Harsh Thakor
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Both Gavaskar and Tendulkar were legends of the game,arguably the greatest batsmen of them all.Gavaskar was the more defensive,Tendulkar the more attacking.Sunny had more concentration awhile Sachin had more imagination.Sunil was the better batsmen in the 2nd innings while Sachin was more effective in the 1st.Suny was more effective against the bouncing ball while Tendulkar was more punishing again st the good length ball.Both were masterrs in the 'V' region and technically virtually on par.Admitedly Sunny faced more lethal pace bowling that too without the aid of a helmet and had less suport from the remaining batsmen.
In pure test cricket it is very hard to seperate the 2 stalwarts.
Gavaskar amassed records against the greatest pace bowlers ever like Imran ,Hadlee,Marshall,Botham,Roberts,Holding etc.He scored more runs aginst Imran and co,.than Tendulkar did aginst the like sof Wasim and Waqar.He scored more centuries v Marshall,Holding nad Roberts than what Sachin did facing Ambrose and Walsh.Tendulakr's record in West Indies is not comparable to Gavaskar's who had an amazing 774 run debut agregate there at an average of 154.8 in 1970-71.Tendulkar did not in England surpass Gavasakr's performance in the 1979 series when he scored 542 run sincludinga classic 221 at the Oval.Nor did Sachin in Pakistan equal Gavaskar's best series effort in Pakistan averaging 89.40 in 1978-79 with Imran at top speed.Unlike Tendulkar Gavaskar opened the batting facing the new ball,which was more challenging than Sachin.3 of Gavaskar's test centuries have been chosen in the Wisden 100 best test innings while none of Sachin's have been selected.Arguably Tendulkar has never equalled Gavaskar's 86 at Bangalore v Pakistan in 1987 or his 221 at the Oval in 1979.He also had a considerably better average in the 4th innings.The likes of Imran Khan,Andy Roberts and Gary Sobers have rated Sunil ahead of Tendulkar overall.
Tendulkar surpassed Gavaskar by a considerable margin in Australia facing top bowlers like WArne and Mcgrath whilst Sunny was lucky to face a 2nd string attck in 1977-78 and 1985-86 when he scored prolifically.Tendulakr alos averaged around 22 runs more in matches won,while Gavaskar was even overshadowed by compatriot Vishwanath in batting average in matches won.Sachin consistently dominated attcks to a considerably greater extent in the 1st half of his career like when scoring 115 at Perth in 1991-92,179 at Kanpur v West Indies or 169 at Edgbaston in 1996 and 155 n.o at Madras v Australia in 1998.Tendulkar also played in South Africa unlike Gavaskar where he was immensely successful scoring a classic 169 at Johannesburg in 1997,158 at Blomfontein in 2001 and 147 at Durban in 2010-11.Arguably South Africa has the most testing wickets in the world where Sachin registered 4 centuries against top quicks like Alan Donald and Dale Steyn.Tendulkar also made his debut at a considerably younger age than Gavaskar and also had greater longevity by a margin of 8 years.Although not facing as lethal pace bowling Tendulkar faced bolwers of a greater variety than Sunny.
Still in his era other stalwarts like Steve Waugh,Inzamam Ul Haq and Ricky Ponting won more games for their teams than Tendulkar or even Rahul Dravid ,Virendra Sehwag ,Brian Lara or V.V.S.Laxman at their best.India won more games by the combined performances of Sehwag,Laxman and Dravid thna by Tendulkar.Yet it has to be noted that Sachin hardly received any support from his team mates.
So with a gun on my head who would I choose in test cricket?Scaling the statistics Gavaskar may just get the nod considering the opposition he faced and minimal support received but in asessing overall batting skill Tendukar would win as he was a more complete batsmen who would win you more matches.On his day Tendulkar could be ferocious against the likes of Wasim or Donald at their best.To bat for your life I would back Gavaskar but to win games Tendulkar would be my unanimous choice,bein g more impactful.Many pundits chose Sachin to open the all-time test xi but this is highly debatable.In an all-time world xi by a whisker I would consider Tendulkar to be a more suitable candidate than Gavaskar.
STATISTIC SBY S.RAJESH OF CRICINFO
SUNIL GAVASKAR
The other aspect of Gavaskar's career that stood out was his ability to play for long periods, especially in the fourth innings of Tests. Several other top-class batsmen have performed below potential in the last innings of Tests, with Tendulkar being the prime example: in 47 such innings he averages less than 38. But Gavaskar had no such problems, averaging 58.25 in 33 innings, which is second only to Boycott among batsmen who scored at least 1000 fourth-innings runs.
One of the features of Gavaskar's batting - and that of India during the period he played in - was the ability to bat many overs in the last innings. When he scored that 221 at The Oval, India batted 150.5 overs, and there were several other instances when the team batted more than 100 overs. (Click here for a Numbers Game column from July 2007 that compares Gavaskar and Tendulkar in fourth innings; while Gavaskar averaged more than 56 in meaningful fourth innings, Tendulkar only managed an average of less than 27.)
Best Test averages in fourth innings (Qual: 1000 runs) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Geoff Boycott 34 1234 58.76 3/ 7
Sunil Gavaskar 33 1398 58.25 4/ 8
Graeme Smith 30 1285 53.54 3/ 8
Gordon Greenidge 38 1383 53.19 3/ 6
Ricky Ponting 38 1311 52.44 4/ 4
Matthew Hayden 39 1287 49.50 1/ 9
Jacques Kallis 41 1212 44.88 1/ 10
Graham Gooch 29 1121 44.84 3/ 5
Opening the innings was a tough job in an era when there were plenty of top-class fast bowlers around, but Gavaskar handled the pressures superbly. Apart from the West Indies attack, he played 18 Tests against Imran Khan and 14 against Ian Botham. While both are among the five bowlers who dismissed him most often, Gavaskar had more than his fair share of success against them. He scored four centuries in the 18 Tests he played against Imran - including in each innings of the Karachi Test in 1978, and a memorable unbeaten 127, when he carried the bat through the innings against a rampant Imran in Faisalabad in 1983. (In fact, Gavaskar is one of only two batsmen to score centuries in each innings of a Test three times; Ricky Ponting is the other.) Botham dismissed him eight times, but mostly after he had made reasonable contributions. The bowler who dismissed him cheaply most often was Malcolm Marshall, who too nailed him on eight occasions, seven of them before he touched 25. Of course, the fact that Gavaskar usually faced the first ball of an innings also meant the bowlers had the opportunity to dismiss him off the first ball of the match - this fate befell him three times, with Geoff Arnold, Imran and Marshall the successful bowlers. Bangladesh's Hannan Sarkar is the only batsman to share this record with Gavaskar.
Till the turn of the century Gavaskar was one of only six openers to have scored more than 3000 runs at a 50-plus average. (Three batsmen - Matthew Hayden, Graeme Smith and Virender Sehwag - have joined the club since then, which is another stat to suggest that opening the innings has become comparatively easier in the last decade.)
Highest averages among openers till 2000 (Qual: 3000 runs) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Herbert Sutcliffe 83 4522 61.10 16/ 23
Len Hutton 131 6721 56.47 19/ 31
Jack Hobbs 97 5130 56.37 14/ 27
Bob Simpson 70 3664 55.51 8/ 19
Dennis Amiss 69 3276 53.70 11/ 9
Sunil Gavaskar 203 9607 50.29 33/ 42
Geoff Boycott 191 8091 48.16 22/ 42
Saeed Anwar 70 3271 48.10 9/ 21
One of the most remarkable aspects of Gavaskar's career was the success he achieved against West Indies, the best team of the 1980s. He scored 13 centuries against them, which is the second-highest for a batsman against one opposition; only Don Bradman, with 19 against England, has more. Bradman's overall rate of scoring hundreds was obviously much better than Gavaskar's, but in this case the rates were comparable: Bradman's 19 came in 37 Tests, while Gavaskar needed 27 matches for his 13 hundreds.
Some of his runs against West Indies were scored when the attacks weren't quite as fearsome - in his first series, in 1970-71, West Indies had a spin-heavy attack, while in 1978-79 the best bowlers were away playing in World Series Cricket, but even in the other series Gavaskar had some memorable battles against the West Indies' fast bowlers. Fittingly, some of his most memorable landmarks came against them: in the 1983-84 series in India, he made his 29th hundred, to equal Bradman's record, and then went past it in Chennai. Both were special innings - the first one, in Delhi, came off a mere 94 balls, while the second was a marathon that lasted more than 10 hours and ended a run-drought of 36 runs from his previous five innings.
Of the 2749 runs Gavaskar scored against West Indies, almost 30% came at a single venue - the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. He played five Tests there, and only once did he fail, scoring 1 and 32 in the 1983 series. Despite that, he was the Bradman of Port-of-Spain, averaging 99.12 at the ground. He is also one of only four batsmen to score more than 750 Test runs at an overseas venue, and remains the only one to do it since 1950. Among the grounds he played in, only at two venues did he score more runs - the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Best batsmen against West Indies between 1970 and 1990 (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Dennis Amiss 9 1113 74.20 4/ 2
Sunil Gavaskar 27 2749 65.45 13/ 7
Wasim Raja 11 919 57.43 2/ 7
Greg Chappell 17 1400 56.00 5/ 7
Gundappa Viswanath 18 1455 53.88 4/ 7
Ian Chappell 12 997 52.47 3/ 4
SACHIN TENDULKAR
During that six-year period from January 1997 to December 2002, Tendulkar was unquestionably the best batsman in the world, handling pace in Australia and South Africa as effectively as he did spin in Sri Lanka. And then, of course, there was the epic 136 against Pakistan in Chennai which, unfortunately for him, wasn't enough to take India to victory against Pakistan.
In only 59 Tests he managed 21 centuries - an average of one every 2.81 matches. His average during this phase was well ahead of the second-placed Andy Flower, who led a string of batsmen who averaged in the md-50s.
Best Test batsmen between Jan 1997 and Dec 2002 Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Sachin Tendulkar 59 5705 63.38 21/ 20
Andy Flower 41 3464 56.78 9/ 18
Matthew Hayden 35 3054 56.55 12/ 10
Rahul Dravid 62 5178 55.08 14/ 25
Aravinda de Silva 38 3134 54.98 12/ 9
Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 3740 51.94 12/ 15
Jacques Kallis 63 4447 51.70 11/ 25
Ricky Ponting 57 3916 50.85 14/ 14
Unfortunately for Tendulkar, his best period coincided with one where India had a poor bowling attack, especially overseas, and a batting line-up that tended to crumble quite often on tours. In 69 Tests between the beginning of 1993 and the end of 2001, India won 23, but only three of those came abroad. During this period, Tendulkar contributed almost 20% of all runs scored off the bat by India, and more than 21% when they played in Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand or the West Indies. From 2002 onwards, there were many more batsmen contributing - Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman weighed in consistently both home and away, which significantly reduced the dependence on Tendulkar: he has contributed only 14.30% of the team runs since 2002. With the bowling attack getting stronger as well, Tendulkar has been a part of 15 away Test wins during this period, and 32 wins in all in these eight-and-a-half years.
Tendulkar's contribution to the team Period Tendulkar's runs Team runs Percentage
Till Dec 1992 1085 9122 11.89
Jan 1993 to Dec 2001 6334 32,048 19.76
Jan '93 to Dec '01, in Aus, SA, NZ, Eng, WI 1783 8368 21.31
Jan 2002 onwards 6028 42,140 14.30
Overall 13,477 83,310 16.18
A standout feature of Tendulkar's career has been his tendency to save his best for the greatest team of his generation. Few batsmen have consistently got the better of Australia over the last two decades, but Tendulkar is clearly one of them. His two stunning hundreds on his first tour to Australia announced him as a special talent, while his Boxing Day century in 1999 showed the gulf between him and the rest of the Indian batsmen. Later in his career some of the others - Laxman and Sehwag, especially - also showed their liking for the Australian attack, but Tendulkar is the one player who has sustained his performances against Australia for 20 years.
Highest Test averages against Australia since 1990 Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Sachin Tendulkar 29 2748 56.08 10/ 11
VVS Laxman 24 2204 55.10 6/ 10
Virender Sehwag 15 1483 51.13 3/ 7
Brian Lara 31 2856 51.00 9/ 11
Kevin Pietersen 12 1116 50.72 2/ 7
Richie Richardson 14 1084 49.27 4/ 4
Graham Thorpe 16 1235 45.74 3/ 8
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 17 1303 44.93 4/ 8
Tendulkar's Test average in Australia is marginally higher than his average against them at home, while six of his ten hundreds against them have come in Australia.
Best Test averages by overseas batsmen in Australia since 1990 (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Virender Sehwag 7 833 59.50 2/ 3
Sachin Tendulkar 16 1522 58.53 6/ 5
VVS Laxman 11 1081 54.05 4/ 3
Rahul Dravid 12 972 48.60 1/ 5
Jacques Kallis 12 915 45.75 2/ 5
Brian Lara 19 1469 41.97 4/ 4
In pure test cricket it is very hard to seperate the 2 stalwarts.
Gavaskar amassed records against the greatest pace bowlers ever like Imran ,Hadlee,Marshall,Botham,Roberts,Holding etc.He scored more runs aginst Imran and co,.than Tendulkar did aginst the like sof Wasim and Waqar.He scored more centuries v Marshall,Holding nad Roberts than what Sachin did facing Ambrose and Walsh.Tendulakr's record in West Indies is not comparable to Gavaskar's who had an amazing 774 run debut agregate there at an average of 154.8 in 1970-71.Tendulkar did not in England surpass Gavasakr's performance in the 1979 series when he scored 542 run sincludinga classic 221 at the Oval.Nor did Sachin in Pakistan equal Gavaskar's best series effort in Pakistan averaging 89.40 in 1978-79 with Imran at top speed.Unlike Tendulkar Gavaskar opened the batting facing the new ball,which was more challenging than Sachin.3 of Gavaskar's test centuries have been chosen in the Wisden 100 best test innings while none of Sachin's have been selected.Arguably Tendulkar has never equalled Gavaskar's 86 at Bangalore v Pakistan in 1987 or his 221 at the Oval in 1979.He also had a considerably better average in the 4th innings.The likes of Imran Khan,Andy Roberts and Gary Sobers have rated Sunil ahead of Tendulkar overall.
Tendulkar surpassed Gavaskar by a considerable margin in Australia facing top bowlers like WArne and Mcgrath whilst Sunny was lucky to face a 2nd string attck in 1977-78 and 1985-86 when he scored prolifically.Tendulakr alos averaged around 22 runs more in matches won,while Gavaskar was even overshadowed by compatriot Vishwanath in batting average in matches won.Sachin consistently dominated attcks to a considerably greater extent in the 1st half of his career like when scoring 115 at Perth in 1991-92,179 at Kanpur v West Indies or 169 at Edgbaston in 1996 and 155 n.o at Madras v Australia in 1998.Tendulkar also played in South Africa unlike Gavaskar where he was immensely successful scoring a classic 169 at Johannesburg in 1997,158 at Blomfontein in 2001 and 147 at Durban in 2010-11.Arguably South Africa has the most testing wickets in the world where Sachin registered 4 centuries against top quicks like Alan Donald and Dale Steyn.Tendulkar also made his debut at a considerably younger age than Gavaskar and also had greater longevity by a margin of 8 years.Although not facing as lethal pace bowling Tendulkar faced bolwers of a greater variety than Sunny.
Still in his era other stalwarts like Steve Waugh,Inzamam Ul Haq and Ricky Ponting won more games for their teams than Tendulkar or even Rahul Dravid ,Virendra Sehwag ,Brian Lara or V.V.S.Laxman at their best.India won more games by the combined performances of Sehwag,Laxman and Dravid thna by Tendulkar.Yet it has to be noted that Sachin hardly received any support from his team mates.
So with a gun on my head who would I choose in test cricket?Scaling the statistics Gavaskar may just get the nod considering the opposition he faced and minimal support received but in asessing overall batting skill Tendukar would win as he was a more complete batsmen who would win you more matches.On his day Tendulkar could be ferocious against the likes of Wasim or Donald at their best.To bat for your life I would back Gavaskar but to win games Tendulkar would be my unanimous choice,bein g more impactful.Many pundits chose Sachin to open the all-time test xi but this is highly debatable.In an all-time world xi by a whisker I would consider Tendulkar to be a more suitable candidate than Gavaskar.
STATISTIC SBY S.RAJESH OF CRICINFO
SUNIL GAVASKAR
The other aspect of Gavaskar's career that stood out was his ability to play for long periods, especially in the fourth innings of Tests. Several other top-class batsmen have performed below potential in the last innings of Tests, with Tendulkar being the prime example: in 47 such innings he averages less than 38. But Gavaskar had no such problems, averaging 58.25 in 33 innings, which is second only to Boycott among batsmen who scored at least 1000 fourth-innings runs.
One of the features of Gavaskar's batting - and that of India during the period he played in - was the ability to bat many overs in the last innings. When he scored that 221 at The Oval, India batted 150.5 overs, and there were several other instances when the team batted more than 100 overs. (Click here for a Numbers Game column from July 2007 that compares Gavaskar and Tendulkar in fourth innings; while Gavaskar averaged more than 56 in meaningful fourth innings, Tendulkar only managed an average of less than 27.)
Best Test averages in fourth innings (Qual: 1000 runs) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Geoff Boycott 34 1234 58.76 3/ 7
Sunil Gavaskar 33 1398 58.25 4/ 8
Graeme Smith 30 1285 53.54 3/ 8
Gordon Greenidge 38 1383 53.19 3/ 6
Ricky Ponting 38 1311 52.44 4/ 4
Matthew Hayden 39 1287 49.50 1/ 9
Jacques Kallis 41 1212 44.88 1/ 10
Graham Gooch 29 1121 44.84 3/ 5
Opening the innings was a tough job in an era when there were plenty of top-class fast bowlers around, but Gavaskar handled the pressures superbly. Apart from the West Indies attack, he played 18 Tests against Imran Khan and 14 against Ian Botham. While both are among the five bowlers who dismissed him most often, Gavaskar had more than his fair share of success against them. He scored four centuries in the 18 Tests he played against Imran - including in each innings of the Karachi Test in 1978, and a memorable unbeaten 127, when he carried the bat through the innings against a rampant Imran in Faisalabad in 1983. (In fact, Gavaskar is one of only two batsmen to score centuries in each innings of a Test three times; Ricky Ponting is the other.) Botham dismissed him eight times, but mostly after he had made reasonable contributions. The bowler who dismissed him cheaply most often was Malcolm Marshall, who too nailed him on eight occasions, seven of them before he touched 25. Of course, the fact that Gavaskar usually faced the first ball of an innings also meant the bowlers had the opportunity to dismiss him off the first ball of the match - this fate befell him three times, with Geoff Arnold, Imran and Marshall the successful bowlers. Bangladesh's Hannan Sarkar is the only batsman to share this record with Gavaskar.
Till the turn of the century Gavaskar was one of only six openers to have scored more than 3000 runs at a 50-plus average. (Three batsmen - Matthew Hayden, Graeme Smith and Virender Sehwag - have joined the club since then, which is another stat to suggest that opening the innings has become comparatively easier in the last decade.)
Highest averages among openers till 2000 (Qual: 3000 runs) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Herbert Sutcliffe 83 4522 61.10 16/ 23
Len Hutton 131 6721 56.47 19/ 31
Jack Hobbs 97 5130 56.37 14/ 27
Bob Simpson 70 3664 55.51 8/ 19
Dennis Amiss 69 3276 53.70 11/ 9
Sunil Gavaskar 203 9607 50.29 33/ 42
Geoff Boycott 191 8091 48.16 22/ 42
Saeed Anwar 70 3271 48.10 9/ 21
One of the most remarkable aspects of Gavaskar's career was the success he achieved against West Indies, the best team of the 1980s. He scored 13 centuries against them, which is the second-highest for a batsman against one opposition; only Don Bradman, with 19 against England, has more. Bradman's overall rate of scoring hundreds was obviously much better than Gavaskar's, but in this case the rates were comparable: Bradman's 19 came in 37 Tests, while Gavaskar needed 27 matches for his 13 hundreds.
Some of his runs against West Indies were scored when the attacks weren't quite as fearsome - in his first series, in 1970-71, West Indies had a spin-heavy attack, while in 1978-79 the best bowlers were away playing in World Series Cricket, but even in the other series Gavaskar had some memorable battles against the West Indies' fast bowlers. Fittingly, some of his most memorable landmarks came against them: in the 1983-84 series in India, he made his 29th hundred, to equal Bradman's record, and then went past it in Chennai. Both were special innings - the first one, in Delhi, came off a mere 94 balls, while the second was a marathon that lasted more than 10 hours and ended a run-drought of 36 runs from his previous five innings.
Of the 2749 runs Gavaskar scored against West Indies, almost 30% came at a single venue - the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. He played five Tests there, and only once did he fail, scoring 1 and 32 in the 1983 series. Despite that, he was the Bradman of Port-of-Spain, averaging 99.12 at the ground. He is also one of only four batsmen to score more than 750 Test runs at an overseas venue, and remains the only one to do it since 1950. Among the grounds he played in, only at two venues did he score more runs - the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Best batsmen against West Indies between 1970 and 1990 (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Dennis Amiss 9 1113 74.20 4/ 2
Sunil Gavaskar 27 2749 65.45 13/ 7
Wasim Raja 11 919 57.43 2/ 7
Greg Chappell 17 1400 56.00 5/ 7
Gundappa Viswanath 18 1455 53.88 4/ 7
Ian Chappell 12 997 52.47 3/ 4
SACHIN TENDULKAR
During that six-year period from January 1997 to December 2002, Tendulkar was unquestionably the best batsman in the world, handling pace in Australia and South Africa as effectively as he did spin in Sri Lanka. And then, of course, there was the epic 136 against Pakistan in Chennai which, unfortunately for him, wasn't enough to take India to victory against Pakistan.
In only 59 Tests he managed 21 centuries - an average of one every 2.81 matches. His average during this phase was well ahead of the second-placed Andy Flower, who led a string of batsmen who averaged in the md-50s.
Best Test batsmen between Jan 1997 and Dec 2002 Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Sachin Tendulkar 59 5705 63.38 21/ 20
Andy Flower 41 3464 56.78 9/ 18
Matthew Hayden 35 3054 56.55 12/ 10
Rahul Dravid 62 5178 55.08 14/ 25
Aravinda de Silva 38 3134 54.98 12/ 9
Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 3740 51.94 12/ 15
Jacques Kallis 63 4447 51.70 11/ 25
Ricky Ponting 57 3916 50.85 14/ 14
Unfortunately for Tendulkar, his best period coincided with one where India had a poor bowling attack, especially overseas, and a batting line-up that tended to crumble quite often on tours. In 69 Tests between the beginning of 1993 and the end of 2001, India won 23, but only three of those came abroad. During this period, Tendulkar contributed almost 20% of all runs scored off the bat by India, and more than 21% when they played in Australia, South Africa, England, New Zealand or the West Indies. From 2002 onwards, there were many more batsmen contributing - Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman weighed in consistently both home and away, which significantly reduced the dependence on Tendulkar: he has contributed only 14.30% of the team runs since 2002. With the bowling attack getting stronger as well, Tendulkar has been a part of 15 away Test wins during this period, and 32 wins in all in these eight-and-a-half years.
Tendulkar's contribution to the team Period Tendulkar's runs Team runs Percentage
Till Dec 1992 1085 9122 11.89
Jan 1993 to Dec 2001 6334 32,048 19.76
Jan '93 to Dec '01, in Aus, SA, NZ, Eng, WI 1783 8368 21.31
Jan 2002 onwards 6028 42,140 14.30
Overall 13,477 83,310 16.18
A standout feature of Tendulkar's career has been his tendency to save his best for the greatest team of his generation. Few batsmen have consistently got the better of Australia over the last two decades, but Tendulkar is clearly one of them. His two stunning hundreds on his first tour to Australia announced him as a special talent, while his Boxing Day century in 1999 showed the gulf between him and the rest of the Indian batsmen. Later in his career some of the others - Laxman and Sehwag, especially - also showed their liking for the Australian attack, but Tendulkar is the one player who has sustained his performances against Australia for 20 years.
Highest Test averages against Australia since 1990 Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Sachin Tendulkar 29 2748 56.08 10/ 11
VVS Laxman 24 2204 55.10 6/ 10
Virender Sehwag 15 1483 51.13 3/ 7
Brian Lara 31 2856 51.00 9/ 11
Kevin Pietersen 12 1116 50.72 2/ 7
Richie Richardson 14 1084 49.27 4/ 4
Graham Thorpe 16 1235 45.74 3/ 8
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 17 1303 44.93 4/ 8
Tendulkar's Test average in Australia is marginally higher than his average against them at home, while six of his ten hundreds against them have come in Australia.
Best Test averages by overseas batsmen in Australia since 1990 (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s
Virender Sehwag 7 833 59.50 2/ 3
Sachin Tendulkar 16 1522 58.53 6/ 5
VVS Laxman 11 1081 54.05 4/ 3
Rahul Dravid 12 972 48.60 1/ 5
Jacques Kallis 12 915 45.75 2/ 5
Brian Lara 19 1469 41.97 4/ 4
) No poster can go head to head with you.
Mucho fun arguing with [MENTION=145164]Proactive_[/MENTION] . Credit to him for providing us with plenty of opportunities for interesting banter.
... then why the fudge are you arguing with me 
