Tendulkar V Lara, Ponting, Richards or whoever

Is there anyone with a shred of nous who doesn't think that Tendulkar is the best postwar batsman?

(That would be the second world war for any anally retentive pedants)

Basil wrote:.............

(That would be the second world war for any anally retentive pedants)

In the case of WWI and WWII references, that would be me.

I don't think he is better than Sobers.

Consistently Tendulkar has been the best post war batsman. But there were periods when Richards (1976 to 1980) and Lara (1993 to 1996) were better. But Sachin has been consistently so good for almost his entire career. Ponting was brilliant from 2002 to 2007 but I don't think he's ever really been rated up there with SRT, Lara, and Richards apart from by fans in Australia.

And yeah, Sobers was up there. Probably on a par with SRT. But throw in SRT's ODI record......

His "greatness" comes from a combination of Test and JAMODIs I think.

I think there are greater batsmen in each form (Sobers at least in Tests, Viv at least in ODIs).

Lara > Tendulkar

Dello wrote:Lara > Tendulkar

For a brief period of about three years, yes. Lara was up there with Bradman between 1993 and 1996, let alone SRT.

The thing with Sobers is that he had his bowling as a distraction. He also batted at number six for (I'm guessing) half of his career.

Lara was hot spicy balls to Tendulkar's mild onion bhajis.

Sure, onion bhajis might look great on paper. And everyone loves onion bhajis.

But give me spicy balls all day long. I'll gobble them up.

I'm secure in my sexuality.

So you want to eat Brian Lara's balls........

'Put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em'

Chocolate salty balls?

With a side of garlic mayonnaise.

Glenn Mcgrath came the closest to having Lara's balls for breakfast.

Sarwan, surely. According to McGrath.

And Glenn was nice enough to offer to rip the resulting contents out of Sarwan's throat.

What a bloke.

Just for the blokes doing all the testicle talk (testalkle?).. (The perils of having a wife who watches Cougar Town...)

I thought the peril of a wife who watches Cougar Town is if you are watching it with her and ask her "Isn't Courtney Cox the same age as you?"

I still laugh that Fromage put TenduCkar in the glossary.

LOL - no-one apart from me uses it.

No need to act like a big C about it......

I don't care if I am acting like a qunt.

On the glossary suggestions page, there were two or three forummers who were acting like bigger qunts trying to get fromage to take it down. It is a joke.

Some people get so precious of this so called deity.

Aren't all deities so-called?

bradman >> srt >> the rest

Tendulkar has spanned eras probably more than any other batsman barring Bradman, but has had to do it with a variety and frequency that Bradman didn't have to. His longevity is the thing that has made him great, allied with a technical proficiency that is quite frankly masterful - sustained excellence against all-comers. The downfall of Tendulkar, in Tests, is that it's almost wishywashy how his runs have been scored - not many innings that buck the trend of the match situation. Note that I'm not saying 'he didn't play many match-winning innings' as plenty of times his team's sh!t bowling attack (on anything other than dustbowls) have let him down. But there's been a 'samey' air to his innings, rarely a universally renowned 'great' one. So, in conclusion, for an entire career Tendulkar is arguably 2nd only to Bradman, post-war, but many others have hit heights that he probably hasn't.

Here, I've waffled on, when Dello's 'spicy jerk balls versus onion bhajjis' analogy would probably have sufficed.

I just find it odd that this thread would come up after an innings where he had four lives. There have been countless greater innings than today's but no-one starts posts claiming he is the greatest then.