Arthur Crabtree wrote:Don't think anyone other than an Indian understands SRT.
To me, he was one of a generation of great batters, but by no means unarguably superior to the others. But VK seems a different kind of player, with more elan and less orthodoxy. But he's got to get the volume of runs on the board to be comparable to the best players of the generation before him. He could do with some more match winning overseas hundreds too (like here at TB).
It might be easier to accept him as an ATG though, compared with his heavy scoring contemporary Steve Smith, because he is considerably easier on the eye.
SRT was in a weaker line up for India in the first half of his career, than VK is now, I think.
Sachin's longevity and his terrific average even after having played 200 tests is what sets him apart. It looked like some specialist batsmen would get past him, but they faltered for some or other reasons. He has gone through numerous injuries, recurring back pain in late 1990's and the severe tennis elbow in 2005. There were numerous other injuries too like the groin injury, hamstrings, thighs, knee , toe, hand etc apart from those two major injuries which threatened his cricketing career. Yet he managed to perform. imo if someone manages to bat as much as he did right from age 6 to age 40 and set mind boggling records, it is a great achievement in itself. It does not only shows the quality as a batsman, but it also shows how he well his body handled workload, how well he handled the stress and the fame in a cricket crazy country. Not to mention he also has played 463 ODI and maintained impeccable average and SR ratio even for those days. Then he has 200 wickets against his name which suggests how much extra workload he has taken. The only other cricketer of his era to have put so much effort imo is Jacques Kallis. Lesser matches but that is made up by being a pace bowler across all formats. Those two were the workhorses.
There was always a comparison between him and Lara in global media and then Sachin and Vinod Kambli amongst Indian fans. Apart from these frequent comparison, Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting were also compared.
Kallis struggled to adapt his batting to ODI and T20 format, so did Rahul. Whereas Ponting and Clarke could adapt across different formats in the very next match. Technically all of those were equally good with only the odd flaw once could point in the way they handled the bowling. But then when it mattered to operate like a run machine for years and years, nobody comes close to him. That is what sets him apart imo.
Virat too, like Cook and Clarke did at one point, looks set to surpass his test achievements. Having said that, it is still a long way to go. He still has to overcome the injuries which are inevitable to happen in long career and it is that phase which is crucial. The second half when a batsman will go through few injuries have had a lot of impact and it will be interesting to see if Virat manages to make his way through those phases and still operate as successfully as the way he does. It's a long way imo and only time will tell. It's a case of 90 runs in ten powerplay overs will not necessarily lead to 450 runs in ODI. When other factors start to influence, there are brakes. Cricketers career is no different. Once the age catches up and the players know more about weaknesses, the new injuries coming up and recurring ones start getting severe it becomes a totally different ball game. To me handling that aspect well has set Sachin totally apart in terms of numbers, which imo is very important.
Test FL's - 8 , ODI and Tests Combo FL's - 1, ODI World Cup - 1, ODI FL's - 7, ODI and T20i combo FL's - 1 ,
T20 Franchisee FL's - 7, T20i Cup FL's- 1, T20 FL's- 5 , 50 Overs Domestic FL's - 1, 40 Overs Domestic FL's- 1
