Viv Richards vs Brian Lara

[subshakerz]

Think Tendulkar was better than Lara against all types of pace. Not by miles, but clearly better. Lara better than Tendulkar against spin.

Agreed.

 

[BazBall21]

My top 15 WI test bats of all time

1) Sobers
2) Viv
3) Lara
4) Headley
5) Weekes
6) Walcott
7) Kanhai
8) Worrell
9) Greenidge
10) Lloyd
11) Chanderpaul
12) Hunte
13) Richardson
14) Friedricks
15) Nurse/Kallicharran

I will either have to reverse Chanderpaul/Lloyd or start rating Khan over Chanderpaul as I don’t think I would put Lloyd over Khan.

 

[BazBall21]

Have seen people give Subskharez examples of Lara dominating quality pace to combat his points about Lara’s times of struggle. Sub isn’t suggesting Lara was a serial failure against pace, no one with a functioning brain would do that. He just struggled against pace a bit more than Viv and Tendulkar. Is what it is.

 

[subshakerz]

Have seen people give Subskharez examples of Lara dominating quality pace to combat his points about Lara’s times of struggle. Sub isn’t suggesting Lara was a serial failure against pace, no one with a functioning brain would do that. He just struggled against pace a bit more than Viv and Tendulkar. Is what it is.

Precisely. I am talking about his susceptibility relative to other giants. Again, I am not saying anything new, pundits and fans have noticed this about Lara when following his career.

 

[subshakerz]

I notice in these head to heads, there tend to be two camps of posters who compare players.

The first tends to focus on the obvious strengths of players while the second tends to focus on the absence of weaknesses in the players and their records. Not saying either is wrong, but those are how these assessments tend to be split.

 

[Slifer]

This is an interesting take. Nothing to do with a shoulder reconstruction and bowling like ****. It was Lara.

See I know Warne was injured and I've seen that used as an excuse but what you don't ever hear or excuse is Lara struggling with Tyrigium for much of hid career. Or thr fcked up shoulder he had throughout the 2000 Frank Worrell series. Etc. Even outside the 99 series, at no point did Warne have the edge over Lara.

 

[Slifer]

You know what I don't want this to turn into a Sachin vs Lara thing so let me just say this. Overall, Sachin is the slightly better batsman.

 

[TheJediBrah]

See I know Warne was injured and I've seen that used as an excuse but what you don't ever hear or excuse is Lara struggling with Tyrigium for much of hid career. Or thr fcked up shoulder he had throughout the 2000 Frank Worrell series. Etc. Even outside the 99 series, at no point did Warne have the edge over Lara.

Hey man I'm not saying Lara didn't have the edge over or Warne or whatever. But it's well documented that Warne was pretty ****ed on that tour (shoulders are kind of important for bowlers weirdly) and not bowling anywhere near his usual standard. You can't give the batsman credit for that, or claim Lara was the reason he was dropped.

 

[subshakerz]

Hey man I'm not saying Lara didn't have the edge over or Warne or whatever. But it's well documented that Warne was pretty ****ed on that tour (shoulders are kind of important for bowlers weirdly) and not bowling anywhere near his usual standard. You can't give the batsman credit for that, or claim Lara was the reason he was dropped.

Both points are right. He wasnt fit enough to play and then Lara clocking him made his dropping inevitable.

 

[Slifer]

Hey man I'm not saying Lara didn't have the edge over or Warne or whatever. But it's well documented that Warne was pretty ****ed on that tour (shoulders are kind of important for bowlers weirdly) and not bowling anywhere near his usual standard. You can't give the batsman credit for that, or claim Lara was the reason he was dropped.

You know what I don't want this to turn into a Sachin vs Lara thing so let me just say this. Overall, Sachin is the slightly better batsman. Moving on back to the poll....

 

[_00_deathscar]

May be a Venkatesh Prasad or Venkatapathy Raju would have struggled. But every random Indian hit him out of the park. So, saying only few Indians is silly.

Bumrah vs Warne is the matchup we were denied.

 

[_00_deathscar]

You know what I don't want this to turn into a Sachin vs Lara thing so let me just say this. Overall, Sachin is the slightly better batsman.

I don’t think anyone would argue too much against the other way either. Both had their merits and their slight weaknesses.

Sachin’s greatest strengths were clearly his consistency, general ability to play any type of bowling (except apparently absolute minnows and noobs) and longevity.

Lara was a monster series and innings kinda guy.

 

[ankitj]

Yeah, but Warne did average 72 against Lara.

How can you know this?

 

[ankitj]

Nah, in late 90s, Aravinda, Inzamam and Ponting were the best players of short and fast bowling.

Sidhu was the best player of pace in late 90s.

 

[subshakerz]

I think we should also mention Viv averaging 58 in 14 games in WSC as another point in his favor.

 

[h_hurricane]

Sidhu's double hundred against WI was the best exhibition of batting against pace bowling I have seen. Cutting, pulling, hooking and lofting Ambrose and Walsh with disdain.

 

[BazBall21]

How can you know this?

Just from an article. Tendulkar averaged over 100 against Warne.

 

[Chrish]

Think Tendulkar was better than Lara against all types of pace.

Not medium pace (McGrath).

 

[subshakerz]

Not medium pace (McGrath).

Lara had some great highs and massive lows against McGrath, whereas Tendulkar only played two full series against him, home and away, and did well in both, and a few tests outside of those.

 

[Chrish]

Lara had some great highs and massive lows against McGrath, whereas Tendulkar only played two full series against him, home and away, and did well in both, and a few tests outside of those.

Lara undoubtedly played McGrath better than Tendulkar..

You are going by pure averages which don’t tell you the whole story.