Rank the 10,000 club

[TestMatch]

Lots of people putting Sanga over Ponting. Wasn't Ponting's dominance longer than Sanga's? Or is Ponting's Subcon-conditions record the deciding factor?

It’s the middle 5 years of Lara’s career - exactly 5 years from 1996 Aus series till 2001 Aus series

The boose, parties and banging model years. He couldn't juggle cricket and the sudden cash and fame. He also had tyrigium, a growth on the eyes, which he corrected with surgery in 2000 I think.

 

[Arachnodouche]

Love watching old Sunil Gavaskar innings, such compact distribution of weight in his shot-making. He's the best batsman of the lot for mine. Tendulkar (an even better approximation of Gavaskar's technique but didn't have to face the sheer numbers of quality pacemen that Sunny did) and Lara follow just after because the two appeared fully-formed on the international stage, as in they didn't have to take time to grow in stature and iron out weaknesses like Ponting or Waugh for instance.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Lots of people putting Sanga over Ponting. Wasn't Ponting's dominance longer than Sanga's? Or is Ponting's Subcon-conditions record the deciding factor?



The boose, parties and banging model years. He couldn't juggle cricket and the sudden cash and fame. He also had tyrigium, a growth on the eyes, which he corrected with surgery in 2000 I think.

Sanga never had any real extended bad patches as a batsman after he became a specialist batsman. Basically a full decade long peak.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Love watching old Sunil Gavaskar innings, such compact distribution of weight in his shot-making. He's the best batsman of the lot for mine. Tendulkar (an even better approximation of Gavaskar's technique but didn't have to face the sheer numbers of quality pacemen that Sunny did) and Lara follow just after because the two appeared fully-formed on the international stage, as in they didn't have to take time to grow in stature and iron out weaknesses like Ponting or Waugh for instance.

You're right on Waugh but Ponting was an uber talented teenager who was bashing quality attacks for fun in domestic cricket. He just didnt get the chance to show it on the international stage like Tendulkar(especially) and Lara did.

 

[pardus]

Citing Lara's inconsistency is not equivalently stupid ffs. He averaged less than 40 for a period of 5 years when he should have been in his prime.

It is stupid given that the frequency of Lara scoring 50+ in an innings is not much far from Tendulkar's (who is considered as the benchmark of consistency). To me that's an excellent measure of consistency (how frequently a batsman scores 50 or more runs). Lara was abysmal for an extended period of time, but he was outrageously good - and consistent - for much longer. In the end, it evened out and he ended up being as consistent as most other ATGs. For most batsmen (like Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid), their lull period understandably comes at the end. For some (like Steve Waugh & even Sobers), it is at the beginning. For Lara it came in the middle, a little bit odd, but again in the end it evens out. That's why you have to look at their whole careers.

 

[trundler]

It is stupid given that the frequency of Lara scoring 50+ in an innings is not much far from Tendulkar's (who is considered as the benchmark of consistency). To me that's an excellent measure of consistency (how frequently a batsman scores 50 or more runs). Lara was abysmal for an extended period of time, but he was outrageously good - and consistent - for much longer. In the end, it evened out and he ended up being as consistent as most other ATGs. For most batsmen (like Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid), their lull period understandably comes at the end. For some (like Steve Waugh & even Sobers), it is at the beginning. For Lara it came in the middle, a little bit odd, but again in the end it evens out. That's why you have to look at their whole careers.

Nah, Lara's peaks and troughs were more extreme which is the definition of inconsistency.

 

[andruid]

1. Chanderpaul = spare god
2. Others

 

[pardus]

The boose, parties and banging model years. He couldn't juggle cricket and the sudden cash and fame. He also had tyrigium, a growth on the eyes, which he corrected with surgery in 2000 I think.

Booze, women, fighting with WICB & his captain Richie Richardson much more than the eye thing. Mentally his attitude changed after his 375 series. Sober's record was broken after a long, long time (35 years). Huge hype and fame after he broke Sober's longstanding record got into his head. He didn't feel the need to work out as much, wasn't as match fit, and developed a persistent hamstring injury that affected his footwork and his foot-speed (which he finally addressed in 2002).

 

[pardus]

Nah, Lara's peaks and troughs were more extreme which is the definition of inconsistency.

Any objective stat to prove your point? To me, frequency of scoring 50+ runs in an innings is a good indicator of consistency. Do you have any such parameter?

 

[trundler]

I mean if you scroll up you can see he had periods of being really good and a period of being really good in-between them. The fact that those 2 average out to great is a tad misleading because he was either really good or he sucked. Tendulkar didn't deviate much from his mean. 10+4 and 8+6 average out to 7. I don't really have a horse in this race tho so CBF digging stats. Anyway that's my reasoning.

 

[cricketsavant]

The following 13 batsman have over 10,000 Test runs. Rank as many or as few as you like. Due to sudden time restraints I've stuck at four until later. There's a hairs breadth between a few of them. The only ones who I don't think I would ever change within this group are the top two.

Sachin Tendulkar
Ricky Ponting
Jacques Kallis
Rahul Dravid
Alastair Cook
Kumar Sangakkara
Brian Lara
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Mahela Jayawardene
Allan Border
Steve Waugh
Sunil Gavaskar
Younis Khan

1. Tendulkar
2. Lara
3. Gavaskar
4. Ponting

See you only bothered rating 4 of them, any reason for that boyo?

My rankings

1. Sachin Tendulkar
2. Ricky Ponting
3. Brian Lara
4. Sunil Gavaskar
5. Rahul Dravid
6. Younis Khan
7. Kumar Sangakkara
8. Jacques Kallis (made these runs while taking wickets)
9. Steve Waugh
10. Allan Border
11. Alastair Cook
12. Mahela Jayawardene
13. Shivnarine Chanderpaul

 

[honestbharani]

I mean if you scroll up you can see he had periods of being really good and a period of being really good in-between them. The fact that those 2 average out to great is a tad misleading because he was either really good or he sucked. Tendulkar didn't deviate much from his mean. 10+4 and 8+6 average out to 7. I don't really have a horse in this race tho so CBF digging stats. Anyway that's my reasoning.

But that is not what happened though. And Tendulkar had troughs almost as bad around his tennis elbow period. Its sad to see this debate degenerate to cliqued fallacies once again but there is a very real and proper argument to be had on who was better between the two without resorting to "Sachin has nothing but longevity" and "Lara was so inconsistent"...

To me Lara by a small but clear margin as I have always maintained here. Said that in 2004, Said that in 2007, Said that in 2013, and Saying it now.

 

[trundler]

But that is not what happened though. And Tendulkar had troughs almost as bad around his tennis elbow period. Its sad to see this debate degenerate to cliqued fallacies once again but there is a very real and proper argument to be had on who was better between the two without resorting to "Sachin has nothing but longevity" and "Lara was so inconsistent"...

To me Lara by a small but clear margin as I have always maintained here. Said that in 2004, Said that in 2007, Said that in 2013, and Saying it now.

Is there? Rather have Warne v Murali again tbh

 

[anil1405]

1. Brian Lara
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Ricky Ponting
6. Jacques Kallis
7. Allan Border
8. Kumar Sangakkara
9. Steve Waugh
10. Younis Khan
11. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
12. Alastair Cook
13. Mahela Jayawardene

This would sound crazy for 95%+ people here but the fact that Dravid did his job so well made things easy for Sachin imo.

 

[_00_deathscar]

Yeah, it's difficult to rank those who become better with age - Sanga, Younis, Kallis (to a lesser extent)

It's partly a circumstance of their age/when they played but the fact that all three feasted on the best time for batting in history (and also when bowling stocks were at a general all time low) doesn't really help the case for any of them. Sanga and Kallis stand a bit ahead of Younis, I suppose - but I think it's also why Kohli and Smith (even ignoring Smith's ridiculous stats - let's say he was averaging close to where Kohli is), will go down as better players/choices in an ATG XI in the future.

 

[Arachnodouche]

This would sound crazy for 95%+ people here but the fact that Dravid did his job so well made things easy for Sachin imo.

That deserves some digging around for sure. Tendulkar had played roughly 40 Tests and collected some 10 hundreds before Dravid appeared in 1996.

 

[srbhkshk]

1. Brian Lara
2. Sunil Gavaskar
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Ricky Ponting
6. Jacques Kallis
7. Allan Border
8. Kumar Sangakkara
9. Steve Waugh
10. Younis Khan
11. Shivnarine Chanderpaul
12. Alastair Cook
13. Mahela Jayawardene

This would sound crazy for 95%+ people here but the fact that Dravid did his job so well made things easy for Sachin imo.

Sachin averaged 52.58 between 1989-1996 with 9 centuries and 13 half centuries before Dravid made his debut.

 

[pardus]

I mean if you scroll up you can see he had periods of being really good and a period of being really good in-between them. The fact that those 2 average out to great is a tad misleading because he was either really good or he sucked. Tendulkar didn't deviate much from his mean. 10+4 and 8+6 average out to 7. I don't really have a horse in this race tho so CBF digging stats. Anyway that's my reasoning.

From mid-Nov 2002 till mid-Nov 2007 (a period of full 5 years), Tendulkar averages in mid-40s only because of his performances against Bangladesh. Remove his matches against Bangladesh - which was an absolute minnow at the time - Tendulkar averages in mid-30s during this 5 year period, exactly like Lara did from 1996-2001. I think this was probably the time that Bharani was referring to (tennis elbow injury time). In these 5 years, Tendulkar scored only 3 hundreds in 33 matches (again ignoring his 3 hundreds in 4 matches against Bangladesh). Indian team never felt the pinch because Sehwag, Dravid & Laxman etc. were at their absolute peak.

 

[trundler]

Yeah I'm happy to concede I was wrong because I don't have any horse in this race (other than Tendulkar only has longevity is a meme opinion that needs to die). I was merely commenting on how you could still be inconsistent even if you end up with similar figures to a more consistent player. Besides, Tendulkar already had a Lara-length career before tennis elbow anyway. The fact that he had a 2nd peak after that is astonishing.

 

[sledger]

I'd probably have Kallis behind Cook, because he just wasn't very good to watch. Same for Dravid tbh.