Actually, I have no problem including Zimbabwe in the period where they were good enough (98-99). Migara brought this up and we included this. However, it actually
hinders his figures. Personally, I just removed them for ease; if I wanted to help my argument I could have just used them.
The problem with including the minnows in this instance is that where Tendulkar has played several matches against them; Ponting has usually had 1 inning. It's just easier removing them since the opposition is just so clearly inferior anyway. As I said, Tendulkar is superior but only slight (a bit more than 1 run avg and 5 balls SR). So the statement about Ponting being noticeably worse is exaggerated by quite a bit. Personally, I'd be more concerned with the fact that Tendulkar's away record isn't
that good.