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tendulkar not a match winner>>Imran

godofcricket

State 12th Man
Sachin Tendulkar may have given a lesson or two in batting to Pakistan during his blitzkrieg in a World Cup cricket match early this year but former Pakistani captain and speedster Imran Khan still does not rate him as a 'match-winner'.

Comparing Tendulkar to West Indian great Vivian Richards, Khan said Tendulkar still needed to perform at crucial times.

"Both are talented but the only thing about Tendulkar is that he needs to be a match-winner," Imran Khan was quoted as saying in media reports in Dubai on Monday. "He must perform at crucial times when you need him to perform."

"My point is that when you compare Sachin Tendulkar to Viv Richards, he is not a match-winner. The greatness of a player is also to perform at the right time," Imran said.


So what are your thoughts on that, I am a big fan of tendulkar and i have seen him win matches for india quite often. So please give me ur suggestions on it.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Tendulkar averages 7 more than Richards - yes, the bowling was rather better in Richards' day than it is now, but for most of Tendulkar's time it's been as good as Richards faced.
Tendulkar is better than Richards IMO.
 

Eclipse

International Debutant
According to some people I know Tendulkar has not really been a match winning batsman for the last 3 years an opinion I am unsure of myself having only seen about 20% of the games he has played over that time.
I do however beleve he is not quite the game breaking player he was a few years ago.

On comparison to Richards well IMO It's debatable to who was the better batsman but I would say Richards was deffinatly a bigger match winner as infact Lara probably is but then again thats personal opinion.
 

luckyeddie

Cricket Web Staff Member
Tendulkar and Richards are/were both undoubted class, probably two of the greatest dozen or so batsmen who ever lived. As for who was the best of the two, all you are ever going to get is opinions - and I for one would be happy to throw all the statistics out of the window and go on gut feeling.

I'd probably pick Viv by the narrowest of margins, but that's just because he was the more destructive in slugging mode and I can vividly remember THOSE one-day innings like they were yesterday. Tendulkar is the greater stylist, and I'd watch him in the nets all day, let alone in the middle.

I feel privileged to have watched them both in their heyday (and Ken Barrington, Gary Sobers, GRAEME POLLOCK - my favourite, Barry Richards, Hanif Mohammed, Majid Khan, Sunil Gavaskar, Rohan Kanhai etc etc etc).
 

PY

International Coach
Viv Richards would be the man for me I reckon, purely because of grace on a cricket field. Some batsman have this air of quality about them. Not to say Tendulkar doesn't because I'd be an idiot to say that he doesn't but Richards' is more pronounced.

I also once heard someone on TMS say that they thought Viv Richards had the most potential to change a game by playing un-orthodox shots to counteract field placings. This was in a conversation about Zulu during his innings against W.I. in the WC.

I saw some clips of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock at their best and they looked awesome. What a pity they didn't get chance to continue the excellent starts they got :(.

Barry Richards only played 5 (?) Tests, also have to have the utmost respect for him because he isn't bitter about it at all and his comments are always well thought out and articulately put. :)

Unlike certain current commentators who are headline makers just because they want controversy.

*Just edited "Barry" in here to save any confusion :)
 
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V Reddy

International Debutant
You've got to keep in mind that India never had a good bowling attack while WI always had one of the best. So Richards was able to play match-winning innings while Sachin had to play match saving. He had played many match-winning innings in one dayers . But India doesn't have the bowling to win tests abroad :( . I never saw Richards play except for the odd ball shown here and there and so can't comment on him.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Why all the furore over "match-winning" performances?
There is no such thing as a "match-winner" or "match-winning such-and-such" - 60% of a victory is about as much a part as it's humanly possible for one player to play.
You can judge a batsman fairly on one thing - runs (and deserved runs, mark you). Significance obviously plays some part, but significance is often over-estimated.
Botham, for instance, was said to have won the 1981 Third Test "virtually single-handed".
For crying out loud; Willis took 8 wickets in the second-innings. That, in theory, is a fifth of the match.
Match-turning innings (or bowling spells) are a much more accurate term and judgement point. Although the occasion one innings turns a match is exceptionally rare; you almost always need a partner (eg Laxman and Dravid), sometimes more.
And I think you have to judge batsmen more on first-chance averages relative to the-conditions-relative-to-the-ability-of-the-bowling than on numbers of match-turning innings.
 

Anil

Hall of Fame Member
Imran has always tried to project Tendulkar as "not as good as he is made out to be". I remember during the '92 WC which saw Inzy playing a couple of blistering innings towards the end of the tournament, imran declared that Inzy was a far better batsman than Tendulkar. While Inzy is undoubtedly an exceptional player, he just isn't that good.

As far as Richards and Tendulkar goes, both are/were magnificient players and I have witnessed some of their best innings. It is very difficult to compare the two. Richards remained one of the most destructive batsmen ever till the end of his career while Tendulkar has mellowed into a player who tries more for consistency rather than flashiness(although we still see an occasional blitzkrieg).
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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All stats aside, just watching Sachin bat one can have no doubt that he is a tremendous batsman.
 

masterblaster

International Captain
Tendulkar is a match winning player, in more ways than one. With the bat, definitely. Although in recent times he's had the weight of the nation on his shoulders, a burden Viv never really had to carry to the same extent that Tendulkar or Lara have had to.

Tendulkar is a match winning bowler as well, he in the past has broken the most crucial partnerships and has swung matches in an instant.

Tendulkar now, is a much more mature and stylish player. He was a much more destructive player back in 1998. But as the years go on, he has grown and developed into a more thinking cricketer.

But there are always people who are hard to please, who are doubters.

I think Imran, should just appreciate the fact that cricket is blessed to have batsman of the calibre of Sachin and Viv, and its just a waste of time comparing them.


Thanks for the entertainment Sachin, Viv.
 

royGilchrist

State 12th Man
the whole point imran was trying to make was Viv was more of a match winner. He is not saying who has better statistics, is more destructive, stylish, mature, better bowler (:)). None of that. Just a better match winner. I tend to agree. Even Gavaskar has pointed that out on many occasions.

Still obviously Tendulkar is one heck of a cricketer. And I think Anil is right, Imran has a bit of a bias against Tendulkar.

On a side note, I dont think Tendulkar is as stylish as some of the others. Infact I can think of two more stylish in India (never saw vishwanath enough), Azharuddin, and Laxman. Other than them Mark Waugh, Gower, Zaheer Abbas etc were much more stylish.
 

Top_Cat

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Bugger stats (and I'm a professional statistician!); I'd pick Viv any day of the week and twice on Sundays if a match was on the line. Too many times for my liking has Sachin failed when he was really needed whereas Viv almost always came to the party.

To me, though, they aren't comparable. Viv was the supreme innovator and Sachin is the supreme technician. Two totally different players. At their peaks, it's difficult to pick between them but in a pinch against quality opposition, I'd pick Viv.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
luckyeddie said:
I curiously clicked on the link, not guessing what it was.
I should have known! What a phenominal innings that must have been. Only ever seen three shots from it - two straight sixes off Botham and Foster. Even in the pre-stump-microphones days, you still heard the crack of bat hitting ball in the Botham one.
That must have been the best innings of all time in all one-day-cricket, let alone ODIs. Still, if Eldine Baptiste hadn't stayed with him for that 26 (and when 150 went on the board, with that six off Botham, it was Holding who came down the wicket to shake him by the hand) it wouldn't have been possible.
That's probably the biggest part one player has ever played in the turning of a match, but still it wasn't enough to be accurately described as "match-winning". Holding and Garner especially still played their part. If England had won, it couldn't be described as match-winning. Viv's figures were 11 overs for 45; two wickets, but they were only Bairstow and Geoff Millar.
 

esgallindeion

U19 12th Man
If Sachin weren't a match winner, India for the most part of the 90s would have been a team like Zimbabwe or even Bangladesh (... Nah).

What SOME people don't realize is that for a person to be a match winner he must not neccessarily score centuries in the finals. I mean, without Sachin's knocks in the league matches of the world cup, India wouldn't have qualified for the Finals in the first places. But some people tend to focus more on the fact that he wasn't able to score runs in the finals. Well... what are the other 10 guys in the team for?

I disagree with anyone who says that Sachin has become worse in the last 3-4 yrs. In my opinion, he has become a more of a thinking batsman. He doesn't just go for shots as he used to because most of the teams' fielding and bowling have really improved and also for many other reasons.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Richard said:
That's probably the biggest part one player has ever played in the turning of a match, but still it wasn't enough to be accurately described as "match-winning".
You have some strange views.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
marc71178 said:
You have some strange views.
So - if Holding, Garner and co. (Richards included) had bowled tripe and England had chased down the 273, would the 183* have been a matchwinning performance then?
No, it wouldn't.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
Erm in that era, a team chasing 230 would do well to win.

You seem extremely adverse to allowing individuals to take any credit.
 

royGilchrist

State 12th Man
buddy, match winning means if it was anyone else apart from Richards playing for WI that day, the way the batsmen played, WI would have barely made 150.

Also, as far as bowling is concerned, first of all if it was not for Richrads a paltry total would have been quite manageable, the bowling did not seem that exceptional that day.

And another way of looking at it, most bowling attacks in the world that day could have defended such a big total.

Match winning does not mean, he could play and win alone against a team of eleven. But it means if that person was replaced by another performer with a performance similar to other team members that day, how would the team have fared. That guys unique impact on the game. Ofcourse if he is a batsman he would require some bowling to win the match.

The way you are arguing, if someone made all 200 runs and took all ten wickets you would still say, but he needed the fielders to field the ball otherwise it would have been all four runs, and the runner to run between the wickets. :rolleyes:
 

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