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Sachin Tendulkar’s 20th anniversary in Test cricket has sparked a renewed debate about where exactly this Little Master sits in the pantheon of cricket greats.
Perhaps the debate will be resolved only long after he has shuffled off this mortal coil.
The debate is no less fascinating for some of the extreme views. In parts of the world — no prizes for guessing which part — it is sacrilege to dispute that he is the greatest.
Someone who obviously does not agree is “Truf Saya” on TheRoar.com.au, who believes Sachin is overrated.
He says the only measure by which Tendulkar outshines other batman is the sheer volume of his runs.
This is how he examines in some detail the great man…
1. AVERAGE: Sangakarra, Kallis and Ponting all have better averages. If we look at average by batting position Jayawardene also outranks Tendulkar. Note that Ponting and Sangakarra also play in the slightly less protected batting position of number 3. Tendulkar has never batted at this position.
2. 1000 RUNS PER CALENDAR YEAR: while Lara, Ponting and Tendulkar all have five years. Both Lara and Ponting have achieved theirs in much less time. Kallis has also achieved his four 1000+ years at a faster rate than Tendulkar.
3. MOST RUNS IN A 10-YEAR PERIOD: Ponting, Kallis, Dravid, Hayden, Jayawardene and Sangakkara have all scored more runs in the last ten years. Ponting has scored more than 2500 runs than Tendulkar over the same period, this despite batting at number 3. Indeed over EVERY single comparable Ten Year period Ponting has scored more runs than Tendulkar.
4. MAN OF THE MATCH: Kallis and Ponting both have more man of the match awards then Tendulkar. Kallis, Ponting, Lara, Hayden and Sangakarra all receive man of the match awards at a greater strike rate than Tendulkar.
So why does Tendulkar have so many runs?
Simply put, it comes down to two things: time and playing in India.
His longevity is a massive credit to him. But another reason is that playing for India and in India is a massive boost for batsmen and there are metrics that can show this clearly.
1. DRAWS: Tendulkar has played an incredible 66 draws! That is almost 41% of the matches he has played have ended in a draw. Remove those matches from his average calculations and his average drops a massive 5 runs to less than 50. That is around a 10% boost from those draws. His average in drawn matches is 65. Interestingly, an analysis of Dravid produces a similar conclusion.
2. MATCHES WHERE TEAMS SCORE GREATER THAN 600 RUNS: over 50% of matches where a team scores over 600 runs in the last ten years have been played in India. Indian pitches produce big scores.
3. GROUND AVERAGES: over the last 20 years, Indian grounds have averaged more than 70 runs per match than those outside of India (minimum 5 matches).
Discussions like the above can generate a lot of heat but not much light.
Among the palaver and the hyperbole, the figures reveal the truth about how good a player is. The truth is, Tendulkar is overrated.
Or rather, some lesser rated batsmen should be given more credit.
There you have it, from one studied point of view. Let’s hear it from the others…
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archie…r u a…comic book character…looks like…except some statistics…u dont know anything about cricket….
Archie you and the OZ Srilankan ‘Truf Saya’ are cartoons.
Bradmans average was 56 in Bodyline. If I wish to twist a character based on statistics as per my measures, I can easily prove Ponting, Kallis, Sangakarra, Jayawardene etc are jokers. Don’t start a war of words here.
Note India is a Cricketing super power only because of one person ‘ SRT’.
What a Bull Sheet…..I think u r jealous…but y???
plz go to some SRT’s community and compare ur statistics u will Got ur fullish Comments……:-/
What a Bull Sheet…..I think u r jealous…but y???
plz go to some SRT’s community and compare ur statistics u will Got ur fullish Comments Answers……:-/
Tendulkar had much Injuries than any other mentioned above & so he was unable to score more runs than these fellows.
Why didnt they consider this fact. (unike dravid played much successive tests)
Lost ur mind u nutty … wht abt the billion people putting pressure on his head … go n get a beer … chill off… and dont draw publicity on the name of Tendulkar …
this is rubbish….whos fault is that if india wickets are batting paradises???tendulkar has been the heart beat for more than aa billion people for the past 20 yrs…he unites all walks of life,brings a smile on the poorest of faces…..i have never seen tendulkar mouth off…boast about his record….he has an ipeccable off field record and behavior,which no one else can match…the author must be so envious of tendulkar that his stomach must have been on fire when he wrote this….please be careful about what you write………there has been no other batsmen who has dominted bowlers in both test and odi as sachin has done…one hast to go back during the 1997 test series when sachin walloped warne all over the field…have u forgotten sharjah98?????,in 2003 vs akthar and caddick???mcgrath??????/kallis,hayden…ponting,have nvere dominated bowlers………ponting was tormented by ishant sharma for 2 whole months…..no bowler has tormented tendulkar…..
You are awesome Gentle Man…… You have a typical Indian Mentality to criticize people and you never encourage, I know are capable of hitting 2000+ scores a year and cross 10000 runs in 4 years playing with your kids…… Stop criticizing and start encouraging…. All the cricket Experts Respect him and are just a reporter who watch cricket in Street or in Tv, You know nothing Barbarian…
Mofo Go to Hell …..
Why are you getting cheap publicity like this. Please stop writing blogs. You are rubbish and are a very negative influence. Your blog is poorly written and has no value. You are very similar to politicians trying to gain cheap publicity using Sachins name.
stats r bullshit/**** in this article….
Tendulkar started playing at 16 n others at 19 or 20+..Are we comparing maturity level here? If average is the criteria then let Ponting play equal number of tests n then we shall see this marginal difference of 0.77 goes away or not..
Also, Sachin avg more than Kallis..:-)
N he is comparing unfit Tendulkar’s 10 years with other fit ppl.. 
N last thing I can’t stop laughing…
Indian pitches r easy for batting n that is the reason why your greatest Ponting find it very difficult to score runs This means if we go by your guidelines, Ponting is worst cricketor cose he can’t score at all in India…
I have no problems with Ponting and he is great but these kind of stats suck big time…
This is greatness of Sachin that you have to scratch ur brain so much to criticize him but in the end, nothing valuable came out… Ppl(Gavaskar, Viv, bradman) had been compared over the years they have played. But as we all know Sachin has been greatest of all time n hence we compare match by match, year by year n try to find a flaw smwhere…
Agarkar fastest fifty wickets don’t make him greatest bowler…
The expectations on Sachin in India is not comparable to anyone that has EVER played cricket. He was facing this enormous pressure since he was 16!
Looking at the last 10 years? Can you be anymore disingenuous? It is well known that he was plagued with back, tennis elbow injuries during this period.
Look at the stats of these players when there were actually great bowlers who were in their prime. Like in the 90s when we had Akram, Waqar, McGrath, Warne, Murali, Donald, Pollack etc. When Ponting hit his prime, all these bowlers were either retired or way past their prime. He faced weaker bowling in the 2000s and Sachin was also past his prime. Gee, I wonder why Ponting had a higher average. Same goes to Kallis and Kumar who never faced the bowling greats that Sachin annihilated during his prime in the 90s.
Let’s also take a note that arguably the greatest bowler ever, Shane Warne, claimed Sachin is #1 in his book. Or the best batsman ever, Bradman, thought Sachin’s batting was similar when he saw him in his prime during 90s. But what do they know? The great blogger “Truf Saya” says Sachin is overrated. I guess that settles it then mate.
Firstly this article is a joke!. International cric these days means including ODIs. Lets use stats thats 13000+17000 lets then look back at no. 2 = whose 7000runs behind. ST has easily the most man of the match in ODIs lets see besides kallis I wonder whats the wickets taken count between him pointing and lara they have nothing on him. Then theres the other fact india’s bowling is not potent while Aus/Safrica and to an extent Windies are a better equiped sides who has faced them on the pitch ST.of course. I love football more then cric and I still come with a few facts why this articles a joke.
hello ,i want to remind one thing for u (who wrote article) .sachin is not rated of his runs records,which all the other will do.HEis special thats all for example eventhough if someone made the runs that sachin made in future he will not be sachintendulkar.keep this in ur mind my dear friend.
sachin is extraordinary.he played the cricket in scuh a style in seeing that every one willl enjoy every ball that he played …
dant play this jokes again……….
This must be the most unprofessional and one-sided opinion of a sportsman ever written. Of course, one must feel for the jealous, ignorant person who wrote this poor blog.
I was born in England but moved to Australia when i was 9. I have seen all these player since i started watching in the early 90’s and I can safely say that Sachin Tendulkar is number one of our generation and arguably the best batsman after Bradman. Lara and Richards however would be just behind and then Ponting.
What this article fails to mention is that Tendulkar started playing in 1989. In ODI’s, he did not score his first hundred until his 79th match, many years after his debut. Sachin started at 16 and he is now 36 and has amassed 30,000 runs.
It his to his great credit, talent, ambition and drive that has enabled him to CONSISTENTLY remain one of the premier batsman in world cricket today.
Ponting started in 1996/7 and has played non-stop. Tendulkar was injury plagued between 2004-2006. It was only in 2007 that he played a full year, smashed more than 1200 ODI runs (in 2007) and was ranked NO. 1 in the ODI rankings. I bet not many people know that??? So he peaked in the mid-late 90’s until arguably 2003.
He then goes and regains NO 1 spot in ODI rankings only two years ago aged 34. He has played much less test matches this decade hence why Ponting, Sanga and Kallis have scored more runs/hundred than Tendulkar.
However – these players have PEAKED this decade, with Ponting being the best batsmen since 2003-2007. Sachin peaked over 10 years ago and he is STILL GOING STRONG.
His average in ODI’s remains over 44 (more than Ponting and Sanga) and his test average has not dipped below 53/54.
In test matches, his HIGHEST SERIES AGGREGATE only came in Jan 2008 against the best team in the world, against Australia in Australia. Sachin has smashed 10 INTERNATIONAL CENTURIES sinec 2008 included seven scores in the 90’s. He has also scored 5 international hundreds against Australia since the start of 2008 including a mammoth 175 recently aged 36.
Sachin also has the most runs and hundreds against Australia in ODI’s and has been the most dominant batsman against the best side in both formats of the game. He single-handedly took apart Australia in 1997/8 in both formats of the game.
Further, Sachin has dominated all bowling attacks and has had to bat against the best bowlers in the world for 20 years. Allan Donald, Pollock, Warne, Viv Richards, Bradman, Boycott, Richard Hadlee are just a few of many respected cricketers who state that Tendulkar is the best player they had seen or played with. Ponting also states this.
No doubt, I believe Ponting to be the best batsman of this decade, but even if he overtakes Tendulkar in tests, he may be claimed as slightly better, maybe, only in the test format.
But as an overall player, in all formats, against all attacks, including spin and playing against the best, Tendulkar surely must be crowned as the greatest batsman of our generation, maybe slightly ahead of Lara.
Instead of trying to diminish a genius and bringn his status into disrepute, one should applaud his longevity, the burden he has had to carry from an over-the-top India and simply the consistency that makes him arguably the best batsman since Bradman.
Just for argument sake, I have prepared the following information. Like the person who wrote this blog, I am being very specific but PLEASE, this is just an analysis to show a neutral view.
Below is statistics of the top players since 01 Jan 2007 to 25 November 2009. Because this article is about Tendulkar, I have started from 2007 as this was when he recovered from injury and started playing consistently.
The following data has been collected from CRICINFO and includes all formats (ODI, TEST & T20) for non-bias and overall overview:
Chanderpaul
Matches: 82
Runs: 4042
Average: 64
Hundreds: 13
Kallis
Matches: 89
Runs: 4540
Average: 51.59
Hundreds: 9
TENDULKAR
Matches: 89
Runs: 4968
Average: 50.18
Hundreds: 13
G Smith
Matches: 91
Runs: 4844
Average: 48
Hundreds: 9
Sangakarra
Matches: 113
Runs: 5132
Average: 43.86
Hundreds: 13
Ponting
Matches: 110
Runs: 5247
Average: 44.84
Hundreds: 13
Jayawardene
Matches: 123
Runs: 5497
Average: 43.62
Hundreds: 14
K Pietersen
Matches: 101
Runs: 4768
Average: 43
Hundreds: 43
——————————————————————-
As you can see, Sachin Tendulkar averages over 50 since 2007. More than any other batsman par from Chanderpaul.
BEFORE crazy idiots bombard me and this blog with comments, allow me to state that – no doubt, if you showed stats from 2003-2007, Ponting and Kallis would be at the top. But this is when they peaked. Tendulkar peaked from 1996-2003 roughly.
So like this guy who wrote the article is doing – I am showing stats based on particular range and elements and wanted to prove to everyone, that since 2007, aged nearly 34, Sachin is still doing pretty well, dont you think?
PLEASE NOTE – all I am doing is proving that Tendulkar clearly has not diminished and is still scoring runs, hundreds and averaging better than most other batsman, even in his 17th-20th years of playing cricket.
This writer, is also stating that Tendulkar is outshined in other parts of the decade.
Allow me to compare stats from
01 Jan 1996 – 25 Nov 2009
Tendulkar
Matches: 458
Runs: 24410
Average: 50.12
Hundreds: 50.12
Ponting
Matches: 473
Runs: 23749
Average: 48.07
Hundreds: 66
Why are Tendulkar’s stats better than Ponting’s? Simple. Tendulkar peaked during the late 1990’s whereas Ponting had just started.
Not a fair comparison? Fair enough, I will now show stats during Ponting’s “reign”, from
01 Jan 2003 – 25 Nov 2009:
Ponting
Matches: 270
Runs: 14438
Average: 50.65
Hundreds: 42
Tendulkar
Matches: 193
Runs: 9750
Average: 46.65
Hundreds: 24
Yes, I know. Ponting outshines completely during this period. There is nothing wrong with that. Ponting has dominated this period, no question about that. Tendulkar also, hardly played for 2 years between 2004-2007. He played 77 less matches than Ponting during this period and has been injury-plagued.
Not Ponting’s problem, we know. Ponting is best batsman of this period – no one denies this.
BUT – ONCE AGAIN – all I am illustrating and proving is that even towards the end of Sachin’s long career, he is still very prolific at the age of 36.
One could argue that other batsman could never have lasted as long as Sachin has, and yet still maintain an excellent record. Consistently scoring, hundreds, and averages over 44 and 54 in ODI’s and Test’s respectively.
Furthermore, does anyone realize the fact the Ponting only averages 20 in India? Does Sachin have a similar records anywhere in the world?
So…who is the better batsman overall of our generation. I think the answer is clear.
there is an error on number of hundreds for Pietersen. This should be14.
Also, in the last article, from 1996-2009, Tendulkar hundreds is showing an average. This should be 76 Hundreds.
Archie,et al
Please go through the comments on the original blog ITSELF.
There are plenty there which show how not only stats can be easily manipulated, but how utterly myopic the authors blog is.
As an eg:
Alright ,since you asked for it, here’s an eg:
Maradona (appearances/goals): club -588/307 ;int : 91/34,
Platini (appearances/goals) : club - 580/312 ;int : 72/41
Clearly Maradona is “overrated” as compared to Platini.
Now , of course, I don’t care to hear about nonsense like skills, talent, “magic”, what the rest of the team was like ,how he fits into the team, glues the team and all other such rubbish. Or for that matter extraneous nonsense like player views etc
I have proved conclusively with “cold,hard stats” that Maradona was indeed overrated.
Similarly, I think nonsense like skills, type of pitches, rest of team, bowling faced, ability against all types of bowling, ability to vary the pace of innings, match saving innings, etc etc is again all rubbish. After you have cold,hard stats don’t you?
Many thanks to all the contributors. The piece on SAchin was posted to provoke debate.
Wow. Never realised it would reach such esoteric levels.
Thank you all for amazing research. I am now going back to sleep for a while
You are way off base with your points. I am not sachin fan. I do not think he is great. Not because of his runs in flat pitches because that he never won anything big for india when mattered. Dravid is the greatest batsman simply because when you need to save test , he was there and draw the game.
So making scores in draw is not well made point.
key point is how many people score in losing causes. That is the one differentiate people.
For me Sachin is not great because he did not save many test like dravid did or win any test on his own.
Stats will not always give correct impression. Tendulkar has slowed because of injuries. Even if we see the averages at one stage he went to 57.xx average. As soon as his injuries started he average has came down.
Pointing on other hand scored a lot of centuries during a period of time. if we see pointing he went to 58 (avg) and again he is slowing down now now(55+).
Overall ponting is less consistent than Sachin.
You, whatever your name is, you are youself overrated, i don’t think you are rated but if you were to be rated i would not rate you because you don’t have any good ratings. Why don’t you stop writing non-sense about Sachin Tendulkar and retire immediately.
Arpit…. you need a broader view of the world. Get your head out of wherever it is and see a world beyond your narrow-minded one
As per ur analysis, sachin’s average is high cause he plays a lot at home on flat pitches..
Sachin’s record away from Home -
1989-2009 90 7165 248* 54.28 24 29 2/7 44.75 0 61 0
He still averages 54.28…
And Ponting averages 50 away from home.
And talking of flat pitches, India’s Highest score in Test was in Australia, till a couple of weeks ago.
And i dont consider Sachin to be the greatest.
The most ridiculous comparison was the fact that most matches Sachin played were Draws.
By the way, pontinh has played 55% of his test matches @ Home.
Sachin has played 45%.
Its a fact that Australians play more matches at home.
The article shows some shoddy research and really poor analysis of the game. Firstly, The MoM awards stats is incorrect.
Secondly, to compare a player like Sangakkara to Tendulkar is ridiculous.
The most important fact the author fails to mention is the era in which Tendulkar got over half his runs. Until 2001 ST was averaging 58 after playing over 70-80 test matches against Aus, Pak, WI and SA when they had their best bowlers. The best bowlers of this era
Akram, Ambrose, Warne, McGrath and Donald rate Tendulkar as the best they have bowled to because he scored against a variety of attacks in variety of conditions.
If you want to look at sheer averages then Mohammed Younus will be in your best three list. I am sorry this is poor analysis of cricket.
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November 25, 2009 at 11:07 amNice article with crucial data