Chris Waters: Lara rather than Tendulkar is closest to modern-day Bradman

Where does he feature in the pantheon of greats?

For many, Tendulkar is the greatest batsman to have walked the planet.

Greater even than Sir Donald Bradman.

In the wake of the historic hundred against Bangladesh in Dhaka, this opinion was articulated by no less a judge than Nasser Hussain.

The former England captain said: “Sir Donald Bradman was great, but for me the greatest batsman to have ever played the game is Sachin Tendulkar.”

Angus Fraser, Hussain’s former England team-mate, also weighed into an emotive argument.

He stated that “completing 100 hundreds has to be a greater feat than that of the late, great Sir Donald Bradman, whose Test batting average was an incredible 99.94.”

Former Australia batsman Greg Chappell – himself one of the best batsmen of modern times and a former coach of Tendulkar’s – observed that “it is Tendulkar’s longevity and consistency against all opposition and in most conditions that sets him apart from the rest.”

With no disrespect to those estimable judges, I beg to differ.

For despite admiring Tendulkar on several levels, both as cricketer and man, I do not believe he is a better batsman than Sir Donald Bradman.

Nor do I consider his feat of completing 100 international centuries to be greater than Bradman’s average of 99.94.

Neither do I feel that Tendulkar’s “longevity and consistency against all opposition and in most conditions” sets him apart from the rest.

Consider the evidence.

As to the first point, whether Tendulkar is better than Bradman, the first thing to say is that this is the proverbial blind alley of sports punditry.

For there is no way of telling, with cast-iron certainty, whether one great player is greater than another – unless they operate in the same era under roughly the same conditions.

All that can be relied on when evaluating such matters is dry statistics and anecdotal evidence.

In both cases, the argument for Bradman is incontrovertible.

Statistically, the comparison is stark.

In his 52 Tests between 1928 and 1948, Bradman scored 6,996 runs at 99.94 with 29 hundreds.

In his 188 Tests between 1989 and the present day, Tendulkar has scored 15,470 runs at 55.44 with 51 centuries.

Although the contrast is, by definition, unsatisfactory, it is interesting to observe that, over the same career span as ‘The Little Master’, and maintaining the same ratio, Bradman would have scored 25,291 Test runs with 105 hundreds.

To put Bradman’s figures into context, only three players in the game’s history have averaged 60-plus in Tests: Graham Pollock (60.97), George Headley (60.83) and Yorkshire’s Herbert Sutcliffe (60.73).

In other words, Bradman was more than 33 per cent better – statistically at any rate – than anyone else who has played the game, while practically everyone who played with or against Bradman was of the opinion that he was, quite simply, the crème de la crème.

Although completing 100 international centuries is, as Fraser suggested, an incredible feat, it is not, in my view, better than averaging 99.94 every time you bat.

That statistic of Bradman’s is not simply great – it is arguably the greatest in the game’s history.

Tendulkar’s three-figure record, comprising 51 Test centuries and 49 one-day international hundreds, may never be beaten.

But without wishing to detract from it, one must remember that Tendulkar has played 188 Tests (20 more than anyone else) and a staggering 463 one-day internationals (almost 100 more than anyone else apart from Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya).

Chappell’s contention that Tendulkar stands apart from the rest – and I presume he is referring to the modern period – is also debatable.

South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, for example, who has played over a similar time frame, has a higher average in Test cricket than Tendulkar (56.78 from 152 Tests) – as, for that matter, does Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara (55.97 from 102 Tests).

Kallis also possesses a superior ODI average – 45.26 against Tendulkar’s 44.83, while, if you go back through history, several other luminaries averaged more in Test cricket – Eddie Paynter, Ken Barrington, Everton Weekes, Wally Hammond, Garry Sobers, Jack Hobbs, Clyde Walcott and Len Hutton, even if they did not play anywhere near Tendulkar’s 188 matches because of the relative paucity of international competition.

Where Tendulkar does stand out, is that he has consistently performed despite shouldering the hopes and expectations of a cricket-mad nation.

That is another unquantifiable factor, suffice to say that while many feel that Bradman helped define the Australian nation during the Great Depression and after the Second World War, so Tendulkar has helped define his own country.

Bradman, of course, famously stated that he considered Tendulkar the player of the modern era who was closest to his own style and technique.

This led, at an early stage of Tendulkar’s development, to comparisons which have inevitably mushroomed.

However, I would argue that Brian Lara, the man I personally feel to be the greatest batsman of modern times, to have been much nearer to Bradman in terms of the insatiable appetite for runs for which he was famed.

Indeed, it was the West Indian who twice broke the world Test record with scores of 375 against England at Antigua in 1994 and 400 not out against the same opponents on the same ground 10 years later, while Lara is also the proud holder of the highest individual innings in first-class cricket – 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994.

And whereas Lara, who made 11,953 Test runs at 52.88, hit nine scores over 200 in Tests, Tendulkar has managed only six, with a highest of 248 not out.

Personally, I always preferred to watch Lara bat ahead of Tendulkar, just as I also prefer to watch Ricky Ponting bat ahead of the Indian.

The Australian has made 13,200 runs in 162 Tests at 53.44 – an average two runs inferior to that of Tendulkar, yet I believe that he is in the same high bracket.

It is all a matter of opinion, of course, and the subject of endless bar room discussion.

All that can be said is that Tendulkar is definitely one of the greatest batsmen to have graced the game and that his century of centuries is a towering achievement.