kyear2
International Coach
How does one have a case over one who was better than him during his entire career. Viv was better than Sunny through his career.
And yes I rate Barry over him, so does most who watched the both of them. You like to pretend that this was just my opinion of him, it's not. During the first 6 years of Sunny's career, Barry was almost unquestionably the best batsman in the world. That might mean nothing to you, but it was an actual thing.
And your ratings of Sunny, and others also makes me not take your ratings if him seriously anyways.
Of course Sachin would be included in said list of 3, that Sunny doesn't have an argument against.
And following up on that, you include Sachin because again..., but he wasn't clear of Lara in his own era. That's was the one era where it can be legitimately claimed that it was split between two batsmen throughout.
If we really want to go there, Hobbs was the only batsman who separated himself from his peers in the way Bradman did. His pre WWI dominance were again, comparable only to Bradman's.
Sachin is closer to Viv and co than to Hobbs with regards to claims.
Sachin's was consistency and longevity. He basically did only marginally better than Lara vs the great pacers in the '90's and he too had his valleys, though less sever than BCL's, and they both struggled with injuries. He just played longer.
Viv's being that he mastered the ultimate era of fast bowling as the greatest ever player of said bowling, the way he dominated said bowling, his peak, and the fact that he was the only one to not have a dead pitch era and played no minnows. From '76 till the very late '80's he was unchallenged as the best batsman in the world (Sunny's career very much being included in that stretch), taking that mantle from again I'll repeat, his namesake.
So if we really want to start separating this top tier even further, it's Bradman and Hobbs, then Tendulkar, Richards, Sobers, then again Smith, Lara and Hutton. Batsmen who actually were the best of their eras.
