoni, etc. are all alphas too, then VK's aggression is criticized even more, because even the alphas aren't as confrontational as him, and why is he, an omega, getting into the thick of things, when the alphas are there to handle it.

I very much like this. We can also use Tim as the 'this is how playing omegas are supposed to be' comparison which, of course, only makes VK worse.

It also gives us a lovely segway into the Kane friendship ^-^

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