Better than Bradman?

[Johnners]

For me it's never been about the number of Tests, rather the time in which they cover. Bradman (and Tendulkar for that matter) maintained their brilliant records over many years (both in three seperate decades iirc), a Hussey for example only did it for a few years even though a fair amount of Tests were played in that time. It's not about longevity rather seperating the purple patches from the real class.

This

Pretty amazing that if Sachin plays until 2011, he will have played in 4 different decades

 

[Somerset]

^ but again if a new batsmen comes and averages 100 in the 20 tests he plays and then retires, would he be considered greater then Bradman? Hussey almost did that lol, but he didn't retire

Not necessarily IMO, I think the amount of tests against minnow opposition (ie. Bangladesh and second string West Indian sides) need to be taken into consideration. I also don't think 20 tests in the modern day would be long enough to confidently claim a player to be better than Bradman - with the amount of cricket being played that could take place over a 2-3 year period (or a 10 year period for New Zealanders ) and thats certainly not long enough a timeframe to judge a player against the best batsman of all time.

 

[Son Of Coco]

I tend to notice spelling mistakes straight away as well (as I did in this case) but because English isn't always the first language of the poster I ignore them just in case, because their English is infinitely superior to my Ancient Urdu.

Spot the equally unusual deliberate mistake in this post.

I'm pretty sure that English isn't this poster's first language, he probably picked it up on here from a native speaker though.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Spreading like butter.

Don't think I can get butter that wrong

 

[Richard]

I tend to notice spelling mistakes straight away as well (as I did in this case) but because English isn't always the first language of the poster I ignore them just in case, because their English is infinitely superior to my Ancient Urdu.

Likewise, though in this case the poster has a good grasp of English - I know that from experience - so it's a little more unexpected. I pretty much always ignore spelling mistakes etc. from posters whose English is obviously relatively rudimentary but superior to my... well, anything-but-English, really.

 

[Black_Warrior]

^ but again if a new batsmen comes and averages 100 in the 20 tests he plays and then retires, would he be considered greater then Bradman? Hussey almost did that lol, but he didn't retire

No..precisely because you are called great not for performing brilliantly for 20 tests but for doing it consistently over a considerable period of time. This is what differentiates Lara, Tendulkar and Ponting from Inzamam, Dravid, Yousuf, De Silva. At this level, they all have performed brilliantly, but the point is who has done it for a longer period. Hussey is a great example because he was unable to do that for too long.