Agreed. But sample sizes are always going to be small when you use any such filtration system. Several people often use "performances against Australia in mid-late 90s" or "performances against the Windies in 80s" to rate players. Sample sizes even in those cases were extremely small. Nevertheless, 50 innings for Tendulkar (and 80 innings for Lara) is a decent sized sample, considering the filtration. Even if Tendulkar had scored 300* in his next innings or his next series against any of these bowlers (McGrath/Donald/Akram) , he would still not average as high as Lara did against them. On a side note though, it seems interesting that Tendulkar does not have a single not-out in any of his 50 innings against these bowlers.
Great batsmen make avail of whatever few opportunities that they get. How many Test series against genuinely great pace attacks did Vivian Richards play in his career? As far as I have seen, very few. Couple of series in Aus in the 70s and a few series against Pak in the 80s. Not very many. Certainly less than 50 innings over-all. This doesn't mean that the other attacks he faced in his career were dud. They were good attacks too. But these attacks were better than good. He failed more often against them than he succeeded. And yet, he made use of a couple of these series with God-like performance against Pak in 80-81 or even 88-89 where he totally stood out even amongst his illustrous peers. Same thing with AB's away-performance against the Windies in the early 80s. Lara did the same in the 98-99 and 02-03 series against McGrath.
The "God-like" series that Lara had against McGrath is actually the main point here. That wasn't the only one. Lara was absolutely phenomenal even in the 2002-03 series against Aus. It is the complete absence of such a stand-out, stellar series (for Tendulkar) against this cream-level of fast bowlers of his era that puts Lara higher in my opinion. Having at least one such stand-out, stellar series against such attacks where even good batsmen struggle carries tremendous weight (in my eyes). Again this is just my opinion or my taste if you will. Not trying to convince anyone else here, that is impossible.
This doesn't mean other factors like longevity or consistency against less-than-great pace attacks etc, need to be thrown out of the window. It isn't binary here. Other factors matter too. It really depends on who gives how much weightage to what. Especially at this level of batsmanship. It isn't as if Lara was successful for only 3 years or that he fared far worse than Tendulkar against other attacks (when these bowlers were absent). There is no absolute right/wrong about it. It is subjective. To me, having such a stand-out series against a great attack is vital.
I am not using
these stats as a basis to judge Lara as better/greater than Tendulkar. Not at all. I don't have to. I am totally relying on what I remember seeing. Although I did not follow Tendulkar or Lara's career in great detail (not a big fan of batsmen, am a huge fan of watching quality fast bowling irrespective of the team), but I have seen plenty and plenty of batting against quality fast bowling (including both these guys).
I found both of them to be more vulnerable against quality pace. Between the two, I generally observed Lara to be relatively more dominant and more consistent (runs-wise) against these great fast bowling attacks - or rather what I define as great fast bowling attacks - that they both came up against. His peaks, against these attacks, were IMO far more towering than Tendulkar's. And ultimately that is what matters to me.
If anything, it is the other way around with the stats. I am just using
these stats to confirm for myself that my observation that Lara did indeed perform better than Tendulkar (at least what I consider as "better") against McGrath/Donald/Akram led attacks (or those attacks that I saw to be genuinely challenging attacks that they both faced) isn't untrue.
Yes, to be fair, Wasim has to be removed from the list since Tendulkar was 16 years old in his first series (against Wasim) and Lara also had his debut Test where he made 44 and 5 against Wasim. But removing Wasim really does not change things much. If anything, it further accentuates the gap between the two as Lara was clearly better (again, better in my opinion) than Tendulkar against both McGrath and Donald. Adding Wasim actually brings them a bit closer.
