Chasing Border

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

AR Border - 11174 Test runs
SR Waugh - 10927 Test runs
SM Gavaskar - 10122 Test runs
BC Lara - 10094 Test runs
SR Tendulkar - 9595 Test runs

The question now arises, will Lara or Tendulkar break the record and if either or both will surpass Border, who will get there first? Lara has currently played 6 innings more than Tendulkar for some 499 runs more and 14 NOs less.

Personally I have no doubt that Lara will go on to pass Border, but the question is when. He needs only one more 1000+ year or so to get it done, a feat which he's shown he's still very capable of accomplishing, given as he's done it in consecutive years.

Taking batting averages, it would take Lara some 20 or so innings to make up the 1080 runs needed to tie Border. Tendulkar is on a pace around 28 innings, but is capable of big things on any given day, no less with Bangladesh around the corner.

So what are our thoughts?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Some added facts: The closest active player to the top of the list is Rahul Dravid with 7203 runs. At 31 years of age, Dravid would have to maintain his average of 57.17 for a further 69-70 innings to reach Border's mark. By that time though, if he keeps his average at 52.85, Lara would have raised the mark to 13793. That is too assuming that both batsmen will play roughly the same number of innings over a given period of time.

As such, there is a fair amount of room for variation. Still, Dravid is on course to reach the mark in 214 career innings, which means Lara would have to score the 1080 he needs in 6 innings or less to have done it faster. This is not taking into consideration the increase in batting average which may occur for both players over the period of chase.

 

[Richard]

It's about the only interesting race ATM in top-batsmen-by-runs-scored.
A few players have dropped-out of the top-batsmen-by-averages recently.
It'll hot-up in a few series' time.

 

[The Baconator]

i think lara will break border's record but i doubt he will make it to 12,000

 

[age_master]

I certainl;y hope Lara gets it and keeps it away from Tendulkar

i think the other main danger from the current crop is Ponting, who turns 30 on the 19th, his average over the last few years is Huge.


McGrath is another chance, if his average keeps going up in the same %'s as it has recently it wont be long before he gets there

 

[age_master]

Ponting: averages 69.8 in his last 30 tests. and has been pretty conistant around that mark if he keeps that going, which i hope he does cause i love watching him bat. he is a real threat.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Ponting: averages 69.8 in his last 30 tests. and has been pretty conistant around that mark if he keeps that going, which i hope he does cause i love watching him bat. he is a real threat.

Law of averages suggests that surely he'll fall away a bit at some point... surely... surely...

 

[marc71178]

Some would say he already has (since becoming skipper)

 

[Mister Wright]

Tendulkar has been out of form lately, but the Windies haven't played much test cricket lately, so it will be a tough race.

 

[age_master]

Some would say he already has (since becoming skipper)

lets see how he goes against the pakistani quicks before saying things like that, he hasn't played too mcuh cricket since becoming captain. give the guy a chance

 

[marc71178]

7 games (13 innings) averaging 36.08 - considering his average over the 30 games is 69.80 that means that his last 7 games have slipped a lot from the previous 23...

 

[Adamc]

If you use runs per match rather than averages:

Lara - 90.13 rpm, will reach Border in a further 11.98 matches at current rate
Tendulkar - 81.06 rpm, will reach Border in a further 19.85 matches at current rate

Don't know what the Test schedule is like, but on that basis it would appear that Lara should reach the milestone first chronologically, in terms of innings played though:

Lara - 51.34 runs per innings, should reach Border in his 218th innings
Tendulkar - 50.08 runs per innings, should reach Border in his 224th innings

Either way, Lara is likely to reach the milestone first, though Tendulkar will probably have the better average due to his relatively high proportion of not-outs.

It looks as though Lara has won the race to 10,000 as well, as Tendulkar needs a further 435 in 3 innings to better Lara's 10,000 in 195 innings, or 435 in 4 innings to equal.

 

[Craig]

Some would say he already has (since becoming skipper)

Given Pakistan's unpredicatability and their bowling line-up, I wouldn't put it past him to score a shed load.

 

[Waughney]

They'll both pass it anyway.

 

[Nate]

GO LARA. I hope he makes it first, hes a champ, best batsman in the world IMO. Theyll both pass it, but Lara should egt there first. Tendulkar vs Bangla howver...

 

[marc71178]

Given Pakistan's unpredicatability and their bowling line-up, I wouldn't put it past him to score a shed load.

Oh I fully agree, but it is noticeable that his form has dipped considerably since taking over.

 

[age_master]

touring his less favoured spinning countries for 4 of those matches. probably fair to say that he wasn't expected to perfrom quite to the same level on them

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

touring his less favoured spinning countries for 4 of those matches. probably fair to say that he wasn't expected to perfrom quite to the same level on them

Further evidence that there's a void between Lara and Ponting in terms of class.

 

[marc71178]

Exactly Liam - if he really were as good as some people like to make out, they wouldn't need to look for excuses such as that.

 

[Eclipse]

Exactly Liam - if he really were as good as some people like to make out, they wouldn't need to look for excuses such as that.

I dont think many ppl ever said he was better than Lara...

There are a few area's of his game the are better but overall Lara wins..