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Originally Posted by Matt79
Yeah, I'd dispute that Junior deserved an average of 50. He looked to have the talent to do so, but obviously either lacked the application (the common theory) or else that appearance that he found it easy was misleading (which is his explanation). I think it's more the latter than the former, although obviously he didn't have the ruthless hunger of his brother. Either way, taking into account the era in which he played, I think his average fairly reflects how he was.
Disagree re Sachin as well. At his peak he would deserve an average of 60+, but if we say that should therefore be his career avg. that ignores the fact that for significant chunks of his career he was far below his peak. There were valid reasons for that which means we shouldn't detract from his rep. But neither should we pretend they didn't happen. Injuries, form slumps, having to play in adversity happen to all players if they're around for any amount of time, and that very fact makes averages useful guides.
If we are to nominate people for whom their whole career record doesn't reflect the whole story, Viv Richards and Ian Botham are the two big ones that immediately come to mind. Even then, their records at their peak DO reflect how good they were, but in both cases their overall records suffer because they played so long past their peaks when their bodies were letting them down.
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Valid points regarding tendulkar. But people forget that Tendulkar played an insane amount of cricket due to BCCI's greed in the late 90s which is why he got injured for most part of early 2000s. Plus, the injury management during his time was hardly equivalent to what players are getting today. Also he was overburdened due to his team members' non performance for most of time during his peak. All this combined, it can only be speculated whether what he'd be averaging if he were playing for a much better team like Australia.