he's a hard one to rate for a few reasons, his batting stats as a pure batsman coincide specifically with his peak so the beginning part of his career isn't on it which is often a lower point in a batsman's career, in saying that the beginning part of his career coincided with his keeping and the keeping generally has a negative affect on ones batting so it could potentially also negatively affect ones ultimate outcome as he had to focus on keeping as well as batting during the early stages which took time away from his batting during vital developmental years.
in saying all that the fact he can still average near 60 even when you include his 48 matches he kept wicket is spectacular and the fact that he averages over 70 as a pure batsman from 76 matches in awesome. in 7 of the 11 countries he's played he averages 60+, in 8 of them it's 50+, in 10 it's 40+.only one does he average less than 40 as a pure bat and that's in RSA where he averages 37.2. as a pure bat he averages over 75 in 5 countries.
he's equal 2nd with lara for most number of double tons, he has the equal record for consecutive 50+ scores in test innings, he's achieved the triple ton, he's one of only 7 players to score a double ton and a ton in the same match and out of those blokes he's one of 2 to score a triple ton and ton in the same match, and he's got a hundred in both innings of a test match twice.
his downfall is that it's hard to take his pure batting stats for a couple of reasons, the first i mentioned above where it coincides with his peak years, he doesn't have the earlier part of his career and 2nd is that although he's done well everywhere as a pure batsman he's barely played anywhere but SL. he's played 39 matches in SL as a pure bat, UAE is the next highest amount at 6 matches.
he's an awesome batsman, my favourite batsman of current times. at least on the kallis, dravid level if not higher with ponting, lara and tendulkar.
