Viv Richards vs Brian Lara

[BazBall21]

Pretty fair ranking tbh. Well done

Alvin probably should be 15th for the superior body of work but I’ve always had a massive soft spot for Nurse.

 

[Chrish]

Viv easily.. 2nd best batsman of all time!

 

[trundler]

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 thought you were a Chanders fan but looks like you just don't rate Younis Khan, haha

 

[BazBall21]

I thought you were a Chanders fan but looks like you just don't rate Younis Khan, haha

Lloyd over Khan would be harsh on Younis ngl. I’ve always put Lloyd ahead of Shiv.

 

[Migara]

Lara played 16 tests against Wasim, Waqar and Donald and never scored a century against them. He averaged 43, 21, 31 and 40 in his four series against them. He also failed in his single series against Bond in NZ.

McGrath is pretty much the only ATG class pacer Lara has a good record against and even that is mixed since McGrath took his wicket 15 times.

Richards never faced his own attack but has centuries against Lillee, Imran and Hadlee and at least one mega series against each of them.

Richards was the better player of pace and he dominated all pace bowlers of his era. Lara was the better player of spin, and he dominated all spinners of his era. The difference is Lara had to play some ATG spinners and pacers alike, while there was not much quality spin to test out Viv in his era.

 

[Migara]

It seems Viv Richards was a bit like Shane Warne in the sense that he didn't have the best average but that he had an aura and an impact on the game that you can't quantify into statistics.

Aura matters till you meet the correct opponent. Warne's aura was nothing to Navjot Sidhu. He just took Warne to cleaners. Unfortunately, there wasn't a fast bowling equivalent of Sidhu.

 

[Slifer]

Richards was the better player of pace and he dominated all pace bowlers of his era. Lara was the better player of spin, and he dominated all spinners of his era. The difference is Lara had to play some ATG spinners and pacers alike, while there was not much quality spin to test out Viv in his era.

Let's try this again, Viv never played anyone at the Warne or Murali level but he did play some the level just below: Chandra, Prassana, Qasim, Underwood, Bedi etc. He had a mixed bag of success and failures but nothing like the struggle Lara had vs Donald for example. I honestly couldn't imagine Viv in his prime going to RSA and getting owned like Lara did in 1998. The man had wayyy too much pride and self belief for that.

 

[BazBall21]

Aura matters till you meet the correct opponent. Warne's aura was nothing to Navjot Sidhu. He just took Warne to cleaners. Unfortunately, there wasn't a fast bowling equivalent of Sidhu.

Warne struggled against most great players of spin tbh

 

[BazBall21]

Let's try this again, Viv never played anyone at the Warne or Murali level but he did play some the level just below: Chandra, Prassana, Qasim, Underwood, Bedi etc. He had a mixed bag of success and failures but nothing like the struggle Lara had vs Donald for example. I honestly couldn't imagine Viv in his prime going to RSA and getting owned like Lara did in 1998. The man had wayyy too much pride and self belief for that.

And playing pace is probably a bit more important than playing spin overall in tests

 

[Chrish]

Needs vs Tendulkar thread already..

 

[shortpitched713]

These guys are absolute opposites, but for mine they both represent the best in playing for their country, and not for themselves, even if the circumstances were very different.

I went Lara, just, but probably only because I saw the great things he did, in my lifetime.

 

[a massive zebra]

The theory there is he would have taken more care re his production if he didn’t play for such a dominant side. Probably quite a biased view.

Viv Richards played an extensive amount of first class cricket for a large number of domestic teams across multiple countries. Most of these teams were not anywhere near as dominant as West Indies and yet he didn't actually average over 50 for any domestic team.

I think Richards was a very talented batsman with the ability to destroy any bowler, but he was only motivated to dominate the opposition and didn't really care about maximising his run output. If he could dominate for a time and see his team to a good position, making huge scores and breaking records didn't really interest him. Lara wanted to score as many runs as possible and to break records.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Needs vs Tendulkar thread already..

Think Tendulkar would beat both of these easily. Tendulkar vs Sobers could be close though

 

[Slifer]

Think Tendulkar would beat both of these easily. Tendulkar vs Sobers could be close though

That's probably because Sachin is slightly better than both. I will say this though, Sachin results wise, didn't exactly dominate vs Donald, Wasim or Waqar either. The difference between the two (Lara and Sacin) being that he did manage 100s vs all of them.

 

[Chrish]

Viv slightly ahead for me..

 

[Chrish]

Think Tendulkar would beat both of these easily

Not on this forum..

PS you should make poll public..

 

[smash84]

Think Tendulkar would beat both of these easily. Tendulkar vs Sobers could be close though

Easily might be stretching it.

He might get edged out on CW actually.

 

[Kirkut]

Viv, the only batsman who could have challenged Bradman.

 

[Kirkut]

Think Tendulkar would beat both of these easily. Tendulkar vs Sobers could be close though

Tendulkar trumps Lara comfortably in ODIs, in tests I'll give it to Lara.

 

[CricAddict]

Easily might be stretching it.

He might get edged out on CW actually.

Actually Tendulkar will lose to both of them easily on cw.