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Whom would you pick as the best batsman after Donald Bradman?

Hitman

Hitman

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I'll give you my contenders -

Sir Jack Hobbs, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Vivian Richards, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.
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My pick? Sir Garfield Sobers, the greatest cricketing genius to have ever lived. Legends like Ian Chappell, Geoffrey Boycott till this day consider Sobers to be the greatest batsman they ever saw.

Who would be your pick?
 
Hitman said:
I'll give you my contenders -




My pick? Sir Garfield Sobers, the greatest cricketing genius to have ever lived. Legends like Ian Chappell, Geoffrey Boycott till this day consider Sobers to be the greatest batsman they ever saw.

Who would be your pick?
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Best batsman you've seen live ,would've been apt. Most of the contenders here are just hearsay.
 
between tendulkar and lara in terms of those scene live. My brain says Tendulkar edges it, but the heart raced much more Lara's style of cricket.
 
Sachin followed by Ponting.

Talking of course about the players that I saw live myself.
 
I wouldn't put the Don as the best ever, too much has changed in cricket since his playing days, not to forget timeless tests & the LBW law but to name a few.
 
Tendulkar, the reason he has faced the ATG bowlers of 80' s ,90's, 2000's and 2010's and still maintained his avg scored 100's for fun, as a teen faced likes of imran, Marshall, hadlee,qadir, Botham as a youngster faced the two w's, donald,pollock, Walsh, ambrose, mcgrath, gillispie, on 2000's face unarguably 3 fastest guys of all time in Akhtar , Lee and bond, along with ntini,vaas, magicians like warne , murli and saqlain, also later faced guy's like steyn, morkel, Anderson, Broad, Johnson, spinner in Swann,ajmal, so he has faced the bowlers of 4 different decades,and to score runs against them is something unbelievable, he scored 100 at Perth of 90's, century in South African pitches and English, pitches and offcourse kiwi pitches of that era and 100 in West indian pitches of 90, that is outstanding.
 
Imagine a tendulkar in a Pakistani line up of late 90 's,u would have destroyed every team in their den more often than not.
 
Tendulkar, even though I was never a fan of him..you have to accept some undeniable facts..
 
The best I have seen are:
Richards- no batsman faced fast bowlers like he did, and tried to dominate them.
Tendulkar- For his hunger for runs and cricketing intelligence.
Ponting- For his desire to dominate fast bowlers.
Lara- For his hunger and entertainment value.
Kallis- For his calmness under pressure.

Martin Crowe- Stats will never truely reflect his brilliance.

Sehwag- For his fearlessness

Sangakarra- Hunger for runs and cricketing intelligence.

David Gower- At his best he was sublime.
Miandad- For his bloody mindedness.

Coming quickly on the rails is Kohli and if as expect he goes on to score runs galore, he will go 2nd.
 
Three candidates for me: Viv, Sachin and Sobers

Then you have guys like Ranji and Hobbs who had phenomenal records in their era but they seem far too distant from current age to hold direct comparison meaningful.

So I would keep Bradman at no 1 and then 3 guys I mentioned as the candidate for 2nd best after 1930 and the two guys as the best before 1930.

As for who would be 2nd after 1930, it keeps changing for me but would go with Viv Richards right now.
 
I generally tend to not rate cricket before the 1970s as it was a completely amateur era with a total of 2-3 semi-professional teams. Rise of WI and pajama cricket ushered cricket into the modern era with at least a decent number of competitive and professional teams.

Same for football is the 1950s. I have seen enough old football matches and it is not even the same game.
 
1) Bradman

2) Richards
3) Sobers
4) Sachin/Lara
5) Lara/Sachin
 
Bewal Express said:
The best I have seen are:
Richards- no batsman faced fast bowlers like he did, and tried to dominate them.
Tendulkar- For his hunger for runs and cricketing intelligence.
Ponting- For his desire to dominate fast bowlers.
Lara- For his hunger and entertainment value.
Kallis- For his calmness under pressure.

Martin Crowe- Stats will never truely reflect his brilliance.

Sehwag- For his fearlessness

Sangakarra- Hunger for runs and cricketing intelligence.

David Gower- At his best he was sublime.
Miandad- For his bloody mindedness.

Coming quickly on the rails is Kohli and if as expect he goes on to score runs galore, he will go 2nd.
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Absolutely spot on -- I saw Sobers play in 73 and he was past his best but still awesome. The list from Bewal Express includes the best of the last forty years. I guess a case can be made for Pieterson but he did have a lot of baggage.

Pleased he included Gower who is the most beautiful batsman I have ever seen -- wonderfully elegant player. Shame he didn't have the determination and grit that the true greats had.
 
Tendulkar, the reason he has faced the ATG bowlers of 80' s ,90's, 2000's and 2010's and still maintained his avg scored 100's for fun, as a teen faced likes of imran, Marshall, hadlee,qadir, Botham as a youngster faced the two w's, donald,pollock, Walsh, ambrose, mcgrath, gillispie, on 2000's face unarguably 3 fastest guys of all time in Akhtar , Lee and bond, along with ntini,vaas, magicians like warne , murli and saqlain, also later faced guy's like steyn, morkel, Anderson, Broad, Johnson, spinner in Swann,ajmal, so he has faced the bowlers of 4 different decades,and to score runs against them is something unbelievable, he scored 100 at Perth of 90's, century in South African pitches and English, pitches and offcourse kiwi pitches of that era and 100 in West indian pitches of 90, that is outstanding, but after Sachin Ricky Ponting was the batsman that I always love to watch absolute classy and stylish
 
Even Bradman is said to be best because of stats.

Stat wise Tendulkar is way ahead of others.
But if you look from craftsmanship , Viv would be right up there.

Other notable mentions would be Greg Chappell , barry Richards , Lara .
 
Lara is the best I've seen in my life though from what I hear Richards and Sobers would be strong contenders
 
Vayuu said:
Tendulkar, the reason he has faced the ATG bowlers of 80' s ,90's, 2000's and 2010's and still maintained his avg scored 100's for fun, as a teen faced likes of imran, Marshall, hadlee,qadir, Botham as a youngster faced the two w's, donald,pollock, Walsh, ambrose, mcgrath, gillispie, on 2000's face unarguably 3 fastest guys of all time in Akhtar , Lee and bond, along with ntini,vaas, magicians like warne , murli and saqlain, also later faced guy's like steyn, morkel, Anderson, Broad, Johnson, spinner in Swann,ajmal, so he has faced the bowlers of 4 different decades,and to score runs against them is something unbelievable, he scored 100 at Perth of 90's, century in South African pitches and English, pitches and offcourse kiwi pitches of that era and 100 in West indian pitches of 90, that is outstanding.
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This shouldn't affect the broad you're making, but a small correction to your post. Tendulkar never played against Botham in a Test. In in ODI, they played against each other only once, in the WC 1992.
 
Sin Nombre said:
I generally tend to not rate cricket before the 1970s as it was a completely amateur era with a total of 2-3 semi-professional teams. Rise of WI and pajama cricket ushered cricket into the modern era with at least a decent number of competitive and professional teams.

Same for football is the 1950s. I have seen enough old football matches and it is not even the same game.
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Spot on ... I don't understand how people just simply do not get such a simple and bleedingly obvious fact. The irony (absurdity more like) is back then professionals were looked down upon and the prevalent perception was that the amateurs were by and large better players than Pros !
 
Sunil Gavaskar. Was the best batsman of his era by a margin. Better stats than Richards and Chappell. And he was an opener!
 
Tusker said:
Spot on ... I don't understand how people just simply do not get such a simple and bleedingly obvious fact. The irony (absurdity more like) is back then professionals were looked down upon and the prevalent perception was that the amateurs were by and large better players than Pros !
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Like everything that seems "bleeding obvious", it never is, of course. The disctinction between amateur and professional (or rather, gentleman vs players as it was known) was more to do with social status rather than dedication or commitment. It didn't even have anything to do with rumenration as the gentleman found ways of receiving money (hence the term shamateur).
Hammond went from being a player (professional) to a gentleman (amateur) so that he could ca,plain England -- he did not drop his income, change the amount of time he spent on the game etc.
So to discount the amateurs is complete nonsense and shows no real understanding of the social mores that prevailed at that time.
 
gibsyhesperis said:
Like everything that seems "bleeding obvious", it never is, of course. The disctinction between amateur and professional (or rather, gentleman vs players as it was known) was more to do with social status rather than dedication or commitment. It didn't even have anything to do with rumenration as the gentleman found ways of receiving money (hence the term shamateur).
Hammond went from being a player (professional) to a gentleman (amateur) so that he could ca,plain England -- he did not drop his income, change the amount of time he spent on the game etc.
So to discount the amateurs is complete nonsense and shows no real understanding of the social mores that prevailed at that time.
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I never claimed that was the case. Please read my post again. A better read on the subject is this article :

This tidbit from that article highlights my point :

Perhaps the way captaincy was handled was the most ridiculous aspect of it all. Professionals were deemed unable to take on such a role and so often found themselves playing under amateur captains who were barely of club standard.


Yes social status had a part in it as well which only highlights how stupid the world of cricket was and the way it was run ( Hence my comment of it all being bleedingly obvious albeit in hingsight ) . Its another thing that revisionism has meant that the players and those ERAs are now on a higher pedestal.

But if you really want proof of "Bleedingly Obvious" take a look at some footage from that ERA ... everything unravels pretty quickly once you watch them play.
 
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Don Bradman was easily better than Sachin Tendulker. Honestly guys, give it a rest and try coming up with good arguments for why your idol is a better batsman than Richards, Sobers and Lara.
 
Bilal7 said:
Don Bradman was easily better than Sachin Tendulker. Honestly guys, give it a rest and try coming up with good arguments for why your idol is a better batsman than Richards, Sobers and Lara.
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Without many people having seen him bat it's a tad hard to label Don the best ever batsman.

We don't know the quality of the bowling, size of the grounds or the quality of the pitches.
 
Ellipsism said:
Without many people having seen him bat it's a tad hard to label Don the best ever batsman.

We don't know the quality of the bowling, size of the grounds or the quality of the pitches.
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Yes, we do. It's called history and it's found in books.
 
Bilal7 said:
Yes, we do. It's called history and it's found in books.
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This is precisely similar to accepting the most highest run scorer in a residential competition is the best batsman on the local scene.

These books don't really expound; detail required to name somebody as the best batsman to walk on the planet.

History isn't always factually correct, people love to twist the plot. For example the Hanging Gardens would have been a sprawling, ongoing project requiring engineering knowledge that surpassed everything else at the time -- you're trying to keep water flowing to all of these tiers of suspended foliage in the middle of the freaking desert. But Greek soldiers constantly spoke and wrote of the suspended gardens.

This is one of the most popular examples used by Historians when telling people not believe something unless they've seen it themselves.

Edit:
(Sorry for the tangent)
 
Sachin 2nd followed by Lara at 3rd. These are the top three batsmen of all time. In fact Sachin may very well be first. We don't know how effective Bradman would have been in modern Cricket or how he would have performed had he played as many Tests as Sachin.
 
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King Viv for mine. Haven't seen him live but seen enough to make my mind up. Wow.
 
This is the a tough one.

Brian Lara is easily the player with the greatest range of strokes and the ability to dominate both spin and pace equally well - under pressure at that! - that I have seen.

There is a fair argument to say that Vivian Richards and Greg Chappell - the 2 greatest batsmen of THEIR era - played at a time when their was no Bangladesh, No Zimbabwe and Barely a Sri Lanka in the list of Test playing Nations, and when all the other Nations had at least one World Class Fast Bowler and and at least one World Class Spinner. And the grounds were much bigger (the boundary was the fence in Australia at least) and pitches far more bowler friendly than they were today or in recent years. i.e. There were no 'easy runs' in the 70s and 80s.

Lara also certainly had to combat many bowlers who became legends of the game, all of whom had retired by 2003...so anyone who played a significant portion of their career after that (e.g. Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis, Sangakarra) doesn't have the same standing in the game in my view.
 
Worldcuppa said:
This is the a tough one.

Brian Lara is easily the player with the greatest range of strokes and the ability to dominate both spin and pace equally well - under pressure at that! - that I have seen.

There is a fair argument to say that Vivian Richards and Greg Chappell - the 2 greatest batsmen of THEIR era - played at a time when their was no Bangladesh, No Zimbabwe and Barely a Sri Lanka in the list of Test playing Nations, and when all the other Nations had at least one World Class Fast Bowler and and at least one World Class Spinner. And the grounds were much bigger (the boundary was the fence in Australia at least) and pitches far more bowler friendly than they were today or in recent years. i.e. There were no 'easy runs' in the 70s and 80s.

Lara also certainly had to combat many bowlers who became legends of the game, all of whom had retired by 2003...so anyone who played a significant portion of their career after that (e.g. Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis, Sangakarra) doesn't have the same standing in the game in my view.
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Just a note , Tendulkar and Lara started their careers same time and Lara dint have to face the great WI bowlers. Taking these all into consideration and also pre 2003 record of Tendulkar ( which is stellar and better than Lara) , I am confused by your opinion that Lara faced many bowlers that Tendulkar dint face.
 
Vivek_86 said:
Just a note , Tendulkar and Lara started their careers same time and Lara dint have to face the great WI bowlers. Taking these all into consideration and also pre 2003 record of Tendulkar ( which is stellar and better than Lara) , I am confused by your opinion that Lara faced many bowlers that Tendulkar dint face.
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The reason I went for Viv over SRT and Lara was the ability to play fast bowling better and without a helmet. You could argue with some credence that the lack of a helmet forced him to play it better but I saw SRT get hit too often for him to be the best ever. Let's be clear, each of those players I chose were brilliant and it's like splitting hairs.
 
Virat is better than Viv, Lara, Tendulkar. If he was playing in the 1930's he would have been remembered as the greatest cricketer ever.
 
Bewal Express said:
The reason I went for Viv over SRT and Lara was the ability to play fast bowling better and without a helmet. You could argue with some credence that the lack of a helmet forced him to play it better but I saw SRT get hit too often for him to be the best ever. Let's be clear, each of those players I chose were brilliant and it's like splitting hairs.
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Helmet case is an example of human evolution. People were reluctant to use helmet because it hindered their vision and also due to claustrophobic effect ,not many were comfortable with it. Hence they had to play better without it. Later years helmet design improved and people started using it. If VIV played now , he would certainly use it because cricket is not important than health.
 
Tusker said:
Spot on ... I don't understand how people just simply do not get such a simple and bleedingly obvious fact. The irony (absurdity more like) is back then professionals were looked down upon and the prevalent perception was that the amateurs were by and large better players than Pros !
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That's a stereotype. It is true professionals were perceived to be "grinders" like Len Hutton whereas the amateurs were more expansive strokeplayers. However professionals were invariably better cricketers.

The distinction was more to do with socio-economic divides in England and the way cricketers would be contracted. Amateurs tended to be upper or middle class, whereas the professionals tended to be working class. Many of the amateurs were complete hypocrites too - hence the term "shamateurism" where amateur cricketers WERE profiting from playing, most notably WG Grace.

Anyway, its hard to do cross-era comparisons. Of course cricket has evolved and progressed over time in many ways, but this reflexive thumbing of the nose by younger fans at anything before the 1990s is also absurd. Give past cricketers the same resources, training, equipment, modern sports science and techniques that contemporary players have access to and who's to say some of them couldn't have survived in this era too ?

In many ways cricket has devolved. Batsmen face fewer challenges today than they once did - gone are the days of uncovered pitches (so no flat drop-ins where any hack could swing through the line of the ball), no neutral umpiring, smaller bats, boundaries right to the edge of the advertising hoardings and no restrictions on bouncers.
 
Vivek_86 said:
Helmet case is an example of human evolution. People were reluctant to use helmet because it hindered their vision and also due to claustrophobic effect ,not many were comfortable with it. Hence they had to play better without it. Later years helmet design improved and people started using it. If VIV played now , he would certainly use it because cricket is not important than health.
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Had SRT played in that era, would we even be talking about him-yes,would he be in the list of ATG maybe, but would he be seen as the best ever-no.
 
Got to be Richards I guess.

Sobers batted way down the order. But then haven't seen him. So can't make any conclusion with that regard.

Among those I saw, it would be Sachin across all formats.
 
Among batters I have seen - Sir Viv Richards.

Then Lara.

Then probably Miandad.
 
The #2 has to be a West Indian: Gary Sobers or Viv Richards or Brian Lara. Pick any of them for #2 and you would not be wrong.
 
Bewal Express said:
The reason I went for Viv over SRT and Lara was the ability to play fast bowling better and without a helmet. You could argue with some credence that the lack of a helmet forced him to play it better but I saw SRT get hit too often for him to be the best ever. Let's be clear, each of those players I chose were brilliant and it's like splitting hairs.
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Viv also got hit. Its just that people dont like to bring these things into the discussion which will spoil a good story. Secondly half of worlds best fast bowlers were in his side when he played and his record against them in Domestic and County matches is not good at all.
 
Lara for me but the general consensus is a tie between Sobers and Viv Richards
 
Markhor said:
That's a stereotype. It is true professionals were perceived to be "grinders" like Len Hutton whereas the amateurs were more expansive strokeplayers. However professionals were invariably better cricketers.
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It doesnt matter if they were better than the amateurs or not. If you look at any of the surviving footage it is pretty obvious that what we call Amateur standards today were probably better than the Pro's.

The distinction was more to do with socio-economic divides in England and the way cricketers would be contracted. Amateurs tended to be upper or middle class, whereas the professionals tended to be working class. Many of the amateurs were complete hypocrites too - hence the term "shamateurism" where amateur cricketers WERE profiting from playing, most notably WG Grace.
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Yes its all mentioned in that link I posted in my previous post. It only goes to show how ridiculous the administrators were.

Anyway, its hard to do cross-era comparisons. Of course cricket has evolved and progressed over time in many ways, but this reflexive thumbing of the nose by younger fans at anything before the 1990s is also absurd. Give past cricketers the same resources, training, equipment, modern sports science and techniques that contemporary players have access to and who's to say some of them couldn't have survived in this era too ?
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What great resources and training did Akram, Imran, Waqar, Tendulkar, Sunny etc have during their development years ?

In many ways cricket has devolved. Batsmen face fewer challenges today than they once did - gone are the days of uncovered pitches (so no flat drop-ins where any hack could swing through the line of the ball), no neutral umpiring, smaller bats, boundaries right to the edge of the advertising hoardings and no restrictions on bouncers.
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Perhaps you dont know this but Bradmans record on Wet Wickets is very poor. And uncovered wkts dont automatically mean difficult wkt. Otherwise there would be no need for Timeless tests and 6 day tests and you would never see 400+ scores by any team. It only becomes a problem when it rains and the unlucky team that happens to be batting at that time would suffer when they come on to bat after a rain interruption. Basically it was a lottery. It again suggests how idiotic the thinking was. The funny thing is they would cover the bowlers runup but not the wkt. All these things point to a ERA that was woefully amateur in nature and should never be compared to the Professional ERA.
 
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Thivagar said:
Hitman is finally coming to relaization.

Viv Richards and then Kohli
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Its one thing to have an opinion (Usually a superficial one influenced by media) but quite another to back that up with sound logic and facts. We have done this Bradman vs SRT or XYZ vs SRT many many times before and I've clearly shown why SRT trumps everyone. Let me know if you want to go thru one more round lol :)
 
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Babar Azam has the potential to be the best batsman after Bradman.

:babar
 
Tusker said:
Viv also got hit. Its just that people dont like to bring these things into the discussion which will spoil a good story. Secondly half of worlds best fast bowlers were in his side when he played and his record against them in Domestic and County matches is not good at all.
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The only time I saw him got hit was by Duncan Spencer around 1993. Can you enlighten us to the other times, because I watched the 80's and no one else hit him. I take your point about the best bowlers playing with him, but he played against the same guys in county and She'll Shield and I don't remember any stories of him being hit by them.
 
Tusker said:
Its one thing to have an opinion (Usually a superficial one influenced by media) but quite another to back that up with sound logic and facts. We have done this Bradman vs SRT or XYZ vs SRT many many times before and I've clearly shown why SRT trumps everyone other than Bradman. Let me know if you want to go thru one more round lol :)
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Convince me how SRT is better than Viv, Kohli and Sobers.
 
Bewal Express said:
The only time I saw him got hit was by Duncan Spencer around 1993. Can you enlighten us to the other times, because I watched the 80's and no one else hit him.
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I read this a long time ago (so take it for what its worth as it is hard to prove/disprove) ... Viv was hit by Lillee and later by Rodney Hogg or Pascoe. This is not meant to be a knock on Viv as anyone who plays for so long will eventually run into a pitch with uneven bounce and get hit. You dont measure a batsmans worth based on how many times he got hit by a ball. If thats your measure then a certain Bradman would be nowhere in the list.

I take your point about the best bowlers playing with him, but he played against the same guys in county and She'll Shield and I don't remember any stories of him being hit by them.
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But his record isnt really great in those matches like people make it out to be.
 
Tusker said:
I read this a long time ago (so take it for what its worth as it is hard to prove/disprove) ... Viv was hit by Lillee and later by Rodney Hogg or Pascoe. This is not meant to be a knock on Viv as anyone who plays for so long will eventually run into a pitch with uneven bounce and get hit. You dont measure a batsmans worth based on how many times he got hit by a ball. If thats your measure then a certain Bradman would be nowhere in the list.



But his record isnt really great in those matches like people make it out to be.
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He may have been but I can only go what i have seen, and bar the Spencer going( I'm not even sure he was hit that day) over, I don't remember anyone else hitting him. As far as SRT is concerned, he was brilliant player but if you are saying that he is the greatest ever, which I understand you are, then being hit by medium pacers like Jimmy Anderson flush on, on an even wicket clearly shows he isn't.
 
Thivagar said:
Convince me how SRT is better than Viv, Kohli and Sobers.
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Forget these ... Iam talking Bradman who is the popular choice for the #1 spot mainly due to nostalgia and OTT embellishements.

The reason why we shouldnt even try to compare the 2 ERAs is because of Standards. Otherwise it will be a Pro ERA vs Amateur ERA comparison.

To illustrate the problem .. look at Bradmans XI he picked Bedser as his strike[ /B]bowler.

Here he is seen bowling (upto 0:32) and you can immediately see what the problem is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YRM6oQSuyI

Another clip : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO05oLSWLb4

Today Bowlers of that Pace are never going to get anywhere close to a Test Team. Therefore it is unfair to compare Tendulkar's achievements with Bradmans as there is no such thing as a level playing field when it comes to pure skill and standards.
 
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Bewal Express said:
He may have been but I can only go what i have seen, and bar the Spencer going( I'm not even sure he was hit that day) over, I don't remember anyone else hitting him. As far as SRT is concerned, he was brilliant player but if you are saying that he is the greatest ever, which I understand you are, then being hit by medium pacers like Jimmy Anderson flush on, on an even wicket clearly shows he isn't.
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Again ... this is not how Cricketers are evaluated. Reasoning for that is if you have short ball problems you don't survive that long. And Tendulkar played 3 times as much Cricket as Viv.

However there is one batsman who had to contend with short bowling the very least of all top batsman. That is Bradman. And it was because of the peculiarities of that ERA. If you want to go by the short ball issue then you need to be consistent and not consider him as a top batsman.
 
Tusker said:
Again ... this is not how Cricketers are evaluated. Reasoning for that is if you have short ball problems you don't survive that long. And Tendulkar played 3 times as much Cricket as Viv.

However there is one batsman who had to contend with short bowling the very least of all top batsman. That is Bradman. And it was because of the peculiarities of that ERA. If you want to go by the short ball issue then you need to be consistent and not consider him as a top batsman.
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Mate, you have your methods of evaluating and others will have theirs. To simplify it for you, before 1991 players had to face unlimited bouncers and if you couldnt play the short ball, then either you had a short career or a very short career. For me any batsman having a claim to be an ATG player has to be able to cope with all conditions, against all types of bowling, bowling different types of balls and score at a good lick. SRT for all his brilliance did not handle the short well and hence he is not the greatest.
 
Bewal Express said:
Mate, you have your methods of evaluating and others will have theirs. To simplify it for you, before 1991 players had to face unlimited bouncers and if you couldnt play the short ball, then either you had a short career or a very short career. For me any batsman having a claim to be an ATG player has to be able to cope with all conditions, against all types of bowling, bowling different types of balls and score at a good lick. SRT for all his brilliance did not handle the short well and hence he is not the greatest.
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Iam using your own method to evaluate Bradman and he fails even more miserably than any modern batsman. So whether you are consistent and fair in applying the same yardstick is upto you to decide.
 
For most Indians, Tendulkar is not only the greatest cricketer ever, 5 times greater than that hack Bradman who only averaged 100 (twice as much as any of his contemporaries), but Tendulkar is also the greatest ever sportsman in the history of the world. In fact probably the greatest human being ever.

That said, as a neutral, I'd say Sobers was the 2nd greatest after Bradman.

Although Hammond gets criminally underrated.
 
Tusker said:
Iam using your own method to evaluate Bradman and he fails even more miserably than any modern batsman. So whether you are consistent and fair in applying the same yardstick is upto you to decide.
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Maybe you should read my list before criticising me, to me Bradman means nothing as i cant judge someone i never saw play.
 
Snatch said:
For most Indians, Tendulkar is not only the greatest cricketer ever, 5 times greater than that hack Bradman who only averaged 100 (twice as much as any of his contemporaries), but Tendulkar is also the greatest ever sportsman in the history of the world. In fact probably the greatest human being ever.

That said, as a neutral, I'd say Sobers was the 2nd greatest after Bradman.

Although Hammond gets criminally underrated.
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Why don't you stand up and debate like a grown up instead of making silly sarcastic comments ? If Bradman is truly as great as you say he is the facts should easily bear that out. So for starters why dont you try explain your reasoning for the problem I mention in post#67 instead of making sarcastic comments ?
 
Bewal Express said:
Maybe you should read my list before criticising me, to me Bradman means nothing as i cant judge someone i never saw play.
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Not criticizing you or your method at all ... just making sure that it is applied consistently ... cheers :)
 
Tusker said:
Why don't you stand up and debate like a grown up instead of making silly sarcastic comments ? If Bradman is truly as great as you say he is the facts should easily bear that out. So for starters why dont you try explain your reasoning for the problem I mention in post#67 instead of making sarcastic comments ?
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Why should I when such a blatantly obvious fact like Bradman being basically twice as good as his next closest contemporaries seems to be ignored by some here, & they instead put Tendulkar, who I'm not even convinced is the best batsmen of his own era, into the argument.

We've been through this before. Bradman is a reasonable & realistic contender for the Greatest sportsman ever title, if we're judging those playing a top sport on how far they were ahead of their contemporaries.

He even gets mentions in American sports articles around the question of greatest ever sportsmen, simply because although they don't know much about cricket, they can't ignore the statistical anomaly which is Bradman.

Statistics aren't everything, I'll grant you that, but when a player is basically twice as good as the next in terms of their records, that just cannot be ignored, regardless of the fact there's 1.3 million people living in India.
 
Vivek_86 said:
Did he play in any place other than England and Australia? Sorry just asking
Click to expand...

No, he didn't because he couldn't. Did Sachin bat without a helmet against fast bowlers on unprepared wickets?

Ellipsism said:
This is precisely similar to accepting the most highest run scorer in a residential competition is the best batsman on the local scene.

These books don't really expound; detail required to name somebody as the best batsman to walk on the planet.

History isn't always factually correct, people love to twist the plot. For example the Hanging Gardens would have been a sprawling, ongoing project requiring engineering knowledge that surpassed everything else at the time -- you're trying to keep water flowing to all of these tiers of suspended foliage in the middle of the freaking desert. But Greek soldiers constantly spoke and wrote of the suspended gardens.

This is one of the most popular examples used by Historians when telling people not believe something unless they've seen it themselves.

Edit:
(Sorry for the tangent)
Click to expand...

So the Ottomon Empire, Adolf Hitler and dinosaurs are all fairytales because you haven't seen them with your own eyes? This is an extremely strange post. No one is saying that history is always 100% accurate but you really cannot debate the facts with this one. Bradman averaged 99.96, no one else averaged anywhere close to him, ever.

After him is Richards who was head and shoulders above every one else in a different way and then we have Sobers. After these three, you can fit either Sachin or Lara at #4.
 
Some decent points being made and I agree more often then not it's not a given to compare distinct era's but Bradmans 99.94 average eliminates all anomalies, it is arguably the single greatest stat across all sport.
 
shaz619 said:
Some decent points being made and I agree more often then not it's not a given to compare distinct era's but Bradmans 99.94 average eliminates all anomalies, it is arguably the single greatest stat across all sport.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I mean perhaps if he averaged only 70, there could be a case to be made for other factors, but when it's 100, there's just no case to deny it.

Remember other great batsmen of Bradman's era like the Sutcliffe's, Hammonds could only average late 50s, which again might be different if a few of them averaged 70-80, but for them it was no different than it is today in which the very top batsmen average 50-55 and the real elites 55-60.

No batsmen in any era seems to be able to get above that magic 60 mark and then Bradman who let's not forget played right through the 9 year gap of WWII averages a 100.

Statistically speaking it's so stupid it's just simply beyond debating.
 
It would be a close tie between SRT and LARA, cant go wrong either way. I would pick SRT as he was more attractive to watch and consistent while Lara was up and down....
 
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