Bonafide Hustler
Debutant
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2010
- Runs
- 215
What analysis are you talking about? Numbers some idiots tend to summarize? They never even come close to doing justice to what the two greats were able to accomplish on the field. This is why even if Sanga or Kallis or Ponting were to average 60s, Tendulkar would still rank a level above them. Subjectively, the following are the reasons I consider Lara ahead of Tendulkar:
- Lara had a greater range of shots, pick out any two Lara innings and they will look vastly different, the range of his sweeps, cuts and drives was greater than any other batsmen I have ever watched.
- Lara was more entertaining to watch: there are very few if any who would dispute this, the high backlift and the flourish was a sight to behold, Lara looked good even when he left deliveries.
- Counter attacking - I have lost count of the amount of times I witnessed Lara come in while the West Indies were 20-2 or 3 down and launch devastating counter attacks against some of the best bowlers in the world.
- Best player of spin bowling - Lara couldn't pick Murali, but I have never seen any other batsmen dominate Murali the way he did in that one series in Sri Lanka, it was the stuff of legends, carving Murali away ball after ball against the spin on a turning wicket requires tremendous amounts of skill. Especially when every other batsmen was failing around him.
- Teams only had to focus in on Lara, for a large part of Tendulkar's career, he had other batting greats around him, although he was the prized wicket, teams also had to key in and exhaust considerable energy in getting the likes of Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag and Ganguly out. Lara was literally the only focus of the opposition for almost all of his career.
- An in form Lara was the most devastating batsmen, he would even outclass the likes of Gilchrist and Jayasuria when in the mood. I recall one game against Pakistan where he was struggling to time the ball in Australia, scored a 50 off 90 odd balls, he went onto score 150 and the next 100 came off 50 odd balls. Tendulkar was brilliantly aggressive especially in the early parts of his career, but an in form Lara had the ability to take the game away even quicker. He could win you games out of seemingly impossible situations.
- Big scores, the record speaks for itself, the number of double hundreds, 400, 500 in first class cricket, you have to be a class above the rest to accomplish those feats.
As I said, the argument for Tendulkar over Lara is one of consistency and solidity, but I think that only is true because Lara just wasn't as focused on the job half the time and would play very ordinary cricket for certain stretches. I don't fault him for that, I don't think scoring runs as consistently was as much of his obsession as it was Tendulkars, Lara was moody but when on song, he was the best batsmen in the world.
In any case, despite his up and downs, his record is still remarkable and just as good as Tendulkars if not better, especially if you compare them for the same amount of matches played at Lara's retirement.
The longevity argument is nullified by the fact that Lara continued to dominate bowling attacks right into his retirement, he stayed true to his game and entertained right till the end, and he retired while still on top.
were reluctant to defend 4 runs vs Brian Mcmillan (best all rounder in the world at the time).
. Dravid also good fielder back then. See some diving catch in his early days in YT
