Sanga is a very good batsman but he certainly doesn't belong with the best. Only thing many posters bring is his career aggregate avg but he has poor/avg record in home of 4 oppositions spanning 29 tests.
Two worse bowling units in home conditions in the last 10 years have been BD and Pakistan by some distance. In 15 tests in Pakistan , Pakistani bowlers have given around 40 runs to pick up each wicket. Tells you something. Then BD gives 50 runs to pick up each wicket int the last 10 years. Pakistan is not a bad bowling unit but they have been ordinary if wickets are flat. They don't have bowlers who can take pitch out of equation anymore. Yes, I know that Pakistan plays now in UAE but equation is still the same. Eng series had totally different pitches in 3 tests. If you exclude that then in the 10 tests, Pakistani bowlers have given 39 runs to pick up each wicket in UAE. Seeing some trend here. Sanga has aroud 40% of career run against Pakistan and BD at godly avg of 80/90. Nothign wrong with that. Very good job but let's keep some perspective when talking about aggregate career avg.
Many folks started noticing Sanga due to his great aggregate career average in the last 3-4 years. Again, I will say the same thing. Aggregate career avg are meaningless if you look at it without context. I don't think that Sanga has done really great in the last 5 years despite his career aggregate going up and up. Top 5 bowling units in recent years have been SA, AUS, NZ, ENG and Pakistan.
Sanga in the last 5 years,
Against SA avg 30
Agaisnt NZ acg 33
Against ENg avg 40
Against Aus avg 46
Against Pakistan avg 79
I am not saying that judge him based on 5 years performance. I am only pointing out that most fans have started rating Sanga a lot higher due to his aggregate career avg which has gone up and up in the last 5 years. But he has actually not done that well against better bowling units in the same period. Clearly, the aggregate avg shouldn't be looked at without context. Anyway, all this was for folks who judge players based on spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are not wrong but without context they will paint a misleading picture.
Sanga doesn't belong with the likes of Viv, SRT, Lara and all. It should be clear to anyone who have seen them bat. As far as runs, he has them but all runs are not equal.