Kareem Abdul Jabar scored the most points. Wilt 'the stilt' Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game. What more could they have done? Yet Jordan is considered the greatest player ever, simply because he did more. Richards scored at 1.5 times the S/R of his peers. Tendulkar peer S/R would be 75. He scores at 1.2 times the S/R of his peers. It should at least be above 1.35.
I have been a passive reader of this forum for ages, but that statement wanted me to sign up and highlight how absurd it was to say that. Not to mention the patronizing tone involved in debating the point in hand.
Who determined 1.35?
In cricket you can only score 6 runs per ball. If somehow everybody in world cricket learns to score at 6 runs per ball, does that mean no body can be considered a match to Sir Vivian Richards? It gets harder and harder to get above 90 strike rate with out losing out on consistency. That factor has been the same since cricket started. It has not suddenly changed.
Scoring at a strike rate of 90 with consistency is the bench mark set by Sir Vivian. Sachin Tendulkar has matched that in terms of aggression and bettered him in terms of consistency. Sachin's peers did better at getting closer to Sir Vivian's benchmark than Sir Vivian's peers.....but pray tell me how does that take anything away from Sachin, who has pretty much matched it one respect, and exceeded in another? You can't revere someone for others being ****e...
The sheer weight of runs scored invariably tends to take away a bit from peak career strike rate and average. Yet he has still got a strike rate and average comparable to that of any one else in this form of cricket. And further, If you only take his peak period alone, he has done better than every body out there in terms of every meaning full statistic in cricket, matched played, runs scored, average, strike rate.......yet you think it is absurd to state his case?
People are so very eager to dismiss the number of runs he has scored because he played for 21 long years and is still going strong.......but at the same time take away the fact that playing for such a long time has had a sizable dent on his career average and strike rate.
There is nothing wrong in thinking Sir Vivian is better or that Sachin is better.....but you have no bleeding right to state that others can't have a different point of view.
edit:
actually why did i bother with this?
Oh wait, hold the press, Tendulkar is not the best ODI batsman, Pratters has said so....