Quote:
Originally Posted by Perm
Why do you rate Richards so high, since his record isn't as great as a lot of other players?
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His record is as good as the best, depending on when you start viewing him. Richards has a famous decline and was generally pretty good against everybody. What's more with him is he seemed to score runs more when it counted - when the match was in the balance. For his time, his SR is rather awesome, even for now it's very very good. I remember someone doing an estimation of it being around 67-70 (which is about double the speed Gavaskar scores at
). He also didn't play the minnows of his time (Sri Lanka) and still ended up with a 50+ average despite playing for much longer than he should have.
His genuine challenger is probably Ponting, who has scored almost everywhere and at all times but I feel Richards has a bit of Warne to him, in that he is more a man of the big occasion than Ponting. He's the very first batsman that I saw on TV and got my attention away from the Football(soccer)-fueled family of mine. You could say there is some sentiment there. For me, the current Ponting has a good chance to really show himself, carrying some fledglings to success on his own back will go a long way in highlighting his legacy IMO.