Steve Smith vs Brian Lara

[subshakerz]

Ok '97 in India besides Warne, who was the other atg bowler? 92 vs Rsa, besides Donald who was the other atg bowler? Go on...
0k
Overall, imo Lara had it slightly harder. Why? He tended to face tough attacks more often and came in with next to nothing on the board. Sachin I'll give him credit for batting with the burden of billions of home fans....

It's really cas of Aus where Lara faced their ATG attack more often as opposed to other teams and I already granted that he had it tougher against them.

 

[Slifer]

It's really cas of Aus where Lara faced their ATG attack more often as opposed to other teams and I already granted that he had it tougher against them.

I'm willing to bet he faced the other great attacks as much....but that's neither here nor there.....

 

[TestMatch]

Smith's slump has ended, and he seems likely to end up with a 57ish average, similar to Sangakkara's.

I'd say Smith's 2013 to 2015 peak is higher than any of Lara's peaks, and that he's statistically better in more countries, but for me Lara is still a better batsman.

With Lara, there were just countless little innings forgotten by history in which he did things you never saw anyone else do. For example there are old ODI inning out there where he literally bats like ABDV in T20s (

), and unsung games where he muscles quick runs for an easy win using unorthodox scoops, on-the-floor reverse sweeps, or by batting almost out the crease.

These flashes of genius are mostly in forgotten ODI games, or versus bowlers he's toying with, but in Tests he also did things nobody else could do. In most of his best innings, for example, he becomes proactive in a way most greats don't, actively manipulating the field, playing with gaps, and toying with captains. You'll notice his strike rate is frequently high in these games (90+), or that he scores the majority of his runs in huge bursts, suddenly accelerating when he's decided to activate God Mode.

There was also an arrogance to Lara that he got from Viv Richards. He'd fight fire with fire, attacking bowlers who he recognised as great, and counter-attacking viciously against ATGs like Warne, Waqar, Wasim, Donald etc. McGrath was the only great bowler he seemed to always play conventionally against, and of course a few later innings vs Waqar/Wasim, who he eventually realized were simply too good to bully, at least in tests; he remained fairly aggressive versus them in ODIs.

You also sensed that Lara wasn't just content to play cricket against the opposition, but to play against himself. He'd set himself little personal battles and challenges, seeking to dominate other greats, or embarrass certain bowlers. In this regard, Gilchrist talks of how sledging Lara was often risky: he'd take the bait, but not out of anger or c*ckiness, but the love of a challenge.

Of course this often backfired - Lara's an underachiever, and his career is ultimately a tragedy, think of how his first century ends with a runout, as does his last innings - but it's the daring-to-do-things that made him special. He managed to be great by all the traditional metrics, but also went after new, higher ones. This is a guy, after all, who out of sheer willpower takes the 375 and 501 records within weeks. And when he loses the record to Hayden, reclaims it by making 400 mere months later.

The poetic tragedy of Lara was watching him apply this same willpower to other tests and series, only to see the universe scuttle his plans. I mean, he goes to South Africa in 98 with his openers being PHILO WALLACE and JUNIOR MURRAY. How can you thrive with such a team? With Lara, you always sensed the universe giving only because the universe plans to take away, and there's really no other ATG batsman with a Greek-Tragedy-of-a-career quite like his.

Now to be fair, Smith doesn't have the all star team that Ponting or Waugh had, but he's also never been in a team as stressful as Lara's, which had atrocious behind-the-scenes management and a constantly changing line-up that was prone to collapse. As a result Lara rarely had anyone to soak up pressure, and his next best batsman, Chanderpaul, only really stepped up a gear after Lara retired (Chanderpaul averaged in the low 40s from debut to Lara's retirement, and Gayle was a 30s averaging player).

And his middle and lower order were comprised of slow-as-hell 30-strike-rate players like Chanderpaul and Jimmy Adams, or a collection of walking wickets. As a result, Lara often had to push the scoreboard alone, which is why he has the lowest not out numbers (6?) and highest strike rate in the 10,000 run club (everyone remembers his 213, but forget that he came in with the score at 34 for 4).

Lara also did the least minnow bashing of all the greats of his era. He rarely played Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and didn't feast on them as others were able to. Of course Smith can make a similar claim - only one tour of Bangladesh? - but he does frequently get mammoth series at home, in an era where Australian pitches are rather friendly. One could argue, however, that Smith's long tours of tricky England offset the aforementioned benefits, and he's been stellar in England, whereas Lara's looked shaky there in two tours.

People also forget that Lara suffered from pterygium in the late 1990s, which coincided with his slump in the second phase of his career. This disease causes skin to grow over the eyeball and is most prevalent in tropical regions; Viv Richards suffered from it in the 80s, and found that it affected his batting so much that he had surgery to correct it in 1984.

With Lara, the disease caused eye irritation, blurred vision, the feeling of grit in the eye, and trouble seeing objects against certain backgrounds. This affected him in the late 1990s up until 2002. He contemplated surgery for this after his England 2000 tour, when he batted with sunglasses and used frequent eyedrops (to no avail; Darren Gough repeatedly got him out), but only got the surgery in 2002, when he took half the year off to recover.

While other issues contributed to his slump (mostly booze, babes, c*ckiness and battles with the WICB), pterygium no doubt played the biggest part, because immediately after the surgery his average shoots up; from 2002 to the end of his career it remained at 60ish.

So stats don't really put Lara in proper context, which is why I tend to rate him above even Ponting, or the near-60 averaging guys like Sanga and Smith.

Finally, there's Lara's sheer style. As I write this, Smith is approaching another 150, and yet I have my TV on mute. Lara, in contrast, commanded your attention, and he was arguably the most entertaining test bat since Viv.

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

Smith's slump has ended, and he seems likely to end up with a 57ish average, similar to Sangakkara's.

I'd say Smith's 2013 to 2015 peak is higher than any of Lara's peaks, and that he's statistically better in more countries, but for me Lara is still a better batsman.

With Lara, there were just countless little innings forgotten by history in which he did things you never saw anyone else do. For example there are old ODI inning out there where he literally bats like ABDV in T20s (

), and unsung games where he muscles quick runs for an easy win using unorthodox scoops, on-the-floor reverse sweeps, or by batting almost out the crease.

These flashes of genius are mostly in forgotten ODI games, or versus bowlers he's toying with, but in Tests he also did things nobody else could do. In most of his best innings, for example, he becomes proactive in a way most greats don't, actively manipulating the field, playing with gaps, and toying with captains. You'll notice his strike rate is frequently high in these games (90+), or that he scores the majority of his runs in huge bursts, suddenly accelerating when he's decided to activate God Mode.

There was also an arrogance to Lara that he got from Viv Richards. He'd fight fire with fire, attacking bowlers who he recognised as great, and counter-attacking viciously against ATGs like Warne, Waqar, Wasim, Donald etc. McGrath was the only great bowler he seemed to always play conventionally against, and of course a few later innings vs Waqar/Wasim, who he eventually realized were simply too good to bully, at least in tests; he remained fairly aggressive versus them in ODIs.

You also sensed that Lara wasn't just content to play cricket against the opposition, but to play against himself. He'd set himself little personal battles and challenges, seeking to dominate other greats, or embarrass certain bowlers. In this regard, Gilchrist talks of how sledging Lara was often risky: he'd take the bait, but not out of anger or c*ckiness, but the love of a challenge.

Of course this often backfired - Lara's an underachiever, and his career is ultimately a tragedy, think of how his first century ends with a runout, as does his last innings - but it's the daring-to-do-things that made him special. He managed to be great by all the traditional metrics, but also went after new, higher ones. This is a guy, after all, who out of sheer willpower takes the 375 and 501 records within weeks. And when he loses the record to Hayden, reclaims it by making 400 mere months later.

The poetic tragedy of Lara was watching him apply this same willpower to other tests and series, only to see the universe scuttle his plans. I mean, he goes to South Africa in 98 with his openers being PHILO WALLACE and JUNIOR MURRAY. How can you thrive with such a team? With Lara, you always sensed the universe giving only because the universe plans to take away, and there's really no other ATG batsman with a Greek-Tragedy-of-a-career quite like his.

Now to be fair, Smith doesn't have the all star team that Ponting or Waugh had, but he's also never been in a team as stressful as Lara's, which had atrocious behind-the-scenes management and a constantly changing line-up that was prone to collapse. As a result Lara rarely had anyone to soak up pressure, and his next best batsman, Chanderpaul, only really stepped up a gear after Lara retired (Chanderpaul averaged in the low 40s from debut to Lara's retirement, and Gayle was a 30s averaging player).

And his middle and lower order were comprised of slow-as-hell 30-strike-rate players like Chanderpaul and Jimmy Adams, or a collection of walking wickets. As a result, Lara often had to push the scoreboard alone, which is why he has the lowest not out numbers (6?) and highest strike rate in the 10,000 run club (everyone remembers his 213, but forget that he came in with the score at 34 for 4).

Lara also did the least minnow bashing of all the greats of his era. He rarely played Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and didn't feast on them as others were able to. Of course Smith can make a similar claim - only one tour of Bangladesh? - but he does frequently get mammoth series at home, in an era where Australian pitches are rather friendly. One could argue, however, that Smith's long tours of tricky England offset the aforementioned benefits, and he's been stellar in England, whereas Lara's looked shaky there in two tours.

People also forget that Lara suffered from pterygium in the late 1990s, which coincided with his slump in the second phase of his career. This disease causes skin to grow over the eyeball and is most prevalent in tropical regions; Viv Richards suffered from it in the 80s, and found that it affected his batting so much that he had surgery to correct it in 1984.

With Lara, the disease caused eye irritation, blurred vision, the feeling of grit in the eye, and trouble seeing objects against certain backgrounds. This affected him in the late 1990s up until 2002. He contemplated surgery for this after his England 2000 tour, when he batted with sunglasses and used frequent eyedrops (to no avail; Darren Gough repeatedly got him out), but only got the surgery in 2002, when he took half the year off to recover.

While other issues contributed to his slump (mostly booze, babes, c*ckiness and battles with the WICB), pterygium no doubt played the biggest part, because immediately after the surgery his average shoots up; from 2002 to the end of his career it remained at 60ish.

So stats don't really put Lara in proper context, which is why I tend to rate him above even Ponting, or the near-60 averaging guys like Sanga and Smith.

Finally, there's Lara's sheer style. As I write this, Smith is approaching another 150, and yet I have my TV on mute. Lara, in contrast, commanded your attention, and he was arguably the most entertaining test bat since Viv.

I agree. One of the reasons why (in my opinion) Lara is the best batsman I've seen is because of his ability to score heavily. He scored 34 Test hundreds - 19 of them were 150+ scores, that's 55.8% of his 34 hundreds that were converted to 150+ scores.

Truly remarkable, seriously.

 

[DrWolverine]

Steven Smith

 

[kyear2]

Smith's slump has ended, and he seems likely to end up with a 57ish average, similar to Sangakkara's.

I'd say Smith's 2013 to 2015 peak is higher than any of Lara's peaks, and that he's statistically better in more countries, but for me Lara is still a better batsman.

With Lara, there were just countless little innings forgotten by history in which he did things you never saw anyone else do. For example there are old ODI inning out there where he literally bats like ABDV in T20s (

), and unsung games where he muscles quick runs for an easy win using unorthodox scoops, on-the-floor reverse sweeps, or by batting almost out the crease.

These flashes of genius are mostly in forgotten ODI games, or versus bowlers he's toying with, but in Tests he also did things nobody else could do. In most of his best innings, for example, he becomes proactive in a way most greats don't, actively manipulating the field, playing with gaps, and toying with captains. You'll notice his strike rate is frequently high in these games (90+), or that he scores the majority of his runs in huge bursts, suddenly accelerating when he's decided to activate God Mode.

There was also an arrogance to Lara that he got from Viv Richards. He'd fight fire with fire, attacking bowlers who he recognised as great, and counter-attacking viciously against ATGs like Warne, Waqar, Wasim, Donald etc. McGrath was the only great bowler he seemed to always play conventionally against, and of course a few later innings vs Waqar/Wasim, who he eventually realized were simply too good to bully, at least in tests; he remained fairly aggressive versus them in ODIs.

You also sensed that Lara wasn't just content to play cricket against the opposition, but to play against himself. He'd set himself little personal battles and challenges, seeking to dominate other greats, or embarrass certain bowlers. In this regard, Gilchrist talks of how sledging Lara was often risky: he'd take the bait, but not out of anger or c*ckiness, but the love of a challenge.

Of course this often backfired - Lara's an underachiever, and his career is ultimately a tragedy, think of how his first century ends with a runout, as does his last innings - but it's the daring-to-do-things that made him special. He managed to be great by all the traditional metrics, but also went after new, higher ones. This is a guy, after all, who out of sheer willpower takes the 375 and 501 records within weeks. And when he loses the record to Hayden, reclaims it by making 400 mere months later.

The poetic tragedy of Lara was watching him apply this same willpower to other tests and series, only to see the universe scuttle his plans. I mean, he goes to South Africa in 98 with his openers being PHILO WALLACE and JUNIOR MURRAY. How can you thrive with such a team? With Lara, you always sensed the universe giving only because the universe plans to take away, and there's really no other ATG batsman with a Greek-Tragedy-of-a-career quite like his.

Now to be fair, Smith doesn't have the all star team that Ponting or Waugh had, but he's also never been in a team as stressful as Lara's, which had atrocious behind-the-scenes management and a constantly changing line-up that was prone to collapse. As a result Lara rarely had anyone to soak up pressure, and his next best batsman, Chanderpaul, only really stepped up a gear after Lara retired (Chanderpaul averaged in the low 40s from debut to Lara's retirement, and Gayle was a 30s averaging player).

And his middle and lower order were comprised of slow-as-hell 30-strike-rate players like Chanderpaul and Jimmy Adams, or a collection of walking wickets. As a result, Lara often had to push the scoreboard alone, which is why he has the lowest not out numbers (6?) and highest strike rate in the 10,000 run club (everyone remembers his 213, but forget that he came in with the score at 34 for 4).

Lara also did the least minnow bashing of all the greats of his era. He rarely played Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and didn't feast on them as others were able to. Of course Smith can make a similar claim - only one tour of Bangladesh? - but he does frequently get mammoth series at home, in an era where Australian pitches are rather friendly. One could argue, however, that Smith's long tours of tricky England offset the aforementioned benefits, and he's been stellar in England, whereas Lara's looked shaky there in two tours.

People also forget that Lara suffered from pterygium in the late 1990s, which coincided with his slump in the second phase of his career. This disease causes skin to grow over the eyeball and is most prevalent in tropical regions; Viv Richards suffered from it in the 80s, and found that it affected his batting so much that he had surgery to correct it in 1984.

With Lara, the disease caused eye irritation, blurred vision, the feeling of grit in the eye, and trouble seeing objects against certain backgrounds. This affected him in the late 1990s up until 2002. He contemplated surgery for this after his England 2000 tour, when he batted with sunglasses and used frequent eyedrops (to no avail; Darren Gough repeatedly got him out), but only got the surgery in 2002, when he took half the year off to recover.

While other issues contributed to his slump (mostly booze, babes, c*ckiness and battles with the WICB), pterygium no doubt played the biggest part, because immediately after the surgery his average shoots up; from 2002 to the end of his career it remained at 60ish.

So stats don't really put Lara in proper context, which is why I tend to rate him above even Ponting, or the near-60 averaging guys like Sanga and Smith.

Finally, there's Lara's sheer style. As I write this, Smith is approaching another 150, and yet I have my TV on mute. Lara, in contrast, commanded your attention, and he was arguably the most entertaining test bat since Viv.

Nice post.

 

[kyear2]

I agree. One of the reasons why (in my opinion) Lara is the best batsman I've seen is because of his ability to score heavily. He scored 34 Test hundreds - 19 of them were 150+ scores, that's 55.8% of his 34 hundreds that were converted to 150+ scores.

Truly remarkable, seriously.

He just the best batsman I've seen, it was just an experience.

 

[Sliferxxxx]

Smith's slump has ended, and he seems likely to end up with a 57ish average, similar to Sangakkara's.

I'd say Smith's 2013 to 2015 peak is higher than any of Lara's peaks, and that he's statistically better in more countries, but for me Lara is still a better batsman.

With Lara, there were just countless little innings forgotten by history in which he did things you never saw anyone else do. For example there are old ODI inning out there where he literally bats like ABDV in T20s (

), and unsung games where he muscles quick runs for an easy win using unorthodox scoops, on-the-floor reverse sweeps, or by batting almost out the crease.

These flashes of genius are mostly in forgotten ODI games, or versus bowlers he's toying with, but in Tests he also did things nobody else could do. In most of his best innings, for example, he becomes proactive in a way most greats don't, actively manipulating the field, playing with gaps, and toying with captains. You'll notice his strike rate is frequently high in these games (90+), or that he scores the majority of his runs in huge bursts, suddenly accelerating when he's decided to activate God Mode.

There was also an arrogance to Lara that he got from Viv Richards. He'd fight fire with fire, attacking bowlers who he recognised as great, and counter-attacking viciously against ATGs like Warne, Waqar, Wasim, Donald etc. McGrath was the only great bowler he seemed to always play conventionally against, and of course a few later innings vs Waqar/Wasim, who he eventually realized were simply too good to bully, at least in tests; he remained fairly aggressive versus them in ODIs.

You also sensed that Lara wasn't just content to play cricket against the opposition, but to play against himself. He'd set himself little personal battles and challenges, seeking to dominate other greats, or embarrass certain bowlers. In this regard, Gilchrist talks of how sledging Lara was often risky: he'd take the bait, but not out of anger or c*ckiness, but the love of a challenge.

Of course this often backfired - Lara's an underachiever, and his career is ultimately a tragedy, think of how his first century ends with a runout, as does his last innings - but it's the daring-to-do-things that made him special. He managed to be great by all the traditional metrics, but also went after new, higher ones. This is a guy, after all, who out of sheer willpower takes the 375 and 501 records within weeks. And when he loses the record to Hayden, reclaims it by making 400 mere months later.

The poetic tragedy of Lara was watching him apply this same willpower to other tests and series, only to see the universe scuttle his plans. I mean, he goes to South Africa in 98 with his openers being PHILO WALLACE and JUNIOR MURRAY. How can you thrive with such a team? With Lara, you always sensed the universe giving only because the universe plans to take away, and there's really no other ATG batsman with a Greek-Tragedy-of-a-career quite like his.

Now to be fair, Smith doesn't have the all star team that Ponting or Waugh had, but he's also never been in a team as stressful as Lara's, which had atrocious behind-the-scenes management and a constantly changing line-up that was prone to collapse. As a result Lara rarely had anyone to soak up pressure, and his next best batsman, Chanderpaul, only really stepped up a gear after Lara retired (Chanderpaul averaged in the low 40s from debut to Lara's retirement, and Gayle was a 30s averaging player).

And his middle and lower order were comprised of slow-as-hell 30-strike-rate players like Chanderpaul and Jimmy Adams, or a collection of walking wickets. As a result, Lara often had to push the scoreboard alone, which is why he has the lowest not out numbers (6?) and highest strike rate in the 10,000 run club (everyone remembers his 213, but forget that he came in with the score at 34 for 4).

Lara also did the least minnow bashing of all the greats of his era. He rarely played Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and didn't feast on them as others were able to. Of course Smith can make a similar claim - only one tour of Bangladesh? - but he does frequently get mammoth series at home, in an era where Australian pitches are rather friendly. One could argue, however, that Smith's long tours of tricky England offset the aforementioned benefits, and he's been stellar in England, whereas Lara's looked shaky there in two tours.

People also forget that Lara suffered from pterygium in the late 1990s, which coincided with his slump in the second phase of his career. This disease causes skin to grow over the eyeball and is most prevalent in tropical regions; Viv Richards suffered from it in the 80s, and found that it affected his batting so much that he had surgery to correct it in 1984.

With Lara, the disease caused eye irritation, blurred vision, the feeling of grit in the eye, and trouble seeing objects against certain backgrounds. This affected him in the late 1990s up until 2002. He contemplated surgery for this after his England 2000 tour, when he batted with sunglasses and used frequent eyedrops (to no avail; Darren Gough repeatedly got him out), but only got the surgery in 2002, when he took half the year off to recover.

While other issues contributed to his slump (mostly booze, babes, c*ckiness and battles with the WICB), pterygium no doubt played the biggest part, because immediately after the surgery his average shoots up; from 2002 to the end of his career it remained at 60ish.

So stats don't really put Lara in proper context, which is why I tend to rate him above even Ponting, or the near-60 averaging guys like Sanga and Smith.

Finally, there's Lara's sheer style. As I write this, Smith is approaching another 150, and yet I have my TV on mute. Lara, in contrast, commanded your attention, and he was arguably the most entertaining test bat since Viv.

The bit about his pathetic teammates and few not outs is where it's at for me. Lara’s average isn't particularly high but his runs per innings without looking has to be up there. Give lara a similar amount of not outs as Shiv and all of a sudden his average shoots up to 56ish. I still rank Smith higher unless he completely falls off a cliff .

 

[Coronis]

I agree. One of the reasons why (in my opinion) Lara is the best batsman I've seen is because of his ability to score heavily. He scored 34 Test hundreds - 19 of them were 150+ scores, that's 55.8% of his 34 hundreds that were converted to 150+ scores.

Truly remarkable, seriously.

Only players who I can think of who would have a higher percentage would be Bradman and Sehwag.

 

[subshakerz]

I agree. One of the reasons why (in my opinion) Lara is the best batsman I've seen is because of his ability to score heavily. He scored 34 Test hundreds - 19 of them were 150+ scores, that's 55.8% of his 34 hundreds that were converted to 150+ scores.

Truly remarkable, seriously.

Double edged sword actually because it came with more inconsistency.

Being able to score daddy's consistently is a net plus still because it added to his 'in the zone' threat.

 

[subshakerz]

Smith's slump has ended, and he seems likely to end up with a 57ish average, similar to Sangakkara's.

I'd say Smith's 2013 to 2015 peak is higher than any of Lara's peaks, and that he's statistically better in more countries, but for me Lara is still a better batsman.

With Lara, there were just countless little innings forgotten by history in which he did things you never saw anyone else do. For example there are old ODI inning out there where he literally bats like ABDV in T20s (

), and unsung games where he muscles quick runs for an easy win using unorthodox scoops, on-the-floor reverse sweeps, or by batting almost out the crease.

These flashes of genius are mostly in forgotten ODI games, or versus bowlers he's toying with, but in Tests he also did things nobody else could do. In most of his best innings, for example, he becomes proactive in a way most greats don't, actively manipulating the field, playing with gaps, and toying with captains. You'll notice his strike rate is frequently high in these games (90+), or that he scores the majority of his runs in huge bursts, suddenly accelerating when he's decided to activate God Mode.

There was also an arrogance to Lara that he got from Viv Richards. He'd fight fire with fire, attacking bowlers who he recognised as great, and counter-attacking viciously against ATGs like Warne, Waqar, Wasim, Donald etc. McGrath was the only great bowler he seemed to always play conventionally against, and of course a few later innings vs Waqar/Wasim, who he eventually realized were simply too good to bully, at least in tests; he remained fairly aggressive versus them in ODIs.

You also sensed that Lara wasn't just content to play cricket against the opposition, but to play against himself. He'd set himself little personal battles and challenges, seeking to dominate other greats, or embarrass certain bowlers. In this regard, Gilchrist talks of how sledging Lara was often risky: he'd take the bait, but not out of anger or c*ckiness, but the love of a challenge.

Of course this often backfired - Lara's an underachiever, and his career is ultimately a tragedy, think of how his first century ends with a runout, as does his last innings - but it's the daring-to-do-things that made him special. He managed to be great by all the traditional metrics, but also went after new, higher ones. This is a guy, after all, who out of sheer willpower takes the 375 and 501 records within weeks. And when he loses the record to Hayden, reclaims it by making 400 mere months later.

The poetic tragedy of Lara was watching him apply this same willpower to other tests and series, only to see the universe scuttle his plans. I mean, he goes to South Africa in 98 with his openers being PHILO WALLACE and JUNIOR MURRAY. How can you thrive with such a team? With Lara, you always sensed the universe giving only because the universe plans to take away, and there's really no other ATG batsman with a Greek-Tragedy-of-a-career quite like his.

Now to be fair, Smith doesn't have the all star team that Ponting or Waugh had, but he's also never been in a team as stressful as Lara's, which had atrocious behind-the-scenes management and a constantly changing line-up that was prone to collapse. As a result Lara rarely had anyone to soak up pressure, and his next best batsman, Chanderpaul, only really stepped up a gear after Lara retired (Chanderpaul averaged in the low 40s from debut to Lara's retirement, and Gayle was a 30s averaging player).

And his middle and lower order were comprised of slow-as-hell 30-strike-rate players like Chanderpaul and Jimmy Adams, or a collection of walking wickets. As a result, Lara often had to push the scoreboard alone, which is why he has the lowest not out numbers (6?) and highest strike rate in the 10,000 run club (everyone remembers his 213, but forget that he came in with the score at 34 for 4).

Lara also did the least minnow bashing of all the greats of his era. He rarely played Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and didn't feast on them as others were able to. Of course Smith can make a similar claim - only one tour of Bangladesh? - but he does frequently get mammoth series at home, in an era where Australian pitches are rather friendly. One could argue, however, that Smith's long tours of tricky England offset the aforementioned benefits, and he's been stellar in England, whereas Lara's looked shaky there in two tours.

People also forget that Lara suffered from pterygium in the late 1990s, which coincided with his slump in the second phase of his career. This disease causes skin to grow over the eyeball and is most prevalent in tropical regions; Viv Richards suffered from it in the 80s, and found that it affected his batting so much that he had surgery to correct it in 1984.

With Lara, the disease caused eye irritation, blurred vision, the feeling of grit in the eye, and trouble seeing objects against certain backgrounds. This affected him in the late 1990s up until 2002. He contemplated surgery for this after his England 2000 tour, when he batted with sunglasses and used frequent eyedrops (to no avail; Darren Gough repeatedly got him out), but only got the surgery in 2002, when he took half the year off to recover.

While other issues contributed to his slump (mostly booze, babes, c*ckiness and battles with the WICB), pterygium no doubt played the biggest part, because immediately after the surgery his average shoots up; from 2002 to the end of his career it remained at 60ish.

So stats don't really put Lara in proper context, which is why I tend to rate him above even Ponting, or the near-60 averaging guys like Sanga and Smith.

Finally, there's Lara's sheer style. As I write this, Smith is approaching another 150, and yet I have my TV on mute. Lara, in contrast, commanded your attention, and he was arguably the most entertaining test bat since Viv.

Great summary of why the Lara story is so compelling. Tragedy, triumph, genius.

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

As i said i still rate Lara ahead of Smith. It's all opinion.

 

[honestbharani]

I dont think even I would romanticise his career like you have, Ump. But as a fan who watches the game for the game's sake, I have not seen a better batsman than Brian Lara by any metric you wanna consider. Among the batsmen I have seen in almost 35 years of watching this game, I would put the ranking like this -


Lara
Sachin

Smith
Ponting

Sanga
Kallis
Dravid
Remaining Fab 4
Younis Khan
etc


rest

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

Only players who I can think of who would have a higher percentage would be Bradman and Sehwag.

Bradman scored 29 Test hundreds, 18 of them were 150+ scores = 62.0%

Sehwag scored 23 Test 100s, 14 were 150+ scores = 60.8%

 

[subshakerz]

I dont think even I would romanticise his career like you have, Ump. But as a fan who watches the game for the game's sake, I have not seen a better batsman than Brian Lara by any metric you wanna consider. Among the batsmen I have seen in almost 35 years of watching tihis game, I would put the ranking like this -


Lara
Sachin

Smith
Ponting

Sanga
Kallis
Dravid
Remaining Fab 4
Younis Khan
etc


rest

Would you admit there are better bats on Lara on certain metrics but not those that you value highly?

 

[DrWolverine]

Lara is the player I would pay to watch

Smith is the player that I would prefer in my team

 

[govinda indian fan]

Never saw lara but smith is greatest test bat i have seen and (also pain in ass as an indian)

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

Brian Lara - 200+ Scores

Home

400* vs England, 2004 (St John's)

375 vs England, 1994 (St John's)

213 vs Australia, 1999 (Kingston)

209 vs Sri Lanka, 2003 (Gros Islet)

Away

277 vs Australia, 1993 (Sydney)

226 vs Australia, 2005 (Adelaide)

221 vs Sri Lanka, 2001 (Columbo)

202 vs South Africa, 2003 (Johannusberg)

216 vs Pakistan, 2006 (Multan)

 

[Johan]

Smith

my list is

1. Sir Donald Bradman
2. Sir Jack Hobbs
3. Sachin Tendulkar
4. Sir Viv Richards
5. Sir Garfield Sobers
6. Sir Len Hutton
7. Steven Smith
8. Brian Lara
9. Sir Walter Hammond

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

Reference: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1NMJR8h3NR/

This was from 4 July, 2023

Notice also that they have "Brain Lara" instead of Brian Lara lol.