Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar's stats vs best bowlers

[EC666]

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...lve=7041;team=4;template=results;type=batting

Lara, against the best bowlers of the era, has scored 10200 runs at an average of 51.56. (Add Warne and it goes up to 52)

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...er_involve=7041;template=results;type=batting

Tendulkar, against the best bowlers of the era, has scored 8800 runs with an average of 47.5 (Add Warne goes up to 49). He also seemed to keep dodging the best bowlers. Tendulkar didn't face Amby or Bishop or Walsh in their prime. He did not face Wasim or Waqar at their prime. He consistently ducked McGrath. He was average against Donald or Pollock with a 30-ish average; didn't face Gough; failure against Bond. Tendulkar accumulated 5000 runs at an average of 100 against mediocre bowlers in the likes of NM Hauritz (Aus); RC Irani (Eng); S Randiv (SL); JJ Krejza (Aus); Mashrafe Mortaza (Ban); AD Mullally (Eng) ; BA Murphy (Zim) ; MM Patel (Eng); KR Pushpakumara (SL) ; GR Robertson (Aus) ; IDK Salisbury (Eng) ; Shahadat Hossain (Ban) ;r BT Watambwa (Zim); GP Wickramasinghe (SL) ; PJ Wiseman (NZ)

In Tests, Sachin averages a modest 36 against Australia when McGrath plays. It is very noticeable that most of his Test runs/stellar performances against Australia have invariably come only when McGrath and Warne were absent, basically against second rate (good, but not great) fast bowlers (Kasper, Damien Fleming, Paul Riefel etc). Whenever McGrath is absent from the Australian attack, Sachin's average almost doubles (averages nearly 70 against Australia when McGrath is absent!!!).

Even McGrath's bunny - Lara - does better than Sachin against McGrath. Not to mention many double centuries.

Sachin averages 32 against South Africa whenever Allan Donald has played. Also, India-Pak never played a series for nearly 10 years (between 1989 to 99 for political reasons) during which Akram was at his absolute peak. But Akram bowled very very well in 1999 when they played each other. In any case, Tendulkar averages only 32 against Pakistan whenever Wasim Akram has played.

Once again, he revelled against the respective teams (South Africa and Pakistan) when these bowlers were absent.

Against the 3 greatest fast bowlers of his era, whom he faced in more than one Test series, McGrath, Donald and Akram, Sachin has scored 1719 Test runs at a modest average of 34.3 (compared to his career average of 56). Against Akram, McGrath and Donald, Lara amassed 3116 runs at an average of 41 at a better strike rate than Tendulkar.

Of all the Test series Sachin has played against these great fast bowlers (McGrath,Donald,Akram), more than 7 series including home and away, only once did he average more than 50 in a series, that too just barely, when he averaged 50.66 against McGrath in a 3 test series (2000-2001) at home in India. Only once was he India's best batsman in all the Test series against these bowlers.

The only truly great fast bowler Sachin has had some success against is Curtly Ambrose. But Sachin never faced Ambrose (or the West Indian attack) at their peak. He played only one Test series against Ambrose, that too in 1997 (4 of the 5 Tests ended in draws), when Ambrose was 35 years old.

Tendulkar's poor stats against great fast bowlers continues in ODIs. In spite of all the batsmen-favoured rules and pitches, Sachin's stats against these bowlers in ODIs is weak: a measly average of 31 (2222 runs @ 31.64) in ODIs after playing 70+ ODIs against McGrath/Donald/Akram. Only 2 of Sachin's ODI hundreds came against these bowlers (both against McGrath in the sub-continent). In 26 ODI innings against Donald, Sachin managed to cross fifty just 3 times.

Not just his average, even his strike-rate suffers against these bowlers (especially against Donald).

Once again Lara beats him hands down (2969 runs at an average of 44.81 against McGrath/Donald/Akram).

 

[Inzy's Aloo]

Always maintained that Lara was the better Test match batsman. Best I've ever seen, a real genius.

 

[London_Lahori]

Uh oh, be ready to be attacked.

 

[Buffet]

Lara never scored a century against any genuine fast bowler.

We had Wasim, Waqar and Donald. Zero centuries whenever they played and he did play 33 innings against them. That's a large enough sample size. He didn't have to face his own bowlers but you can make an educated guess about what he would have done. McGrath was not really a genuine fast bowler. Lara played McGrath and Murali better. Sachin played Warne better.

We had many ATG bowlers then. I will chose Lara if an opposition has Mcgrath or Murali. For all other bowlers like Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Warne, Amborse etc , I will prefer SRT. If it's a blind contest where I don't know the bowlers then SRT by some margin. He could score centuries against any bowler.

 

[Bilal7]

Sachin was better all-round. He may not have the best of peaks or done extremely well under pressure or thrashed the best bowlers of his times but he did have all of that in adequate amounts and other stuff that Lara, Ponting or Dravid didn't.

 

[EC666]

No, Lara never faced Ambrose and Walsh internationally, but has eight centuries domestically vs them, which almost fast-tracked him onto the WI side (he would have to wait a further 2 years to make it to the WI team). He has some centuries vs Wasim, Donald, Waquar. Off the top of my head...

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard_ODI.asp?MatchCode=0870
http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard_ODI.asp?MatchCode=0872
http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard_ODI.asp?MatchCode=0886
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65235.html
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/64719.html
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65188.html

Gillespie and Lee were pace men, whom Lara routinely faced.

The 1st WI tour of South Africa was a disaster. Donald and Pollock decimated the WIndies. The South Africans slaughtered them on a tour of WI some years later, again with Donald and Pollock, but with Ntini giving Lara the most trouble. Dispite three or four scores in the 80s and 90s, Lara's strike rate dropped to the 50s and below, which is telling. Lara only dominated SA in tests when Donald was replaced by Nel, pacy, but not a great. Tendulkar's 169 is one of the best knocks vs Donald ever (and on enemy soil!).

Against Wasim and Younis, Tendy's Test average is 32, Lara's 30.2.

In ODIs, against Wasim and Waqar, Lara's...

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...ve=1935;team=4;template=results;type=allround

....average is 43 with 4 centuries.

In ODIs, against Wasim and Waqar, Tendy's...

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...935;template=results;type=allround;view=match

....average is 37 with 2 centuries.

 

[as-95]

Both ATG's, but Lara was the better bat in my opinion.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

Why not simply say , I like Lara more than Sachin. There is no need to type an essay.

 

[Romali_rotti]

[

In Tests, Sachin averages a modest 36 against Australia when McGrath plays. It is very noticeable that most of his Test runs/stellar performances against Australia have invariably come only when McGrath and Warne were absent, basically against second rate (good, but not great) fast bowlers (Kasper, Damien Fleming, Paul Riefel etc). Whenever McGrath is absent from the Australian attack, Sachin's average almost doubles (averages nearly 70 against Australia when McGrath is absent!!!).
.

This is my favourite to dissect, First of place SRT's total avg from all the matches when he went up against Mcgrath & Warne together that will paint a different picture.

99 Series in Aus, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series with 46 Avg and won man of the series.

2001 Series in India, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series 50 Avg.

2004, aka the Tennis Elbow Series in which he is not fit and doesnt complete the series, SRT played against Mcgrath & Warne: He finishes the series with 17 avg causing his overall average vs Mcgrath to drop.


SRT has been one of the most assured batsmen vs Mcgrath in test matches, Mcgrath cashed in on 1 bad series where SRT played with an injury............ Case Closed....................

 

[justarslan]

Lara was boss player but i will have Sachin in ODI and Lara in every other format.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

And BTW , who are ARC Fraser , DJ Nash , and DK Morrison ? And for your kind information , Sachin averages 60+ against WI when Ambrose and Walsh were playing together.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

If you like Lara more , no problem . There is no need to bring down another player for that.

 

[EC666]

99 Series in Aus, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series with 46 Avg and won man of the series.

Ponting averaged 75 with two centuries and should have got man of the series.

2001 Series in India, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series 50 Avg.

Dravid averaged 56, Laxman 83 in that series. Lara averaged 90+ and 48 and 66 vs Warne/McGrath. Lara's first 2 series vs Warne/McGrath were failures. This means he has 4 dominant series vs Australia, and two terrible ones.


2004, aka the Tennis Elbow Series in which he is not fit and doesnt complete the series, SRT played against Mcgrath & Warne: He finishes the series with 17 avg causing his overall average vs Mcgrath to drop.

Good point. Yet nobody talks about Lara needing constant treatment from 1994 onwards to stop Pterygium, a chronic condition which resulted in the surface of his eye always being inflamed and itching. Often mid-game he would need eyedrops to curb the red itchiness of his eyes.

Why not simply say , I like Lara more than Sachin.

Because that is disrespectful to AFRIDI!!!!! (and I like examining stats)

 

[EC666]

Well, this thread is about great batsmen vs great bowlers. Kohli, I've seen tear apart Steyn and Malinga, whom most will agree are two of the best of their era. Like Sachin and Lara, Kohli was pretty much already a legendary batsman as a teenager, with his under 19 world cup performance in particular being amazing. Cant wait to see him go up against England this year.

 

[EC666]

And BTW , who are ARC Fraser , DJ Nash , and DK Morrison ? And for your kind information , Sachin averages 60+ against WI when Ambrose and Walsh were playing together.

Nope, Ambrose didn't travel with the team to India. He only played vs Walsh and Amrbose together in 97 (and averaged a respectable 47 I think), as I said earlier. That was the infamous "four dusty draw tests", when the WICB got berrated for neglecting their own pitches.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

ok

 

[EC666]

You said, quote, "Sachin averages 60+ against WI when Ambrose and Walsh were playing together." Once again, he only faced Ambrose and Walsh together in 97 and averaged in the high 40s. Only Walsh travelled to India for the West Indies tour of India. Ambrose was having shoulder surgery.

 

[zabalestmsm]

Lara and Tendulkar's stats vs best bowlers

For me Tendulkar despite these stats is the better batsman in terms of "a complete batsman", consistency and technique etc in history of the game. Period. But personally i enjoyed Lara's batting more. He was very stylish and entertaining.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

This is an insanely stupid thread.

Let's analyze.

Point 1 - First you take a random set of bowlers to calculate average for Sachin.

Tell me what's the basis of that?

If someone digs up the right combo of bowlers, then any stats can be manipulated with the average dropping or increasing a bit higher. Eg - Michael Clarke's average can be cut by a fair distance when you include Jaddu as a bowler.

You just need to find the right combo.

Point 2 - Let's take the concept of your stats against best bowlers (for which you have included all kinds of bowlers)

Dravid averages slightly higher than Sachin against Ambrose and co.

1 or 2 point difference.

So shall we say he is better than Sachin against ATG bowlers? If yes, I will laugh at you. No expert worth his salt would agree to that.

For eg - You can smash everyone and get out to the main bowler and it will get reflected in the average. Sachin smashed Akhtar in the WC 2003. Akhtar never came to bowl again and then he came backa against a tiring Sachin and got him out.

End result - Low average against Akhtar in that match. So akhtar PAWNED Sachin in 2003.

Waah kya logic hai.

Point 3 - Sachin in the 90's (the bowling era) averaged 58. The highest any batsman did was 53 (Steve Waugh I guuess - I could be wrong).

Sachin -

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...0;spanval2=span;template=results;type=batting

Lara -

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...al1=span;team=4;template=results;type=batting

Point 4 - Cherry picking for the heck of it makes no sense. I will tell you why.

Take a look here of Steyn's wickets in India/

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?p=6164906

Shall we conclude that he got a lot of tailender wickets so he isn't that good a bowler in India?

Even Wasim and Waqar would have many tailender wickets. So all of them are just feasting on stupid tailender wickets to better their average?

Anyone who knows statistics and interpretation in cricket will simply laugh at you.

 

[saeedhk]

I prefer Tendu over Lara.

 

[Itachi]

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...lve=7041;team=4;template=results;type=batting

Lara, against the best bowlers of the era, has scored 10200 runs at an average of 51.56. (Add Warne and it goes up to 52)

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...er_involve=7041;template=results;type=batting

Tendulkar, against the best bowlers of the era, has scored 8800 runs with an average of 47.5 (Add Warne goes up to 49). He also seemed to keep dodging the best bowlers. Tendulkar didn't face Amby or Bishop or Walsh in their prime. He did not face Wasim or Waqar at their prime. He consistently ducked McGrath. He was average against Donald or Pollock with a 30-ish average; didn't face Gough; failure against Bond. Tendulkar accumulated 5000 runs at an average of 100 against mediocre bowlers in the likes of NM Hauritz (Aus); RC Irani (Eng); S Randiv (SL); JJ Krejza (Aus); Mashrafe Mortaza (Ban); AD Mullally (Eng) ; BA Murphy (Zim) ; MM Patel (Eng); KR Pushpakumara (SL) ; GR Robertson (Aus) ; IDK Salisbury (Eng) ; Shahadat Hossain (Ban) ;r BT Watambwa (Zim); GP Wickramasinghe (SL) ; PJ Wiseman (NZ)

In Tests, Sachin averages a modest 36 against Australia when McGrath plays. It is very noticeable that most of his Test runs/stellar performances against Australia have invariably come only when McGrath and Warne were absent, basically against second rate (good, but not great) fast bowlers (Kasper, Damien Fleming, Paul Riefel etc). Whenever McGrath is absent from the Australian attack, Sachin's average almost doubles (averages nearly 70 against Australia when McGrath is absent!!!).

Even McGrath's bunny - Lara - does better than Sachin against McGrath. Not to mention many double centuries.

Sachin averages 32 against South Africa whenever Allan Donald has played. Also, India-Pak never played a series for nearly 10 years (between 1989 to 99 for political reasons) during which Akram was at his absolute peak. But Akram bowled very very well in 1999 when they played each other. In any case, Tendulkar averages only 32 against Pakistan whenever Wasim Akram has played.

Once again, he revelled against the respective teams (South Africa and Pakistan) when these bowlers were absent.

Against the 3 greatest fast bowlers of his era, whom he faced in more than one Test series, McGrath, Donald and Akram, Sachin has scored 1719 Test runs at a modest average of 34.3 (compared to his career average of 56). Against Akram, McGrath and Donald, Lara amassed 3116 runs at an average of 41 at a better strike rate than Tendulkar.

Of all the Test series Sachin has played against these great fast bowlers (McGrath,Donald,Akram), more than 7 series including home and away, only once did he average more than 50 in a series, that too just barely, when he averaged 50.66 against McGrath in a 3 test series (2000-2001) at home in India. Only once was he India's best batsman in all the Test series against these bowlers.

The only truly great fast bowler Sachin has had some success against is Curtly Ambrose. But Sachin never faced Ambrose (or the West Indian attack) at their peak. He played only one Test series against Ambrose, that too in 1997 (4 of the 5 Tests ended in draws), when Ambrose was 35 years old.

Tendulkar's poor stats against great fast bowlers continues in ODIs. In spite of all the batsmen-favoured rules and pitches, Sachin's stats against these bowlers in ODIs is weak: a measly average of 31 (2222 runs @ 31.64) in ODIs after playing 70+ ODIs against McGrath/Donald/Akram. Only 2 of Sachin's ODI hundreds came against these bowlers (both against McGrath in the sub-continent). In 26 ODI innings against Donald, Sachin managed to cross fifty just 3 times.

Not just his average, even his strike-rate suffers against these bowlers (especially against Donald).

Once again Lara beats him hands down (2969 runs at an average of 44.81 against McGrath/Donald/Akram).

all i see here is .... tendu, tendu and more tendu....

what happened to the lara essay part? why avoid the explanation eh?

 

[Romali_rotti]

Ponting averaged 75 with two centuries and should have got man of the series.

Errr NO, Ponting faced the Indian trundlers led by out fastest bowler Kumble for that 75 Avg, where as SRT faced the best bowling attack in the world led by Warne and Mcgrath and wasnt for those Aussie umpires he would've imo avgd in the 60's during that series. I saw the whole series here in Aus and the umpiring was down right pathetic and Tony Greg asked SRT in an interview on whether he thought umpires were targeting him lol..




Dravid averaged 56, Laxman 83 in that series. .


So whats your point ? You made this thread about SRT/Lara, nice drift again .



Good point. Yet nobody talks about Lara needing constant treatment from 1994 onwards to stop Pterygium, a chronic condition which resulted in the surface of his eye always being inflamed and itching. Often mid-game he would need eyedrops to curb the red itchiness of his eyes.

Talk about Lara's injuries, it doesnt bother me if people talk about it or not, I was pointing out your hidden flaw while you tried to show SRT did poorly vs Mcgrath.. In reality thats not the case...

Bold...

 

[Scrolln]

99 Series in Aus, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series with 46 Avg and won man of the series.

Ponting averaged 75 with two centuries and should have got man of the series.

2001 Series in India, SRT played against Warne & Mcgrath, result; He finished the series 50 Avg.

Dravid averaged 56, Laxman 83 in that series. Lara averaged 90+ and 48 and 66 vs Warne/McGrath. Lara's first 2 series vs Warne/McGrath were failures. This means he has 4 dominant series vs Australia, and two terrible ones.


2004, aka the Tennis Elbow Series in which he is not fit and doesnt complete the series, SRT played against Mcgrath & Warne: He finishes the series with 17 avg causing his overall average vs Mcgrath to drop.

Good point. Yet nobody talks about Lara needing constant treatment from 1994 onwards to stop Pterygium, a chronic condition which resulted in the surface of his eye always being inflamed and itching. Often mid-game he would need eyedrops to curb the red itchiness of his eyes.

Why not simply say , I like Lara more than Sachin.

Because that is disrespectful to AFRIDI!!!!! (and I like examining stats)

Lara's record against a full strength McGrath/Warne attack is kinda inflated by scoring in dead rubber matches.

Eg : In the 96/97 tour of Australia, he averaged 20.5 in 4 test matches. In the 5th dead rubber he scored a 132 to bring up his average.s

Again in the 2005 tour of Australia, he scored 5, 36, 30, 14, 13 and 45 when the series was alive. Once West Indies had already lost the series, he scored 226 and 17 in the dead rubber.

Lara had the knack of suddenly coming alive in dead matches, both his record breaking scores of 375 and 400 came in dead rubbers.

But i would still select Lara over Tendulkar against McGrath/Warne purely on the basis on his stellar performances in the 1999 series at home.

Regarding your first point, Ponting was up against an impotent Indian bowling attack while Tendulkar was playing against arguably the most complete test attack of all time. (Lee was bowling excellently in his debut series) Ganguly , Dravid, Laxman all failed in that series. So that would explain why he got MoS.

Tendulkar also faced (and succeeded) against bowlers like Ambrose/Walsh/Steyn whom Lara never had to face.

I would put them on equal terms as far as facing ATG bowling is concerned. With Tendulkar, you were assured of runs and tons irrespective of the bowling attack (Lara does not have tons against Wasim/Waqar/Donald) but Lara was more dominating against great bowlers.

 

[IndianWillow]

I personally like Lara more for this flair, but OP's argument is flawed. Tendulkar was definitely the better player of fast bowling compared to Lara. Lara was an excellent player of medium fast bowling, probably the best ever. Lara could not make a single test hundred when the opponent had an express fast bowler in its ranks, Sachin has many.

 

[Mamoon]

Tendulkar is the best batsman of all time if you take into account both Tests and ODIs. Deal with it.

 

[EC666]

Tendulkar is the best batsman of all time if you take into account both Tests and ODIs.

Not true. This is a myth.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...art;template=results;type=allround;view=match


http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...rderby=default;template=results;type=allround

Lara and Tendulkar both average 45 when opening (or batting 1,2,3) in ODI's versus all teams minus minnows (Bangladesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe).


Versus the same teams, batting in position 3, Lara averages 45, Tendulkar averages only 10.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...rderby=default;template=results;type=allround

Batting in position 4, Tendulkar averages 35.

Batting in position 5, Tendulkar averages 29. Same as Lara.

Batting number 6 to 11, Lara averages 61.

Batting number 6 to 11, Tendulkar averages 29.

Lara adapts to ODI conditions and batting orders/roles much better than Tendulkar.

Batting outside Asia in positions 1,2,3...

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...art;template=results;type=allround;view=match

Lara averages 44. (remove games played at home and his average doesn't change)

Batting outside Asia, in positions 1,2 and 3...

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...rderby=default;template=results;type=allround

Tendulkar averages 39.

Lara is a better ODI bat.

 

[EC666]

I personally like Lara more for this flair, but OP's argument is flawed. Tendulkar was definitely the better player of fast bowling compared to Lara. Lara was an excellent player of medium fast bowling, probably the best ever. Lara could not make a single test hundred when the opponent had an express fast bowler in its ranks, Sachin has many.

Brett Lee is the second fastest bowler in cricket history after the amazing Shoaib Akhtar, his top speeds being in the 160 kph range. Lara has 2 centuries and a double century vs him.

Shane Bond and Gillespie were capable of speeds 140-150.

 

[Crazy_K]

Tendulkar struggled most vs Cronje, Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, who were all average/decent bowlers at best. So the analysis doesn't really stand

 

[IndianWillow]

Brett Lee is the second fastest bowler in cricket history after the amazing Shoaib Akhtar, his top speeds being in the 160 kph range. Lara has 2 centuries and a double century vs him.

Shane Bond and Gillespie were capable of speeds 140-150.

But Lee was an average test bowler, averaging 40+ in five countries, he was nothing like Steyn, Shoaib, Waqar, Donald etc. So no big deal here.

Lara did not have a century against Bond, and Gillespie is not considered an express fast bowler. (he did occasionally reach top speeds but that is not the definition of an express fast)

 

[SL_Fan]

Came across this couple of months back. Pretty decent analysis of batsmen from the 10k club.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/718821.html

Which batsmen thrive against the best bowlers?

Kartikeya Date |

Kumar Sangakkara made a triple-hundred and a hundred in the same Test in Chittagong recently. In the last 12 months, Sri Lanka have played four Tests against Bangladesh. In these, Sangakkara has scored 142, 105, 139, 55, 75, 319 and 105. In his last 12 Tests against one of the other seven top Test-playing teams, Sangakkara averages 48. This is a broader phenomenon in Test cricket. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have conceded runs at an impressive rate to the world's top batsmen. Players from the subcontinent play these two teams more often than players from Australia or England.

A few weeks ago I described a method to determine the bowling and batting strength of a Test team. I have since found that a simpler method of measuring bowling strength is similarly correlated with Test results. I describe it briefly below using the example of India's first innings in the Cape Town Test of 2011. This method could be improved substantially with detailed ball-by-ball data, but since this data is not available for all Tests, I use innings-level data. RELATED LINKSBlogs: A measure for the strength of a Test team Players/Officials: Kumar Sangakkara | Sachin Tendulkar | Dale Steyn | Ricky Ponting | Jacques Kallis | Brian Lara | Mahela Jayawardene

Sachin Tendulkar made 146 in this Test in Cape Town and had a memorable battle with Dale Steyn. But South Africa's bowling attack as a whole was not particularly strong. The table below shows the calculation of bowling strength for the South African attack. The individual averages are the bowler's averages at the start of the Test innings. Tendulkar made 123 in 231 balls against Morkel, Tsotsobe and Harris, and 23 in 83 against Steyn. Steyn bowled 120 balls while Tendulkar was at the wicket. Tendulkar faced 83 of those. In the other 37, Steyn took three wickets.

Tendulkar made 169 at the same ground in 1997 against a much stronger all-round attack (Donald, Pollock, McMillan, Cronje, Klusener and Adams) that had a bowling strength of 26.1.

The bowling strength for a particular team innings is simply the weighted average of each bowler in a bowling line-up at the start of the said innings. Weights are assigned according to the share of the bowling for each bowler in this innings. For example, Steyn bowled about 26% of overs in that Indian first innings in Cape Town, Tsotsobe bowled 22% while Morkel and Harris bowled 22% each. Kallis, who was part of the South African XI for that Test, did not bowl at all in this innings.

I've used this method to calculate the bowling strength for all team Test innings. The median bowling strength for a Test innings from 1877 to 2014 (including the Sydney Test of the 2013-14 Ashes) is 31.54. Bowlers on Test debut are assigned the median figure.

In this, the first of a series of posts, I look at all batsmen who have made at least 10,000 Test runs and divide their careers into innings where the opposition bowling was better than the median, and innings where the opposition bowling was worse than the median. I also do the same for these players' home and away Test records.

For the purpose of this post, I will designate attacks with bowling strength better than the median as strong attacks and the rest as weak attacks. One final point to be noted about this method of determining the strength of a bowling attack: an attack including the exact same bowlers can have two different strength measures in different Tests. For example, a South African attack playing in Sri Lanka, where Nicky Boje would bowl a lot of overs, would have a weaker strength measure than the same attack bowling in South Africa, where Boje's share of the bowling would be much smaller.

Eleven batsmen have scored at least 10,000 Test runs as of January 2014. Sunil Gavaskar and Allan Border, the first two players to reach this milestone, played 49% and 45% of their innings against strong attacks. In contrast, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis played 32% and 33% of their innings against strong attacks.

It is no surprise that top batsmen perform strongly against weaker attacks. Some more so than others, though. For Brian Lara and Tendulkar the difference in their performance against stronger attacks and weaker attacks is about 7 runs per innings. For Mahela Jayawardene, it is about 22 runs. For Jacques Kallis, it is 20 runs. For Ponting, Border and Rahul Dravid, it is about 13 runs.

Only Tendulkar, Border, Sangakkara and Steve Waugh average over 50 against strong attacks away from home. Jayawardene has struggled against such bowling, averaging only 27 over 49 innings, scoring one century. Ponting made eight centuries in 42 innings against strong attacks away from home, but averaged only 44. These innings constituted 14% of Ponting's innings in Tests. By contrast, Lara played 30% of his Test innings against strong attacks away from home. Sangakkara has built an imposing record against such attacks. Border averaged higher than 50 despite making only five centuries in 52 innings against such attacks.

In home Tests, only Lara and Sangakkara average more than 50 against strong attacks, while Kallis, Border and Waugh average less than 40. Lara has done equally well against strong and weak attacks in Tests at home. Tendulkar's record against strong attacks in India is his worst performance of the six categories shown in this post. He averages a mere 46.

Over the past 15 years or so, we often heard how Dravid was a more dependable player than Tendulkar. A similar observation was often made about Gundappa Viswanath. Observations have also been made about Ponting and Kallis being better players than Tendulkar or Lara.

These figures suggest, fairly clearly in my view, that Tendulkar and Lara were superior all-round Test players compared to all the others mentioned in this list. They also suggest that Sangakkara is a freak of nature whose bullying of the minnows only turns a great Test record into a freakishly brilliant one. The same cannot be said of his great friend Jayawardene, whose bullying of the minnows turns a very good record into a great one. Dravid, Ponting and Kallis were contemporaries. Each played about 250 Test innings. Yet Dravid played about 15 more innings against strong attacks compared to Kallis and Ponting.

These are some of the things that can be studied in these charts. If you would like to see comparisons of specific batsmen, please propose groups of such batsmen in the comments below. I will present analyses in my next post.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

so people can't even have an opinion now ? And if you want to bring stats every time you post something , let me tell you that Sachin has won more matches than Lara in ODI's (excluding Bangladesh , Zimbabwe and associate teams)

 

[SL_Fan]

Nothing much between the two overall.

Against bowling attacks worse than the median: both ave 56.8
Against bowling attacks better than the median: 49.3 (Lara) v 49 (Sachin)

 

[spiderreddy]

ofcourse Lara > Sachin .because sachin plays for India

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Nothing much between the two overall.

Against bowling attacks worse than the median: both ave 56.8
Against bowling attacks better than the median: 49.3 (Lara) v 49 (Sachin)

Yeah but there is a key point.

Lara demolishes Sachin when playing at home (against attacks better than median).

So the averages are similar.

Considering the fact that some here call Sachin to be an FTB who can't perform against the best bowlers away, here's the thing:

Sachin (avg of 50) > Lara (avg of 44) when facing attacks better than median AWAY FROM HOME.

Considering the fact that we would consider stats away from home (against best bowlers) as the holy grail, EC666 got pawned right there.

Checkmate.

My view: All this is a pure stat analysis. Meaningles.

By the early 2000's, Sachin was called the best batsman in the world and was making all the all time great XI whereas Lara wasn't. People forget that Lara was TOO inconsistent and would then come up with a magical performance of 150 or 200 which would boost his average.

Big centuries is a hallmark of great test batsman and Lara used to beat Sachin hands down on that aspect. Agreed. But with that being said, when you score big daddy hundred followed by duds, it may look great on stats but when you are playing it doesn't make that much of an impact.

Take Kevin Pietersen for example.

At his very best, he was more ferocious and devastating than Sachin. You can disagree with me on that but here's the big question:

Is Pietersen an ATG in tests?

Ask this and you would have a big debate in this forum. It doesn't matter whether Pietersen is an ATG or not, the VERY FACT that it has to be strongly debated whether he is one says a lot. Why? Cos people remember how many times Pietersen goes missing. So that creates a doubt in their minds. Lara of course did MUCH more than Pietersen did in his career (no question about his ATG tag). Similar kind of batsman. Devastating when on song. Goes missing a lot of times too.

What time does is it makes people FORGET THE INCONSISTENCY and remember the brutality.

Nothing wrong in saying Lara is better than Sachin (its an opinion) but fact is that many people equate Lara's destructiveness and claim he's clearly better than Sachin, which is not true at all.

Sachin was very destructive (not as much as Lara), FAR more consistent and scored centuries against ATG bowlers both home and away.

Plus he transformed his game from attacker to accumulator when he realized he couldn't murder attacks with the same consistency as in the 90's (still he would play attacking gem of an innings here and there but the transformation is evident).

If you consider everything, Sachin was a better test batsman than Lara (in my opinion).

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

so people can't even have an opinion now ? And if you want to bring stats every time you post something , let me tell you that Sachin has won more matches than Lara in ODI's (excluding Bangladesh , Zimbabwe and associate teams)

Yeah what's up with this method of answering every question with just stats and no context.

 

[EC666]

But Lee was an average test bowler, averaging 40+ in five countries, he was nothing like Steyn, Shoaib, Waqar, Donald etc. So no big deal here.

You are underrating Lee. After McGrath, Lee was Australia's best, amassing over 300 wickets at a better strike rate than Wasim Akram. The point is, though, he was extremely fast, faster even than Donald and Waqar.

Devon Malcolm is express pace too, and Lara has 3 or 4 centuries vs him. It's a shame he didn't play more for England. He coulda been a great.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/8631006/Where-have-all-Englands-Devon-Malcolms-gone.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cr...South-Africa-proved-a-wasted-opportunity.html

And if you want to bring stats every time you post something , let me tell you that Sachin has won more matches than Lara in ODI's

Not quite true.

Batting 1, 2 or 3 in victories minus minnows...

Tendulkar won 29 percent of ODI games, at an average of 56.
Lara won 22 percent of ODI games, at an average of 66.

Batting 1,2 or 3 minus minnows and outside of Asia...

Tendulkar won 8 percent of ODI games at an average of 67
Lara won 16 percent of ODI games at an average of 69.57.

Considering the fact that we would consider stats away from home (against best bowlers) as the holy grail, EC666 got pawned right there.

No. Take the 15 best bowlers (number of wickets and strike rate) of the era...


http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...r_involve=2228;template=results;type=allround

And Lara averages 50.33 away from home. Which other great bowlers of the era am I forgetting?

 

[London_Lahori]

Brian Charles Lara.

The Greatest Batsman Of All Time.

 

[IndianWillow]

But Lee was an average test bowler, averaging 40+ in five countries, he was nothing like Steyn, Shoaib, Waqar, Donald etc. So no big deal here.

You are underrating Lee. After McGrath, Lee was Australia's best, amassing over 300 wickets at a better strike rate than Wasim Akram. The point is, though, he was extremely fast, faster even than Donald and Waqar.

Devon Malcolm is express pace too, and Lara has 3 or 4 centuries vs him. It's a shame he didn't play more for England. He coulda been a great.

The key point made wasn't about an express fast bowler, but a genuine express fast bowler averaging 25 odd in tests. Prove that Lara has flourished against such bowlers, not bowlers like Lee, Sami, Devon etc. Lara hasn't but Sachin has.

 

[par]

EC666, if you have stats for batsmen against particular bowlers, give us the details. Otherwise shut this meaningless thread.

 

[SL_Fan]

Yeah but there is a key point.

Lara demolishes Sachin when playing at home (against attacks better than median).

So the averages are similar.

Considering the fact that some here call Sachin to be an FTB who can't perform against the best bowlers away, here's the thing:

Sachin (avg of 50) > Lara (avg of 44) when facing attacks better than median AWAY FROM HOME.

Considering the fact that we would consider stats away from home (against best bowlers) as the holy grail, EC666 got pawned right there..

Against better than median attacks Away Sachin averages 6 runs more. Against better than median attacks at Home Lara averages 11 runs more. I think it's fair to say they cancel each other out.

 

[EC666]

The key point made wasn't about an express fast bowler, but a genuine express fast bowler averaging 25 odd in tests.

Ive already posted this. Against Donald, Wasim and Younis, the best ultra fast guys of the 90s, both Tendulkar and Lara average exactly 32. There is no sample size to compare their response to Steyn and Akhtar.

It's also significant that Lara played over 52 percent of his games - more innings than any other great of his era - against strong attacks only player in the list is brain lara who played 52%, the most, of his innings, against stronger attack and still got averg of 49.3 against them

You're totally underrating Marshall and Lee. Marshall in particular was very hostile, he just didn't play much. Lee was serious pace.

Might be worth checking the speeds of Gough (avg 28).


What's most surprising is that Tendulkar's only really scored in ODI's when he's opened the innings (and so faced most balls).

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...art;template=results;type=allround;view=match

He averages 10 when batting 3rd. In all key batting positions, Lara is better than him, when you remove minnows. Lara also averages much higher when batting with the tail.

 

[Feroz Rawther]

again an SRT attacking thread.

to the OP...agreed that SRT averages only that much you have specified against the bowlers you specified.but to be more precise this is not the way of looking at it.it would be more precise if we look at how many times SRT got dismissed by these bowlers against the runs he scored against them.i am sure his avg: would be really great because he got out to these great bowlers very less compared to other bowlers in the tests he played against them.for eg: Akram and Waqar got him out only once each in his entire career.he never got out to Ambrose.he got out to Walsh only 2 times.yes he got out to other great bowlers in the range 3 to 5 times. but he could score huge number of runs against them too. but unfortunately we have not got the exact number of runs he scored against these great bowlers.but keeping in mind that the no: of times he got out lesser bowlers is far more we an easily assume this avg: to be really very high...atleast in the late forties.

 

[FreakCricket]

haha, all time greats struggled against pakistan vs rest of the world. I think our bowling was underrated that time !
Lara and SRT have lowest avg against pakistan ! yess

 

[IndianWillow]

The key point made wasn't about an express fast bowler, but a genuine express fast bowler averaging 25 odd in tests.

Ive already posted this. Against Donald, Wasim and Younis, the best ultra fast guys of the 90s, both Tendulkar and Lara average exactly 32. There is no sample size to compare their response to Steyn and Akhtar.

It's also significant that Lara played over 52 percent of his games - more innings than any other great of his era - against strong attacks only player in the list is brain lara who played 52%, the most, of his innings, against stronger attack and still got averg of 49.3 against them

You're totally underrating Marshall and Lee. Marshall in particular was very hostile, he just didn't play much. Lee was serious pace.

Might be worth checking the speeds of Gough (avg 28).


What's most surprising is that Tendulkar's only really scored in ODI's when he's opened the innings (and so faced most balls).

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...art;template=results;type=allround;view=match

He averages 10 when batting 3rd. In all key batting positions, Lara is better than him, when you remove minnows. Lara also averages much higher when batting with the tail.

Most of these ODIs when Tendulkar batted down the ladder was while he was still in his teens, when players like Lara were busy playing for their state teams! Tendulkar started batting at the top slot at around the age of 21 - which coincided with his rise in batting prowess, which peaked out during the 98-00 period. Tendulkar has rarely batted down the order since 1994 so no point bringing in the batting order here. Lara is way behind Tendulkar in ODIs, try starting a poll here, even on this forum , Tendulkar is likely to pip Lara. On other forums, Lara has no chance whatsover. A look at world cup stats will tell you the difference between Sachin and Lara in ODIs -
http://www.icc-cricket.com/cricket-world-cup/statistics/leading-run-scorers

In tests, I would rate Lara slightly ahead of Tendulkar overall, but Tendulkar for me is still a better batsman than Lara - it is unusually difficult to dismiss him due to his technical perfection.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Against better than median attacks Away Sachin averages 6 runs more. Against better than median attacks at Home Lara averages 11 runs more. I think it's fair to say they cancel each other out.

I know but think about it.

If it was the other way round, every Sachin hater would have latched on to it.

Would they have said "it cancels out"?

That's the point.

 

[Feroz Rawther]

another big reason i don't rate Lara higher than SRT is Lara's performance in India.We all know Lara played Warne and Murali really well.but to play well in India on dust bowls and severe turning tracks is one of the serious qualifications which rates a batsman.it is just like a batsman performing in bouncy tracks of Australia.Lara only has an avg: of 33 in India.

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

According to OP's logic sir don bradman is nothing infront of lara and sachin since he didn't face wasim, waqar, walsh and ambrose in their primes.

 

[Buffet]

No, Lara never faced Ambrose and Walsh internationally,

That's the one count. Lara couldn't score a single century against 3 ATG bowlers in 30+ innings who were genuine fast. Doing it against Ambrose in some domestic hardly counts.

Gillespie and Lee were pace men, whom Lara routinely faced.

Lee? Seriously that's your definition of great bowlers, lol. Your title said the best bowlers. I listed only ATG bowlers in my comparison and SRT is my pick for all kinds of ATG bowlers. You could have simply said that you like Lara more rather than putting bowlers like Lee in equation when we are talking about great bowlers.

Lara is better only against Murali and McGrath. SRT will be my pick against other ATG players. That sums up when we want to talk about both batsmen against ATG bowlers. They both played plenty of ATG bowlers of all kinds.

 

[Barragan]

Viv Richards is better than both!!

He faced the likes of Hadlee, Imran, Lille and Thommo without a helmet, plus Wasim (even if a brief encounter) said he was the best batsman he bowled to or something similar.

 

[leatherface58]

I would pick Lara if I have to play against trundlers. SRT struggled against trundla' beauties like Razzaq, Cronje.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

I would pick Lara if I have to play against trundlers. SRT struggled against trundla' beauties like Razzaq, Cronje.

Yep.

So true.

Sachin was wobbly against Razzaq and Cronje.

Why I don't know.

 

[Buffet]

I would pick Lara if I have to play against trundlers. SRT struggled against trundla' beauties like Razzaq, Cronje.

Agreed. If thread title is 'against trundlers' then I will pick Lara in a heartbeat. He was too good against medium pacers even if bowler was a great one.

 

[zulfiqar]

The OP is definitely cherry picking his stats, but I too think Lara was a superior test batsman to Sachin. So were Sehwag, Dravid and Gavaskar for that matter. Lara has some insane test innings, a few that rank in the top 10 every played; I don't think Sachin has even one. The other 3 Indian batsmen I mentioned also have produced magical innings, all that would be higher rated than Sachin.

If the question was, who is the most CONSISTENT (higher average) batsman out of all them, I would definitely pick Sachin! But if I was asked who is the most superior, or who would I select for an XI, I would rather have the other 4 that I have mentioned. Of course there are quite a few from other teams as well (Ricky Ponting). And yes, tests only.

 

[leatherface58]

I don't know why people attach no value to minnow bashing. If you are giving an exam and you get an easy paper, will you deliberately fail on principle claiming you want a tougher paper?

 

[Feroz Rawther]

to me Sachin is better than Lara in tests itself... let alone one dayers.the only batting factor in favour of Lara was his slightly bigger 150+ scores, scored at slightly better str:rates.here too a lot of people take lightly the fact that Sachin remained not out in 6 of his 20 150+ scores.and this is not SACHIN'S fault.if we go thru these 6 not out scores + his 148* , we can see that they all were forced to end either at the fag end of the day's play or at the beggining of a day's play. we all know that when a batsman scores a big 200+ score , it is not non stop batting for several hrs.this 200+ score may be spread among 3 or even 4 days, with him getting 15 or 16 hrs in between days to relax and sleep.so we don't know what Sachin could actually have achieved had he went on with his 7 148+
scores.one glaring example of what i said is his 241* at Sydney.after Aus 1st inns ended,he scored a quick 60* in 89 balls in 2nd inns.all in all 301 runs with out getting dismissed even once in 2 inns.Another thing is the fact that out of his 51 100+ scores 16 were not outs.that means he scored almost half the number of not out 100s alone as that of Lara's total 34 100s.we all know a 100+ not out score is a perfect plat form to score huge 100s, but Sachin was denied of those chances by match situations.on the other hand Lara has only 2 100+ not out scores.So from a personnel point of view when i evaluate the 'big inns playing capability' of these 2 players, i take all these factors into account and conclude that Sachin was only at a slightly lesser level to Lara in this regard.
Then in all other factors of test batting, Sachin is convincingly ahead of Lara.he has better evenly distributed bat avgs: in all countries, much more longevity record in all countries, has 100s against almost all great bowlers of his time etc.

another important matter is that since Lara's big inns are slighly better than those of SRT on the average and his over all avg: is way below SRT in majority of countries, that conversely implies that his consistancy is a lot more worse than that of SRT in the majority of other inns(those other than say 150+ scores) in almost all countries. for eg: Lara has 1469 runs in 35 inns at 41.97 in Aus. now if we remove his 3 150+ scores he has 784 runs in 32 remaining inns at 24.5.SRT has 1809 runs in 38 inns at 53.2 .remove his 3 150+ scores and he still has 1261 runs in 35 remaining inns at 38.21
average.this is the case in all the countries.so in consistancy Lara is way behind SRT.

some people make a big thing of Lara's slightly bigger individual scores on the avg: when compared to SRT.Let us see what it implies. say bat 'A' has 185 as avg: score in 150+ scores and bat 'B' has 200.that means in the least case where all the other members combinedly make 150, player 'A' take team total to 185 + 150 = 335 where as player 'B' in the same scenario takes team total to 200 + 150 = 350.that means an addition of only 15 runs to the team total by 'B'. and the more runs other team members combinedly make, the lesser the impact of 'B' on team total.for eg: if other members combinedly make 300, player 'A' takes team total to 300 + 185 = 485 where as player 'B' takes team total to 500.here the difference is very negligible.So going by this what does this Lara's slightly huge inns average score adds to the team total ?i don't get.if any body has the answer pls enlighten me.
For me even in tests SRT is better by a convincing margin

 

[Fastandfurious]

Lara never scored a century against any genuine fast bowler.

We had Wasim, Waqar and Donald. Zero centuries whenever they played and he did play 33 innings against them. That's a large enough sample size. He didn't have to face his own bowlers but you can make an educated guess about what he would have done. McGrath was not really a genuine fast bowler. Lara played McGrath and Murali better. Sachin played Warne better.

We had many ATG bowlers then. I will chose Lara if an opposition has Mcgrath or Murali. For all other bowlers like Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Warne, Amborse etc , I will prefer SRT. If it's a blind contest where I don't know the bowlers then SRT by some margin. He could score centuries against any bowler.

You mean quality genuine fast bowler.

 

[Romali_rotti]

I believe Lara avg's 38 vs Mcgrath in Australia, could be wrong but I think he does. Also yes he has scored a few pointless scores vs Mcgrath & Co when the series was already lost boosting is overall avg up... However his innings were WI drew the series vs Aus in WI were 2 great innings...

 

[Machar]

lara > sachin ka abbu hai

 

[Buffet]

You mean quality genuine fast bowler.

Yes.

 

[IndianWillow]

I believe Lara avg's 38 vs Mcgrath in Australia, could be wrong but I think he does. Also yes he has scored a few pointless scores vs Mcgrath & Co when the series was already lost boosting is overall avg up... However his innings were WI drew the series vs Aus in WI were 2 great innings...

I think discounting scores after a lost series is pretty meaningless - Sachin's 114 at Perth ( and many other good knocks) came after the series was over (with India down 0-3).

There is practically no context whatsoever in a test match when a batsman is not required to score runs. While some runs are more valuable than others, no run is ever scored or given freely. No test playing team donates free runs after they have ensured that they have won the series. If you have lost 2-0 in a 4 test series, the only way to avoid a whitewash is by battling hard in the last two tests, those runs are not average boosting runs.

 

[loves_cricket]

Once again a thread insulting SRT, and once again people fall for it!!!!!!

 

[EC666]

Here's another stat (I couldnt figure out how to encorporate ODI batting position into this)

(1) Alan Donald (South Africa)
(2) Shaun Pollock (South Africa)
(3) Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
(4) Waqar Younis (Pakistan)
(5) McGrath (Australia)
(5) Shane Warne (Australia)
(7) Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)

Lara played 230 TEST+ODI innings against these 7 bowlers, scored 9913 runs with 26 centuries at an average of 46.32 runs per innings.

Tendulkar played 246 TEST+ODI innings against these 7 bowlers, scored 9344 runs with 28 centuries at an average of 40.10 runs per innings.

_____________

Regarding ODI world cup scores, 3 of Tendulkar's centuries are vs massive minnows (Namibia etc!). The other 3 were losses.

Ponting has more quality world cup centuries (albeit one vs Scotland).

Lara has 2 great ODI WC centuries vs peak-form South Africa.

Regarding dead rubbers, only 1 of Lara's big scores against Australia was a dead rubber. The 277 and the three in a row (213, 153, 100) of 1999 were meaningful, as was the 186 and so forth. And the 110, 92, 122 vs Australia in 2003 were in the first 3 innings of the series. Only the 226 was a big dead rubber.

 

[cricketfanfirst]

Obviously both are all time great players, but I think Lara had some trouble against genuine quality pace in test matches. Even though he was renowned for scoring big hundreds, he failed to score a single test hundred against genuine quality pacers like Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Shoaib etc., in his career and it shows he did have some trouble against genuine quality pace. On the other hand, Sachin Tendulkar scored quality hundreds against all these bowlers in test matches.

To sum up, I think Lara was more brutal and comfortable against spin and medium pace bowling, whereas in comparison Sachin was better at playing fast bowling.

However, twist you may give, nothing is going to change the greatness of these players. Only a biased or ignorant fan of cricket can demean these great players.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

Obviously both are all time great players, but I think Lara had some trouble against genuine quality pace in test matches. Even though he was renowned for scoring big hundreds, he failed to score a single test hundred against genuine quality pacers like Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Shoaib etc., in his career and it shows he did have some trouble against genuine quality pace. On the other hand, Sachin Tendulkar scored quality hundreds against all these bowlers in test matches.

To sum up, I think Lara was more brutal and comfortable against spin and medium pace bowling, whereas in comparison Sachin was better at playing fast bowling.

However, twist you may give, nothing is going to change the greatness of these players. Only a biased or ignorant fan of cricket can demean these great players.

like EC666

 

[IndianWillow]

Obviously both are all time great players, but I think Lara had some trouble against genuine quality pace in test matches. Even though he was renowned for scoring big hundreds, he failed to score a single test hundred against genuine quality pacers like Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Shoaib etc., in his career and it shows he did have some trouble against genuine quality pace. On the other hand, Sachin Tendulkar scored quality hundreds against all these bowlers in test matches.

To sum up, I think Lara was more brutal and comfortable against spin and medium pace bowling, whereas in comparison Sachin was better at playing fast bowling.

However, twist you may give, nothing is going to change the greatness of these players. Only a biased or ignorant fan of cricket can demean these great players.

He is only giving his opinion that Lara is better than Tendulkar, how is it demeaning Tendulkar? The difference between these two players is not wide - so they can be compared. Tendulkar gets so much hate, not because he did something wrong, but because of Sachinists who can't tolerate even a comparison.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

He is only giving his opinion that Lara is better than Tendulkar, how is it demeaning Tendulkar? The difference between these two players is not wide - so they can be compared. Tendulkar gets so much hate, not because he did something wrong, but because of Sachinists who can't tolerate even a comparison.

Fair enough point but have you seen the past posts of EC 666 (on Sachin) before this thread?

Plus when Mamoon said when you combine ODI's and tests, Sachin is the best of all, did you check out his reply post? Nothing wrong with his opinion but check out his reply post and see how he presents stats.

The gaping holes in his statistical analysis in that post (for judging effectiveness) is mind boggling.

Its very obvious EC 666 will use any and every stat to try to put Sachin down (as much as possible). That's why some posters are getting annoyed here.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Comparing batting at different ODI spots to judge effectiveness is the craziest thing I have seen in a while.

EC 666 statements:

Batting number 6 to 11, Lara averages 61.

Batting number 6 to 11, Tendulkar averages 29.

If Bevan had opened in ODI and turned out to be a lulloo batsman no one would care.

He is a finisher and one of the greatest ODI finishers ever. No one cares what if he had opened and failed in ODIs.

 

[Romali_rotti]

I think discounting scores after a lost series is pretty meaningless - Sachin's 114 at Perth ( and many other good knocks) came after the series was over (with India down 0-3).

There is practically no context whatsoever in a test match when a batsman is not required to score runs. While some runs are more valuable than others, no run is ever scored or given freely. No test playing team donates free runs after they have ensured that they have won the series. If you have lost 2-0 in a 4 test series, the only way to avoid a whitewash is by battling hard in the last two tests, those runs are not average boosting runs.

True,, however Lara tends to have more meaningless big innings while SRT seems more consistent through out the series regardless of the series being lost or not..

 

[Bhaijaan]

Its also known that Lara could deliver a lot better under temperature ranging from 14 degree to 28 degree while Tendulkar's optimum range was only 17-21 degree.


Also Lara played 138-142 kph deliveries better than Sachin.



Let's not even forget on tuesdays and fridays, SRT was nothing like Brian Charles Lara.

 

[cricketfanfirst]

He is only giving his opinion that Lara is better than Tendulkar, how is it demeaning Tendulkar? The difference between these two players is not wide - so they can be compared. Tendulkar gets so much hate, not because he did something wrong, but because of Sachinists who can't tolerate even a comparison.

Is it not obvious to you what he is trying to do here?

 

[IndianWillow]

Fair enough point but have you seen the past posts of EC 666 (on Sachin) before this thread?

Plus when Mamoon said when you combine ODI's and tests, Sachin is the best of all, did you check out his reply post? Nothing wrong with his opinion but check out his reply post and see how he presents stats.

The gaping holes in his statistical analysis in that post (for judging effectiveness) is mind boggling.

Its very obvious EC 666 will use any and every stat to try to put Sachin down (as much as possible). That's why some posters are getting annoyed here.

Yeah poor logic from EC. When he brought forth the batting order argument in an ODI game, you can understand that he knows very little about ODIs. Who cares what Bevan or Dhoni would do if promoted to open? Flexibility in batting order is not a requirement in ODIs at all.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Yeah poor logic from EC. When he brought forth the batting order argument in an ODI game, you can understand that he knows very little about ODIs. Who cares what Bevan or Dhoni would do if promoted to open? Flexibility in batting order is not a requirement in ODIs at all.

In cricket in general.

Or must hate Sachin for some reason or some Sachinista must have ****** him off real bad.

Sure he is amazing with stats but he presents virtually zero context when he presenting them.

 

[Mamoon]

Razzaq wasn't a trundler during the days he had the wood over Tendulkar. He has clocked 90 MPH many times in his youth and used to bowler around 87-88 MPH on average at that time which is not trundling.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Razzaq wasn't a trundler during the days he had the wood over Tendulkar. He has clocked 90 MPH many times in his youth and used to bowler around 87-88 MPH on average at that time which is not trundling.

Yeah.

Later on when his speed dropped, the trundling image got stuck in our minds.

But you are right.

Razzaq was a damn good bowler to Sachin.

 

[Feroz Rawther]

Here's another stat (I couldnt figure out how to encorporate ODI batting position into this)

(1) Alan Donald (South Africa)
(2) Shaun Pollock (South Africa)
(3) Wasim Akram (Pakistan)
(4) Waqar Younis (Pakistan)
(5) McGrath (Australia)
(5) Shane Warne (Australia)
(7) Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)

Lara played 230 TEST+ODI innings against these 7 bowlers, scored 9913 runs with 26 centuries at an average of 46.32 runs per innings.

Tendulkar played 246 TEST+ODI innings against these 7 bowlers, scored 9344 runs with 28 centuries at an average of 40.10 runs per innings.

_____________

Regarding ODI world cup scores, 3 of Tendulkar's centuries are vs massive minnows (Namibia etc!). The other 3 were losses.

Ponting has more quality world cup centuries (albeit one vs Scotland).

Lara has 2 great ODI WC centuries vs peak-form South Africa.

Regarding dead rubbers, only 1 of Lara's big scores against Australia was a dead rubber. The 277 and the three in a row (213, 153, 100) of 1999 were meaningful, as was the 186 and so forth. And the 110, 92, 122 vs Australia in 2003 were in the first 3 innings of the series. Only the 226 was a big dead rubber.

i know your intentions pretty clear.so even if i come up with genuine data and prove you wrong, you will still try your level best on what you are trying to do. yet i am stating
some valid points.as i earlier stated the data will be more accurate if runs scored per dismissals by each bowler vs a batsman is taken into account..here are some probable stats

in 12 inns played by SRT against Wasim he scored 414 runs with Wasim dismissing him only once.out of these 2 are run outs and one is that golden duck by Shoaib Akhtar.so that means virtually his average vs all other bowlers is 414/9 =46.Since Akram dismissed him only once we can assume in all probablity that he scored atleast 55 runs
vs Wasim before getting dismissed once.in 7 inns against Waqar he scored 278 runs.ie avg = 278/7 = 39.72.here too since Waqar dismissed him only once we can assume in all
probablity that SRT would have scored atleast 45 runs vs him before getting dismissed.
against Ambrose he scored 289 runs in 5 completed inns with 1 run out.so his avg: vs bowlers is 289/4 =72.25.and we can assume in all prob: that SRT would have scored atleast 55 runs against him with out getting dismissed even once to him.against Walsh he scored 595 runs in 9 completed inns with 1 runout. so his avg: vs bowlers here is 595/8 = 74.38.Out of these it can be assumed that he scored 140 runs against Walsh before getting dismissed twice.Against Warne he scored 1217 runs in 20 completed inns.So his avg here is 1217/20 = 60.85.and Warne has dismissed his 3 times.So here we can assume that he scored atleast 210 runs vs Warne in 3 inns at avg: 70.

that means against 5 great bowlers above specified, he scored 55 + 45 + 55 + 140 + 210 = 505 runs and getting dismissed only 7 times over all.


Now coming to the great bowlers against whom SRT was not that great ..but atleast good enough.against Murali he played 24 finished inns and scored 1145 runs. that is an avg : of 47.71.Murali dismissed him 8 times.so we can assume that he avg: atleast 43 vs Murali.ie: he scored 43*8 = 344 runs against Murali overall.SRT scored 658 runs only in 20 runs vs Donald.1 of it is runout. so avg: vs bowlers is 658/19 = 34.63
since this is low and since Donald dismissed him 5 times we can assume that he scored only some 135 runs vs Donald at 27 avg:. against pollock he scored 834 runs in 21 completed inns at 39.71. Since Pollock dismissed him 4 times we can assume that SRT scored 140 runs against him at 35 avg:.SRT scored 662 runs against Mcgrath in 18 inns
at 36.78 he dismissed him 6 times too. so it can be assumed that SRT scored 192 runs vs Mcgrath at 32 avg:

So over all 505 runs in 7 inns + 811 in 23 inns = 1316 in 30 inns at 43.86 at the least against all great bowlers is really very good.

 

[biggestdravidfan]

i know your intentions pretty clear.so even if i come up with genuine data and prove you wrong, you will still try your level best on what you are trying to do. yet i am stating
some valid points.as i earlier stated the data will be more accurate if runs scored per dismissals by each bowler vs a batsman is taken into account..here are some probable stats

in 12 inns played by SRT against Wasim he scored 414 runs with Wasim dismissing him only once.out of these 2 are run outs and one is that golden duck by Shoaib Akhtar.so that means virtually his average vs all other bowlers is 414/9 =46.Since Akram dismissed him only once we can assume in all probablity that he scored atleast 55 runs
vs Wasim before getting dismissed once.in 7 inns against Waqar he scored 278 runs.ie avg = 278/7 = 39.72.here too since Waqar dismissed him only once we can assume in all
probablity that SRT would have scored atleast 45 runs vs him before getting dismissed.
against Ambrose he scored 289 runs in 5 completed inns with 1 run out.so his avg: vs bowlers is 289/4 =72.25.and we can assume in all prob: that SRT would have scored atleast 55 runs against him with out getting dismissed even once to him.against Walsh he scored 595 runs in 9 completed inns with 1 runout. so his avg: vs bowlers here is 595/8 = 74.38.Out of these it can be assumed that he scored 140 runs against Walsh before getting dismissed twice.Against Warne he scored 1217 runs in 20 completed inns.So his avg here is 1217/20 = 60.85.and Warne has dismissed his 3 times.So here we can assume that he scored atleast 210 runs vs Warne in 3 inns at avg: 70.

that means against 5 great bowlers above specified, he scored 55 + 45 + 55 + 140 + 210 = 505 runs and getting dismissed only 7 times over all.


Now coming to the great bowlers against whom SRT was not that great ..but atleast good enough.against Murali he played 24 finished inns and scored 1145 runs. that is an avg : of 47.71.Murali dismissed him 8 times.so we can assume that he avg: atleast 43 vs Murali.ie: he scored 43*8 = 344 runs against Murali overall.SRT scored 658 runs only in 20 runs vs Donald.1 of it is runout. so avg: vs bowlers is 658/19 = 34.63
since this is low and since Donald dismissed him 5 times we can assume that he scored only some 135 runs vs Donald at 27 avg:. against pollock he scored 834 runs in 21 completed inns at 39.71. Since Pollock dismissed him 4 times we can assume that SRT scored 140 runs against him at 35 avg:.SRT scored 662 runs against Mcgrath in 18 inns
at 36.78 he dismissed him 6 times too. so it can be assumed that SRT scored 192 runs vs Mcgrath at 32 avg:

So over all 505 runs in 7 inns + 811 in 23 inns = 1316 in 30 inns at 43.86 at the least against all great bowlers is really very good.

no need to type all this , he will come up with some more stats to bring down Sachin.

 

[Romali_rotti]

i know your intentions pretty clear.so even if i come up with genuine data and prove you wrong, you will still try your level best on what you are trying to do. yet i am stating
some valid points.as i earlier stated the data will be more accurate if runs scored per dismissals by each bowler vs a batsman is taken into account..here are some probable stats

in 12 inns played by SRT against Wasim he scored 414 runs with Wasim dismissing him only once.out of these 2 are run outs and one is that golden duck by Shoaib Akhtar.so that means virtually his average vs all other bowlers is 414/9 =46.Since Akram dismissed him only once we can assume in all probablity that he scored atleast 55 runs
vs Wasim before getting dismissed once.in 7 inns against Waqar he scored 278 runs.ie avg = 278/7 = 39.72.here too since Waqar dismissed him only once we can assume in all
probablity that SRT would have scored atleast 45 runs vs him before getting dismissed.
against Ambrose he scored 289 runs in 5 completed inns with 1 run out.so his avg: vs bowlers is 289/4 =72.25.and we can assume in all prob: that SRT would have scored atleast 55 runs against him with out getting dismissed even once to him.against Walsh he scored 595 runs in 9 completed inns with 1 runout. so his avg: vs bowlers here is 595/8 = 74.38.Out of these it can be assumed that he scored 140 runs against Walsh before getting dismissed twice.Against Warne he scored 1217 runs in 20 completed inns.So his avg here is 1217/20 = 60.85.and Warne has dismissed his 3 times.So here we can assume that he scored atleast 210 runs vs Warne in 3 inns at avg: 70.

that means against 5 great bowlers above specified, he scored 55 + 45 + 55 + 140 + 210 = 505 runs and getting dismissed only 7 times over all.


Now coming to the great bowlers against whom SRT was not that great ..but atleast good enough.against Murali he played 24 finished inns and scored 1145 runs. that is an avg : of 47.71.Murali dismissed him 8 times.so we can assume that he avg: atleast 43 vs Murali.ie: he scored 43*8 = 344 runs against Murali overall.SRT scored 658 runs only in 20 runs vs Donald.1 of it is runout. so avg: vs bowlers is 658/19 = 34.63
since this is low and since Donald dismissed him 5 times we can assume that he scored only some 135 runs vs Donald at 27 avg:. against pollock he scored 834 runs in 21 completed inns at 39.71. Since Pollock dismissed him 4 times we can assume that SRT scored 140 runs against him at 35 avg:.SRT scored 662 runs against Mcgrath in 18 inns
at 36.78 he dismissed him 6 times too. so it can be assumed that SRT scored 192 runs vs Mcgrath at 32 avg:

So over all 505 runs in 7 inns + 811 in 23 inns = 1316 in 30 inns at 43.86 at the least against all great bowlers is really very good.

Good write up there Macha but you always have to take into account Mcgrath's figure's vs SRT is better than it should be because of the 2004 tennis elbow.......

 

[Tusker]

Good write up there Macha but you always have to take into account Mcgrath's figure's vs SRT is better than it should be because of the 2004 tennis elbow.......

and the fact that McGra avoided SRT during 1996-98 .... going by the "covention" that is used over here in PP to arrive at deciding who avoided who.

 

[Romali_rotti]

and the fact that McGra avoided SRT during 1996-98 .... going by the "covention" that is used over here in PP to arrive at deciding who avoided who.

SRT that played vs Aus in 98 would have violated Mcgrath so bad he may have never come back to India ... SRT without the tennis elbow had no issues vs Mcgrath, played him with ease, previous 2 series stats are proof of that...

 

[Fire Bird]

This should settle it. Those who havent seen bat in the 90s havent seen the run machine in full flow. SRT hasnt been the same since the tennis elbow and back problems.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/en...0;spanval1=span;template=results;type=batting