Convoluted Cardus appreciation

In the wake of Andrew Flintoff's retirement from Tests, a lot of people have attempted to answer the question of how greatness is measured. Simon Barnes and Michael Atherton, writing in the Times, have argued vehemently for and against Flintoff qualifying for greatness.
As expected from the Chief Sportswriter, Barnes dumps statistics in the dustbin:

Oh, you can delve into the stats all you like and you can prove by algebra that Flintoff was worse than this bloke and not even as good as that bloke. And you can say that since the Ashes series of four years ago, Flintoff has neither consistently played nor, when he has, consistently delivered. And all these things are true, but they do not affect the matter of greatness.

It isn't Flintoff's greatness or falling short thereof that I want to discuss. Instead, it's a historical parallel to Atherton and Barnes on a similar subject, and a paradox that emerges from it.
Today, David Mutton directed me to R.C. Robertson-Glasgow's 'Cricket Prints - Some Batsmen and Bowlers (1920 to 1940)'. In a chapter on Walter Hammond, 'Crusoe' writes,

To me he is, quite simply, the greatest cricketer who began in the last twenty years, and that, too, by a distance. In the word "cricketer" I count not only batting, bowling and fielding. In these combined arts there is not one, not Bradman, not Constantine, who could stand full and unbiased comparison with Hammond as he showed himself in the decade from 1925 to 1935; when he would make a hundred or two against Australia, then bowl down their first three wickets, then make with ease a slip-catch that others would not merely miss but would not even have rated a miss. But I also count those things which cannot be translated into words, far less into print, but belong to the brain and the heart. I mean the effect on his match of his presence alone; the influence on a bowler's feelings of the sight of Hammond taking guard at about 11.50 a.m., when lunch seemed far and the boundary near.

Quite similar, you will have observed, to Simon Barnes's assessment of Flintoff.
The passage of time, and the rise of statistics, has placed Bradman at an untouchable distance from anyone who's played the game so far; it's also stopped people calling Hammond a Test all-rounder. When both were still playing, however, most contemporaries rated Bradman only a notch above Hammond as a cricketer - and Robertson-Glasgow, on this evidence, not even that.
What's interesting is - Robertson-Glasgow played first class cricket for 17 years, and bowled to both Bradman and Hammond. He was, if you like, the Atherton of his time, and wasn't supposed to write this way.
Neville Cardus was, by all accounts, the Barnes of that age, who supposedly cared only for the game's aesthetic appeal and little else.
For example, in the 2000 Wisden Almanack, Stephen Moss writes of how modern cricket writing has no place for the Cardus style (I've highlighted phrases in bold for emphasis):

The convoluted, self-conscious style of the Cardus school is unwieldy for modern readers; we want our prose in black and white, not purple. Its anglocentricity is absurd for a game where the balance of power now lies on the Indian subcontinent and in Australia. The commemoration of the past is dangerous for a sport which must quickly find a role for the future. Cricket writing, like cricket as a whole, must remake itself. In doing so, the model should perhaps not be the elegance and erudition of Cardus or Alan Ross but the astringency of R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, the cultural breadth of C. L. R. James, the honesty and simplicity of style of Arlott, the perceptive qualities of David Foot, the coolness of Mike Brearley, the bloody-mindedness of Simon Hughes.

And yet, here's Cardus, writing on the Bradman-Hammond debate, during the 1936-37 Ashes. He doesn't sound convoluted or self-conscious to me.

The difference between Bradman and Hammond can be stated in a few words: Hammond can be kept quiet, Bradman never. Hammond in the Test match at Sydney batted nearly eight hours; and even on the third morning, when he was still not out, he had not made England safe. Bradman in the same time would have put all bowling to rout. At Adelaide, when Australia began their second innings, everybody knew that the match and the rubber depended on Bradman. England enjoyed a slight lead; a failure by Bradman would put the issue beyond question. Bradman played carefully - for him … As I saw Bradman putting his bat to the ball, with a short 'lift up', body near the line, I wrote something to this effect: 'It will be a pity if Test matches are going to ruin even the stroke-play of Bradman.'
At the end of an hour Bradman was fifty - and not once a single flash or thump or flourish. Without his major hits, without risk or hurry, he can score faster, over a long period, than any other batsman in the game at the present time.

Of the allegation levelled at Bradman that he was too mechanical, he writes, in an earlier essay,

He has all the qualities of batsmanship: footwork, wrists, economy of power, the great strokes of the game, each thoroughly under control. What, then, is the matter with him that we hesitate to call him a master of style, an artist who delights us, and not only a craftsman we are bound to admire without reserve? Is it that he's too mechanically faultless for sport's sake? A number of Bradmans would automatically put an end to the glorious uncertainty of cricket. A number of Macartneys would inspire the game to hazardous heights more exhilarating than ever … But this is a strain of criticism that is comically churlish. Here we have been for years praying for a return of batsmanship to its old versatility and aggression; we have been desperate for a quick scorer who could hit fours without causing the game to lapse into the indiscriminate clouting of the village green. In short, we have been crying out for batsmanship that would combine technique and energy in proportion. And now that a Bradman has come to us, capable of scoring 300 runs in a single day of a Test match, some of us are calling him a Lindrum of cricket. It's a hard world to please.

It has become fashionable to put down Cardus's writing. Sure, his flowery prose could sometimes cloy, and he embellished his quotes quite liberally.
But don't ignore his eye for detail, his ability to read the game and describe it perfectly.
Of Clarrie Grimmett he writes,

Grimmett is less a googly than a leg-break bowler. He used the wrong 'un sparsely; he is content to thrive on the ball which breaks away and leaves the bat; that is the best of all balls. A straight ball, wickedly masked, is Grimmett's foil to the leg-break. He makes virtue of a low arm; his flight keeps so low to the earth that only a batsman quick of foot can jump to the pitch of it.

It is timeless cricket writing, reflecting the timelessness of the game itself - he could have written this of Shane Warne.

The genius of Abhishek Mundhra

Let me introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is Abhishek Mundhra.
A couple of years ago, I was so warmed by the amusement his batting radiated that I wrote a page about it. It ended with these, in retrospect unbearably smug, words:

You and I know that his bat was not straight and that his feet were in a position more appropriate for tribal war dance than negotiating what to you and me is an average legbreak. But he doesn’t know, and possibly never will. And it is best that way. Men like Mundhra enrich the game through the humour they unintentionally induce through their serious efforts to be good at it.

Well, last Wednesday, Abhishek Mundhra made back-to-back Test hundreds at the MCC.
Underarm Test hundreds, that is. At the Madhini Cricket Club, otherwise known as the backyard in front (front yard?) of the house that Rajesh and Pavan Madhini call home.
Back when his batting was such a source of amusement, we* made a little video of him, with Greg Champion's 'I made a hundred in the backyard at mum's' playing in the background.

At the time, he'd never made a hundred in his life. Now, as ungainly as ever, he's the new Bradman.
*Kartheeban shot the video, and I edited it on Windows Movie Maker. The chaps who feature in the thing are Mundhra, Arunesh, Rajesh, Subbu and me.

Lara, Chanderpaul and alternate universes

Does anyone have a smaller percentage of not out innings (apart, of course, from batsmen who've never been not out) than Brian Lara? Six not outs in 232 innings. Interestingly, within the six not outs are contained two of Test cricket's immortal innings - the 153 and the 400.
Even without statistics, no one would deny the claim that Lara has played in some pretty underwhelming sides. Statistics sharpen this picture, and starken (does this word even exist?) the contrast with batsmen from other teams.
Number of not outs is a reasonable measure of the effect playing for a good or bad team can have on a batsman. But it isn't foolproof; for instance, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who has played alongside Lara for much of his career, has 32 not outs in 121 Tests.
On the other hand, number of declarations is a direct measure of a team's batting strength. During Lara's 131-Test career, West Indies declared fifteen times.
Let's apply the same measures to two other batting greats, who averaged over 50 like him, and whose careers ran parallel to his:
Sachin Tendulkar has played 147 Tests so far, and has 27 not outs in 261 innings. In those 147 Tests, India has declared 47 innings closed.
Steve Waugh played 168 Tests, batted 260 times, was not out 46 times, and Australia declared 65 times during his career.
What might have happened if fate had stuck Lara in the Indian or Australian line-up?
Nobody can say with any degree of certainty that batsman A would bat the same way if he were part of team X instead of team Y. It's still an intriguing thought.
Something tells me Lara would have averaged over 60 in a better batting line-up. Everything about his game - his method, his personality, his range of shots - would have ensured him top dog status in any line-up.
That leads me to another intriguing thought: Would Chanderpaul average as much, and be as hard to dismiss, if he was Indian or Australian?
The answer, I think, is yes - provided the selectors pick someone of his aesthetic otherness. He'd love being away from the limelight, he'd be the perfect guy for domineering types to bat in partnership with, and he has so much hunger for runs that it wouldn't diminish one bit even if he was batting in a team where every other batsman was Bradman.
What do you think?