Yeah, I don’t agree with respect thing either. others may still think apart from Tendulkar all other Indians are talent-less losers. if you have confidence n your own respect, why bother whether others respect you or not? India have had brilliant players before, during and after Sachin started.
Regarding Lara, he was not consistent enough for me, to be the greatest . He would make a mammoth score like 400 not out or 375 like innings and get out cheaply in other 8-10 innings and still average 50.
Agree there on both counts. Lara was a superb batsman, but in the Tests he made his scores- how many did the Windies actually win? He played a little for himself in my view.
With the respect, if that translates to influence then I think WG Grace would have to be the number one of all time.
Ah, but why must the captain spearhead a quest for respect? Why must victory in the match define how you come out of it? And since when has good leadership required merely the respect of your teammates? No, Tendulkar came on to the stage as an aggressive, yet technically skilled batsman who came to be widely regarded as one of the best batsmen in the world, if not the best. The Don said he was reminded of himself when he saw Sachin play! Shane Warne had nightmares about him! He would stand tall as the team crumbled around him! This is a time when young Indians, lets say, didn’t have much to be proud of. He was, quite indubitably, something to be proud of. And he was ours! Virat Kohli, who is even younger than I, said it perfectly when, right after the event, he was asked why they carried Sachin around the stadium after the world cup victory. “He’s carried the nation on his shoulders for 21 years, so it’s time we carried him on ours”
I really should have clarified even in the original post that my arguments do not speak to whether he’s the “Second best batsman of all time” They would to whether he’s the greatest batsman of all time. Great to me obviously meaning more than just whether or not he helped his team win(which, of course, he did)
See above. I’m just trying to explain my perspective of why he captured the imagination the way he did. And of course India had brilliant players before, but the time(post the 1991 liberalisation, and it’s hard to overstate how massive a change that was) and the place - in your living room, I mean, hearing Tony Greig(who has sadly passed away) screaming his praises in the commentary box while you watch Sachin single handedly defeat the Australian team in Sharjah had to have a more visceral impact than radio commentary or newspaper articles covering Sunil Gavaskar’s innings.
well written post buddy. He was indeed a source of joy and inspiration for many Indians.
But regarding how he single-handedly carried Indian team in the 90’s, that argument is grossly overstated if not simply incorrect. We had Azhar, Kambli, Jadeja(Odis), Siddhu, Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag, VVS, Manjrekar in the 90s who were pretty solid batsmen.
Regarding Bradman-Sachin comparison, I do not like to compare different generations…esp an older generation(Bradman’s) of which I haven’t watched anything.
I never saw Bradman either - I’m not that old. But there has been plenty written about him, such as how, when he was batting, the fielding side would typically concentrate on trying to dismiss the man at the other end. Normally if you have someone scoring at one end and someone just sticking with him at the other, you try to get rid of the man who’s making the shots. Not when it was Bradman.
Although he had about eight 0s in his Test career, Bradman’s average would still have been ridiculously high had he automatically been given out as soon as he made a hundred. He scored a Test century at better than one per three innings - which, had he done it over a career as long as Tendulkar’s, would have meant he scored a hundred Test hundreds, never mind the one-dayers.
Okay, but this is a crazy silly list.
I won’t bother with the averages. Here are the top ten on this list and the number of innings:
Faf du Plessis: 4
Abul Hassan: 2
Andy Ganteaume: 1 (that isn’t even an average!)
Don Bradman: 80
M.N. Nawaz: 2
Vic Stollmeyer: 1
Joe Root: 2
Desmond Lewis: 5
Rodney Redmond: 2
Barry Richards: 7
Except for Bradman, NONE of these averages mean a thing. It’s just someone who got lucky on one afternoon. Joe Root’s career average in top tier cricket is about 32. His having one big day doesn’t indicate all time greatness. It’s like saying the greatest hockey player of all time is Darryl Sittler, since he once scored ten points in a game and nobody else ever has.
Tendulkar has 320 Test innings, more than anyone else ever. If you set your limit at Bradman’s total of 80, thay puts Tendulkar 10th, and again with more innings than anyone above him (in most case many, many more; second is Kallis, with 268, and nobody else is close.) Tendulkar also has another 1500 innings or so in top tier cricket, with an average of about 50 (I’m eyeballing it) a total that I can find nobody else compares to.
However Sangakara and Kallis both have higher average. As does George Headley and Hutton.
I would also not really count Sangakara, he mass bis debut in 2000 and has always played in a era of poor bowling. It’s true that Tedulkar has struggled against quality bowling on occasion, but a player in the 1990’s would face Walsh and Ambrose against the Windies, McDermott, Watne and McGrath against Australia, the W’s and Saqlain against Pakistan, Allan Donald and Pollack against S Africa, Murli and Vaas against Sri Lanka, Carines against the Kiwis. Except for Steyn and ore recently Saeed Ajmal, you do not see bowlers of that calibre for most of Sangakara’s career.
But that puts us back to the peak/career question. What’s more impressive; an average of 54.32 in 320 innings (Tendulkar) or an average of 55.50 across 196 innings (Sangakkara)?
Look at it this way; Tendulkar is basically Kumar Sangakkara plus Michael Clarke. If you add up everything Sangakkara and Clarke have done, you get Senchin Tendulkar; the totals and average would be almost identical. I have to think that it’s more impressive to have Sangukkara’s career and then go and add on everything Clarke has done up to this point than it is to just have Sangukkara’s career.
How many years did Bradman miss because of the war? Wikipedia shows him making his international debut and swansong 20 years apart, but I can’t tell how many matches he missed.
Did you read my post? I said of players who have played 10 or more innings- so I discounted those who may have got lucky one afternoon. The averages do mean something. Your ranting about players who played a couple of innings doesn’t stack up- it is like mentioning Stuart Law (everyone’s favourite for a trivia evening who only appeared once).
I trust you are also aware of why Barry Richards played so few Test matches.
Technically he didn’t miss any match due to the war. There was no Test cricket played between 19 Aug 1939 (England drew with West Indies at the Oval) and 29 Mar 1946 (Australia beat New Zealand in Wellington).
Bradman was captain in Australia’s last Test before the war, breaking his ankle when bowling in England’s 1st innings of 903 so he didn’t bat when Australia was shellacked and lost by an innings and 579 runs.
He didn’t play the one Test series v New Zealand in Mar 1946 (unavailable/illness) but was captain again for the first post war Ashes test 29 Nov 1946 at Brisbane when the result was reversed with Australia winning by an innings and 332 runs
If you look at the list of “greatest batsmen”, it is not a co-incidence most batted at 4 or 5. There are only two openers in contention (Hobbs and Gavaskar).
Most of the greats had the support of a very sound top order to 1) protect them from the best when batting was it’s most fraught and 2) to stay with them to build the winning/saving partnerships. Especially in the modern era when green tops are few, crumbling turners are rarities and wet & stickies have nearly passed from living memory.
Buggered if I know how to do it empirically, but you must discount modern averages somewhat because they are being made against poorer bowling (Bangladesh, Zimbabwe), on average better wickets in stadiums with better lighting and less weather influences, on smaller grounds and with better bats.
George Headley’s ranking suffers because if George failed the team collapsed.
The big question against Bradman was his performance on wickets that favoured the bowler. He was, in modern parlance, a flat track bully. George was demonstrably a better batsman than Bradman when the wicket wasn’t a road and/or when his team was in trouble.
Graeme Pollock was double cream, but wasn’t allowed to play enough against the best.
There’s been little mention of Sobers, but he was first picked in “Bradman’s Best”
On the question of Tendulkar v Lara; I think the definitive stat is comparative performance (in Tests) home and away. Tendulkar played more Tests away than in India, and performed (slightly) better away. Lara played roughly the same number home/away and was much better at home.
Clear win to Tendulkar, and I’d still rank him #2 overall
BTW, I discount ODI and T20 performances entirely.
But even 10 innings just isn’t comparable to 320. I’m sorry, but that’s not a remotely comparable achievement.
(Shrug) It’s not his fault his country was run by sociopaths, but seven innings is seven innings. In other level of top tier cricket his averages were 54 in FC and 40 in List A, both inferior to Tendulkar.
Nobody can question Bradman’s statistical superiority. Only the era in which he played, was it even a professional era for cricket? Lack of any real fast bowlers(87+mph), quality spinners, bowlers below avg of 25, Never having played in India, Pak, SL, SA, WI, played only on total of 10 grounds- 5 each in Eng and Aus, Never played reverse swing, loose fielding standards, benefits of having to play only 1 format of the game, less taxing schedules, lots of practice matches, lbw laws and umpiring…
Therefore it is questionable whether its even fair to compare Bradman with modern greats…
Therefore by the same measure all other batsmen who were similarly pampered in Bradman’s era had grossly inflated averages by modern standards, yes? Except not. There are a few like Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Hammond from England, Ponsford from Australia and as previously mentioned George Headley from the West Indies, and otherwise an average in the low 40s would be considered good then as it is now.
Anyone who faced Larwood, Voce and a few others would laugh at your suggestion that there was no real fast bowling about the place, and protective gear was minimal by today’s standards - much thinner gloves and pads, no helmets, and players like Jardine ridiculed thigh pads and chest protectors. Bats were much less effective tools in those days. Additionally, batsmen in that era had to play on uncovered pitches, and if it was possible to stand up without serious risk of falling over then the ground was considered fit to play.
Lack of quality spinners? You must never have heard of Grimmett, O’Reilly, Mailey, Verity and a number of others.
But yes, the big hole in your theory is that it completely fails to explain why Bradman stands just as far above his contemporaries as he does the moderns.
Look to be fair Bradman himself admitted that his stats would not have been as good if he had played in the modern era, but I do agree with the gist of **Malacandra’s ** opinion.
Professional? Certainly. Look up the history of Gentlemen v Players. When the Aussies toured England they were certainly professional, but demanded the same privileges as the Gentlemen. Simultaneously snobs and hypocrites. While “The Don” wasn’t backwards in cashing in on his own skills, his obstructionism for others to similarly earn a living was one of the key drivers in the establishment of World Series Cricket.
Seem to recall a series in the '30s called Bodyline. Might be worth googling that. Larwood, Voce and Bowles weren’t chucking cream puffs in an era when the “protective equipment” used in internationals was of the same standard as used by the u10s at the time and a long way less than what the u10s play with now. There was also SF Barnes and Alec Bedser who had some credentials with the ball even if not express.
Quality spinners, well English conditions have never been conducive to leg spinners but there’s been a production line of quality off spinners. Verity was no mug as a tweaker.
Average <25? That’s a bit of a gold standard.
Take a guess at how many players (all countries) who have played 5 or more Tests v Australia in the past 10 years and taken their wickets at less than 25? None. There have been a few one series/match wonders but the best is Dale Steyn @ 27.3
If there’d been slow motion replays and decision reviews in place in Nov 1946; Bradman would have been out caught Ikin bowled Voce for a scratchy 28 and probably retired. As it turned out he went on to make 187.
Mind you, his career record was over 5,000 runs @ 97.8 at the time so he’d still have daylight second to him.
Would these guys have compared with fast bowlers of 80’s and 90’s? also only a couple(?) of them have an average of less than 25.
helmets do not(atleast not significantly) reduce the fear of getting hit by a leather ball.
good points, ofcourse the bolded part is only an exaggeration…
No, it just means that Bradman was better than his contemporaries and the greatest of his era by a huge margin. But it doesnt imply that he would have been better than or should be compared with modern greats…