Lara is absolutely up there, he was a machine and looked better than anyone else doing it.
Few, but that’s an area some ATGs did better like Viv, Sobers(that 254), Tendulkar(SA tours vs Steyn), and probably in not ATGs guys like Kohli(again SA record and smashing Johnson), ABD. But Lara was truly magical in the sense that at his best he could transcend his limitationz
Nah. Laras away record is simply not as impressive as Tendulkar, Sobers, Smith or Viv when you get into it who all average 50 plus away as you would want for the very best.
Lara struggled over entire series against top fast pacers enough over the course of his career that it was a weakness more notable in him than others.
Except he didn't otherwise he would have tons vs Donald and the 2Ws. Though I will say early stage Lara didn't have a pace weakness.
I only take issue with this. Lara played 3 series in Nz and was great and good in the first two and poor in the third, which dragged his overall numbers down. And all three were over short series. My point, Lara wasn't partially poor in NZ imo, just small sample size and one series messed up his over numbers. And yes, Lara's away record is the only thing stopping me from putting him above Sachin. Had he been even remotely close say around 52ish she'd get my vote....
The series that dragged him down in NZ was the series when he faced the best bowling tho. And below par is not outright poor IMO, it is just below ATG expected standards. He should have done better enough that one poor series doesn't take him into the 30s but NZ itself is not the biggest deal so I can give him a pass.
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Yeah respectfully, Lara's record in Australia is perfectly fine when you consider that unlike Sachin, he always faced challenging attacks down under: McWarne plus Reifel in '95, McGrath, Gillespie and MacGill in '00 and McWarne + MacGill in '05. He never faced depleted attacks like those Sachin faced at home in '98 or away 03/04.
We are talking away performances.
Actually your framing is disingenuous.
Well that's the point, Tendulkar did correct his record, Lara did not or did not score enough earlier to compensate for his poor series and ended up with a blemish.
Didn't Lara at least face Pollock post Donald? Not Donald level but Donald plus Ntini in RSA is a decent attack. Anyway I won't fight you on this, don't have the energy and Lara is inferior to Sachin.
Fair, that was a good attack even without an ATG pacer but Lara didn't have a weakness to medium pace like Pollock.
To clarify, they didn't need easier home runs to compensate for a weakness away from home. Nothing to do with Imran who had it more difficult at home or didn't even have a weakness away which you keep harping on.
Hmm, I take issue with a lot of this. Lara scored a lot of runs vs a depleted Australia attack in 03 at home, the same attack Sachin faced in 03/04 down under.
McGrath only missed two tests of the '03 series. Lara faced McGrath, Gillespie and Macgill in the final two tests. So no, not the same as Sachin in '04.
Fair enough. More than making a case by case proper argument for Lara, I was making a more feeling based arguement, seeing some of his batting in 99 vs Aus and 2001 SL, I felt this was some of the highest standard of batting I had ever seen
I meant his record vs Mcgrath
Afaic:
The 99 series to me is the greatest series performance by a bat of all-time, even better than 2001 SL, so I agree.
Good summary. I would just say that in the 90s, Tendulkar carried the lineup much the same as Lara did. Yes Dravid was good but a lot of the expectations in the high profile moments was on Tendulkar.