Gavaskar vs Tendulkar

[patriot]

Thevortex - Mate, where art thou ? I was looking forward to having a discussion on something you said interested you a great deal. Come on friend. Lets bring in your 9 point criteria.

[patriot]

Seems like S Rajesh is a hater*. :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: * anyone who exposes the most over rated batsman, yet.

[Bumper]

Some really fascinating debate guys! Thanks patriot, Dhondy, vortex, Boss & the likes for the quality threads. This whole Bradman vs Sachin thingy has really uplifted the quality of the discussions here. ICF is back to its best!

[patriot]

Sirf Shukriya karne se kaam nahi chalege, apna input doh, Bumper Babu. I realise that aap bhi mere aur Dhondy jee ki tarah chaalak aur samajdaar hai. But you know thats how it is, God gifts that extra cerebral bit only to the lucky ones. I am glad to be in some August company.:winky:

[achilles]

I quickly ran through some of the posts in the this thread :hysterical: Its pretty much the same crap as the other threads, got to the bottom of page 3 and finally Gavaskar makes an appearance. Same old crap, people going round and round Sachin being compared with pretty much every Tom, Dick and Harry to hold a bat

Sunil Gavaskar comes in the category of "Tom, Dick and Harry" :omg: :poink: :(( :icflove:

[Roshanrocks]

http://www.cricinfo.com/columns/content/story/303750.html A 3 year old article - but a YAWWWWWWWWWWWWNING gap remains between the little master who averages a staggering 56.6 and the little 'champion'. The Friday Column Gavaskar vs Tendulkar - the fourth-innings story Sachin Tendulkar's stats in the fourth innings of a Test belies the fact that he is among the leading batsmen to have played the game S Rajesh July 27, 2007 The table below excludes such instances so that the numbers take into account only those Tests in which India had to battle to save or win the match. As the average of 56.60 shows, Gavaskar's stats hardly change when they are placed under the microscope in this manner.

Gavaskar's performances in meaningful fourth innings
Score	Team total/ overs batted	Opposition & venue	Result
117*	221-5/ 103	West Indies, Barbados	Draw
53	145-8/ 50	England, Lord's	Draw
0	174-6/ 101	England, The Oval	Won
58	182/ 85.1	England, Old Trafford	Lost
0	118/ 42.5	West Indies, Bangalore	Lost
8	202/ 77.1	West Indies, Bombay	Lost
102	406-4/ 147	West Indies, Trinidad	Won
24	83/ 38.5	England, Madras	Lost
113	324/ 84.7	Australia, Brisbane	Lost
29	445/ 141.4	Australia, Adelaide	Lost
1	125-7/ 46.2	West Indies, Madras	Won
221	429-8/ 150.5	England, The Oval	Draw
25	200-4/ 63.2	Australia, Calcutta	Draw
21	364-6/ 131	Pakistan, Delhi	Draw
5	135-8/ 75	Australia, Adelaide	Draw
12	190/ 75.3	New Zealand, Wellington	Lost
83*	170-3/ 83	England, Calcutta	Draw
1	103/ 47.1	West Indies, Ahmedabad	Lost
19	198/ 66.2	Sri Lanka, Colombo	Lost
54	174-5/ 78	England, Edgbaston	Draw
90	347/ 86.5	Australia, Madras	Tie
96	204/ 93.5	Pakistan, Bangalore	Lost
Total runs 1132			Average [B]56.60[/B]

HEAR HEAR Ability to hold the batting together under pressure: The little master PWNS the Mumbai " blaster".

Tendulkar's performances in meaningful fourth innings
Score	Team total/ overs	Opposition & venue	Result
27	224/ 62	England, Lord's	Lost
119*	343-6/ 90	England, Old Trafford	Draw
17	333/ 100.1	Australia, Adelaide	Lost
5	141/ 55.1	Australia, Perth	Lost
1	141-4/ 82	South Africa, Johannesburg	Draw
10	114/ 35.2	West Indies, Mohali	Lost
2	137/ 53.3	South Africa, Calcutta	Lost
4	66/ 34.1	South Africa, Durban	Lost
9	144/ 66.2	Cape Town	Lost
4	81/ 35.5	West Indies, Barbados	Lost
8	281-5/ 100	Sri Lanka, Colombo	Draw
7	173/ 56.4	Zimbabwe, Harare	Lost
136	258/ 95.2	Pakistan, Chennai	Lost
9	232/ 79.1	Pakistan, Calcutta	Lost
0	110/ 38.1	Australia, Adelaide	Lost
52	195/ 89.3	Australia, Melbourne	Lost
17	155-8/ 41.1	Australia, Chennai	Won
42	126-6/ 45.5	Zimbabwe, Delhi	Won
86	252/ 88.3	West Indies, Jamaica	Lost
12	397/ 109.4	England, Lord's	Lost
37	233-6/ 72.4	Australia, Adelaide	Won
2	200/ 53.3	Australia, Nagpur	Lost
16	214/ 90	Pakistan, Bangalore	Lost
26	265/ 58.4	Pakistan, Karachi	Lost
34	100/ 48.2	England, Mumbai	Lost
0	179/ 55.1	South Africa, Durban	Lost
16	282-9/ 96	England, Lord's	Drawn
Total runs 698			Average [B]26.85[/B]

What a collossal waste of time and energy..... another purely biased article...why? If Sachin's record is poor compared to Gavaskar in the 4th innings then Sachin's record towers over Gavaskar in the remaining 3 innings, simple mathematical calculation. If you are telling me that only runs in the "meaningful" fourth innings matter then that is your bias... and S.Rajesh's you have 1 criteria , i have another Gavaskar ...the greatest Indian batsman, the monster, the collosus.... the incredible fast bolwer dominator...the blah blah of blah ....... averages 65.45 against the all-powerful team on planet earth WEST INDIANS in 27 glorius test matches. he played more matches against England------ 38 So why does he average a fantabulous 38.2 against them inspite of having a 221 against his name? Were the english bowlers more fearsome than the most fearsome bowling attack the cricketing fraternity has ever know?

[Roshanrocks]

O my GODDDDDDDDD the incredible ----- majestic ------superBlah blah -------Gavaskar........ saw the mighty English team score 334-4 in 60 overs in a "meaningless" world cup fixture..... got totally terrified of the incredible bowling attack of the same englishmen again and played out a majestic 36 off 174 balls with one superby timed 4.... WOW...... who says the West Indian bowlers were great... ? the greatest bowlers were all in the English team :D http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65035.html isnt it sooooooooooooo? If Tendlya had played the same bowlers for 174 balls he would have scored 200 then and there

[SJS50]

First and foremost, I am not very fond of the debate of comparing Gavaskar and Tendulkar so what I am about to say is not my endorsing one or the other. Secondly, I am a great fan of Gavaskar as someone of my generation would naturally be. He is just about six months older than me. We have grown up on a diet of him and his batting. Further, I wrote a piece on his sixtieth birthday last year. This piece - Sashti Poorthi (Sixty Complete) : Sunil Gavaskar should leave no one in any doubt over how much of a Gavaskar fan I am. However, as I repeatedly tell friends on the net, our adulation of a cricketer or of a team should not blind us to the extent of losing objectivity. So jumping up in defense of India every single time or to consider my Indian heroes completely infallible and treating any criticism of them or the Indian team as an act of being un-patriotic is not something I endorse. Hence the following :) Inspite of the fact that Gavaskar was one of the all time great opening batsmen, there is a bit of a 'myth' surrounding his handling of the greatest battery of 'demonic' fast bowlers ever seen together in the history of the game. The 'myth' is built mainly because of his fabulous record at a time when, it is true, some of the best and fastest bowlers of the game were playing all together. His personal record against the West Indies in particular lends great strength to this argument. As I have said elsewhere, stats need to be looked at but carefully for while they can tell us quite a bit (not all) they can also misguide completely if not seen in more detail and with context. The piece that follows was written as a post on the CW forum a few years ago. i am doing a cut and paste job to save time so excuse me if errors and typographical mistakes are carried forward.

Gavaskar's career is a very interesting one. Before starting one has to state that he is one of the finest opening batsmen of all time but that should not prevent us from looking at his weaknesses. I have been fortunate enough to see him from his University days till the end of his great career. He was a batsman with a fabulous technique, a great idea of where his off stump was and one who could play all the strokes in the game though he gave up the hook very early in his test career. Having said that, he did show a slightly reduced appetite for runs when faced by the real fast bowlers who also moved the ball. Pure speed did not trouble Gavaskar but movement coupled with sheer speed did find this great batsman at a level below his best - considerably his best I would say. To analyse his career its not enough to talk of his record against the West Indies. Its much better to talk of his record away from the sub continent where the conditions did not often favour such bowling - speed and sharp movement - though there were the occasional exceptions to this. So lets look at how he fared in Australia, New Zealand, England AND West Indies.

Gavaskar in Australia

Gavaskar played three series in Australia.

• 1977-78 (5 tests)
• 1980-81 (3 tests)
• 1985-86 (3 tests)

He has a great overall record - or so it appears - 920 runs in 11 tests at 51.11 with 5 centuries. Breaking up the series and looking at each bowling attack and Gavaskar's performance against each shows an interesting trend. In the first series, the Packer series took away almost the entire Australian regular team and the attack Gavaskar faced had only Thomson of any class whatsoever. The bowlers who assisted Thommo with the new ball during this series were :

• Wayne Clarke - who was making his debut
• JB Gannon - who was making his debut never to play again
• IW Callen - who was making his debut never to play again

Gavaskar's 450 runs at 50 each do not appear all that great in the light of this attack. He scored three centuries in the five tests. In the last series in 1985-86, McDermott (a reasonable bowler) was assisted by :

• DR Gilbert - who had made his debut earlier that year
• Bruce Reid - making his debut and
• Merv Hughes - making his debut !!

Gavaskar broke-in a lot of debutants down under :)

He averaged 117 plus in the three tests he played in this series.

Thus in these two series with five debutants and another near-debutant, Gavaskar scored 802 runs in 8 tests with five hundreds ! Great. The series in the middle - 1980-81 - was the only time Gavaskar faced Dennis Lillee in a test match although they both made their debut in the 1970-71 season and Gavaskar outlasted Lillee by three years ! In this series, Lillee was assisted by Lenny Pascoe and Rodney Hogg. Gavaskar scored a fighting 70 in the last innings of this three test series in a partnership of 165 for the first wicket with Chetan Chauhan to set up Australia a mere 142 to win the series 2-0. Kapil rocked Australia with 5 for 28 for India to win the match by an amazing 59 runs and draw the series.

Gavaskar, before that 70, had scores of 0. 10. 23. 5 and 10. He averaged 19.67 for the series.

You cant help but wonder how he would have fared had he faced Lillee more often. Maybe he would have come out on top maybe not ...

Gavaskar in NewZealand

Gavaskar played just two series in NewZealand.

• 1975-76 - 3 tests - 266 runs at 66.5
• 1980-81 - 3 tests - 126 runs at 25.2

Not bad you could say. One good series one bad and an overall average of 43.6 . But who was the best NewZealand bowler of the day ? Richard Hadlee - right. Hadlee missed the first test of the first series. Gavaskar scored 116 and 35 not out. The young Hadlee played the next two games and Gavaskar got 22, 71, and 22. In the next series, Hadlee , now assisted by Lance Cairns played all the three tests and Gavaskar scored 23, 12, 53, 5 and 33 ! It is strange. 151 for once out in one game and an average of 30 in the next five and Hadlee happens to be a conspicuous difference between the two sets of games.

Gavaskar in West Indies.

Gavaskar played three series in the Carribean.

• 1970-71 (4 tests) 774 runs at 154 +
• 1975-76 (4 tests) 390 runs at 55.7
• 1982-83 (5 tests) 240 runs at 30

The bowling attack of Gavaskar's debut series need not be discussed. Its well known that an ageing Sobers - as a bowler far from his best - was probably the better bowler in the side. But what of the other two series. In the second series. Andy Roberts was available only for two games, Holding, who bowled pretty well, was making his debut (not again) and Brendon Julien and Wayne Daniell brought up the rear. It was a reasonable attack though not a fearsome one and nowhere near the great West Indian attacks we talk of with awe. Gavaskar did well averaging in the mid fifties. This was not an attack to bother this great batsman. The third series saw Gavasker faced with the full fury of the Windies pace battery. Holding, Roberts, Garner and Marshall were available right through the series. Gavaskar scored a superb 147 not out in the middle of the series - the 3rd test which was drawn without even a single innings of either side being completed. However, on either side of this century Gavaskar had scores of 20, 0, 1, 32, 2, 19, 18, 1. Clearly the fearsome foursome had the measure of our great little master.

Gavaskar in England

Gavaskar toured England five times - more than any other country. Except for 1979, his record was far from great. The 1979 tour saw Gavaskar in great touch and he played probably the finest innings an Indian has played in England ever. He scored 542 runs on this tour at 77.4 with four fifties and a magnificient 221. In the other four series he scored :-

• 1971 - 3 tests - 144 runs at 24 - 1 fifty
• 1974 - 3 tests - 217 runs at 36.2 - 1 fifty and 1 hundred
• 1982 - 3 tests - 74 runs at 24.7 each - no fifty
• 1986 - 3 tests - 175 runs at 29.2 each - 1 fifty

Not a great record. The bowlers for these series were mainly Snow & Price, Old, Arnold & Hendricks, Willis & Botham and Dilley & Foster (with Pringle for company). Well Gavaskar had his problems lets say and leave it at that.

At this point one of the other posters on CW asked me how many time Gavaskar fell to the best of fast bowlers. (or words to that effect. Here is my reply. . .

Although one doesn't always fall to the bowler who is troubling him which is why we say so-and-so benefitted because a great bowler was bowling at the other end, here are the figures you ask for.

1980-81 - Australia

- New ball bowlers - Lillee, Pascoe and Hogg - Gavaskar fell to one or the other of them in each of his six innings in the series

• Lillee (2),
• Pascoe (3) and
• Hogg (1)

1975-76 and 1980-81 - NZL

• Of the eight innings in which he faced Hadlee he fell to him twice.
• Falling to Snedden twice,
• Lance Cairns once and
• Dayle Hadlee once.

1982-83 - West Indies

- New Ball Bowlers - Holding, Marshall, Garner, Roberts - Of his 8 didmissals in the series, Gavaskar fell to one or the other of these bowlers in seven innings and to another fast bowler, Winston Davis in the 8th.

• Holding (3),
• Marshall (2),
• Garner (2)

. . . . . I forgot England tours. Here are the four tours where he did not do well.

• Year : 1971
• Main Bowlers : Snow and Price

Gavaskar fell to them four times out of six innings, twice each

• Year : 1974
• Main Bowers : Arnold, Chris Old and Hendrick

Gavaskar fell to one or the other of them in each of the five innings he was dismissed by bowlers. Old (3), Arnold (2)

• Year : 1982
• Main Bowlers : Botham and Willis

Gavaskar fell to them in each of the three innings he played . Willis (2), Botham (1)

• Year : 1986
• Main Bowlers : Dilley, Foster and Pringle*

Gavaskar fell to them five times in six innings the other time being his old 'friend' from England's tour of India, John Lever. Dilley (2), Foster (1), Pringle (2) *Note: Pringle wasn't a frontline bowler but did very well in this series picking up 13 wickets in just two tests at very little cost. I find it interesting to see how Gavaskar seemed to have trouble with those who made the ball come in as well as leave him. He was very good at letting the out swing go. We used to marvel at how he would let go deliveries pitching on the stumps and raise his bat and watch the ball pass just outside his off stump. He seemed to be flirting with danger but he knew exactly where his off stump was and where that ball was going. But if he got a bowler who made them come in as well as leave him, he had loads of problems. Balls coming in and towards his middle and leg stump he had no problem and could keep clipping them off his toes from to mid-wicket to fine leg for days. But let the ball come in from outside the off stump and if it wasn't short enough he would have trouble. Sometimes because it came in and had him leg before but more often when it didn't and he played at it not knowing it wasn't coming back. One of the most frustrating things of watching Gavaskar bat was to see him give a master class and then suddenly touch one to the keeper or the slips. This from one who left literally hundreds of deliveries withing millimeters of his off stump. His whole batting was built around leaving alone good deliveries if he could (or defending them if he couldn't) and punishing every lose delivery. His patience was phenomenal and his vigil (the wait for the loose delivery) never wavered. For someone who did not appear of an aggressive bent at the crease, Gavaskar was one of the most ruthless punishers of the bad delivery. He almost never missed it. I strongly suspect that bowlers who troubled him with sharp and late inward movement, coupled with one that goes through or moves away off the seam, completely upset his normal game by making him unsure of which ball to leave. But if he just brought the ball in and not much else, Gavaskar wasn't troubled. It was fascinating to see how John Lever scythed through the Indian batting in India in 1976-77 , taking 26 wickets at a ridiculous 14.62 runs each with his massive inswing. While Lever was running through the Indian batting he did not get gavaskar too often. Gavaskar was having a modest home series - 394 runs in ten completed innings with one hundred and one fifty and an average approaching 40. However Lever got him only twice while Underwood took him out six times. Gavaskar did not dominate Lever and was very watchful playing him but he did not get out to the new ball that often getting starts on most occasions with innings of 38 (140 balls), 71 (215), 18 (50), 39 (135), 24 (66), 50 (82), 108 (219), 42(103). Thats a lot of deliveries. He was also becoming more aggresive towards the end of the series as his strike rate shows. I repeat, this is not to run down a truly great opener but to put the 'myth' in context. I keep putting the word myth in parenthesis for it is only partly a myth. Gavaskar did face some truly great bowlers and he did have some memorable innings against them. . . just not as many as we tend to believe.

[SJS50]

I was tempted just now to read that piece of mine on Gavaskar's sixtieth birthday, once again. I had forgotten and was amused to see that I did write in that feature about the Gavaskar vs Tendulkar debate, very briefly though. . .

Lot of people ask those of us who were lucky enough or, sadly, old enough to have watched both throughout their careers as to how do they compare - Gavaskar and Tendulkar. This is a disease the cricket fans are stuck with. I think it is genetic - this need for the cricket lover to conclusively establish the superiority of one cricketing great over another. So I am not going to help resolve this issue for anyone - not that there is even the remotest possibility of any such issue ever being conclusively resolved - but let me try and give you a flavour of the impact SMG had on us four decades ago.

[Roshanrocks]

Lovely article Mr. SJS50 :hatsoff:

[Guest DeveGowda]

i dont know whom to support :hmmm:

[Roshanrocks]

SO............ Gavaskar vs Tendulkar 1. Gavaskar scored better than Sachin in the 4th innings good then wat else? *dominance against windies quicks? dismantled in the posts above *Gavaskar (add any insult u wish) when he saw english bowlers in ODI as well as tests. *Gavaskar was a ( add any insult u wish to ) in ODI cricket totally outclassed by Sachin in all kinds of theories and stats. *Gavaskar's highest score inspite of being an ODI opener playing 60 overs was apthetic 103* which was probably gifted to him as aretirement gift by the oppostition. *Gavaskar didnt wear helmet? SO? By the theory of---> less protection inducing faster reflexes and increasing stamina for running

[Roshanrocks]

holy popoly golly sholly Gavaskar scored his only ODI century against NewZEalnd an incredible 103* :clap: which was probably a ta-ta gift. even then his average against them is ... you know how much? a mind blowing average of 19.84 you just remove that innings for kick's sake and what happens my friend??? and his average falls to 11.94 bloody tail enders will have more average than that...Wot say???? ---------------------

[Guest DeveGowda]

Poor Gavaskar...Some people here are now trying to remove his chaddi :giggle:

[Sooda]

I realise that aap bhi mere aur Dhondy jee ki tarah chaalak aur samajdaar hai.

Achhaaa? :P SJS ke last post padha aapne..? Padhiye ji aur apna rai bataiye...

[achilles]

i dont know whom to support :hmmm:

Bloody referee. Yeh topic mein post karke aur logon ko bhidake maja leta hai :(( :giggle:

[Guest DeveGowda]

Bloody referee. Yeh topic mein post karke aur logon ko bhidake maja leta hai :(( :giggle:

You hav to take these threads for fun..if u take seriously may have to visit Nimhans.... No body will give an inch even if they ar wrong... The threads run not based on players performance..this runs just on Posters Ego... :((

[CSK Fan]

I agree Achilles. I also agree with Vortex that it is not accurate to compare players across different eras. Applying "weights" etc is nothing but a fanciful exercise. However, there is nothing to stop you from comparing batsmen from the same era. For example, Lara has played against six of those great fast bowlers that Patriot posted for Tendulkar (he didn't play Steyn), and in a similar number of matches too. In those matches, he averages 42.73 to Sachin's 37.23, a difference of 5.5. That's pretty big. In those matches, Lara has been dismissed 29/88 (33%) by these bowlers. Sachin has gone 20/69 times (29%). If you had to compare Gavaskar to his peers, perhaps you should choose Greg Chappell, whose reputation for playing fast bowling was immense. He also didn't have the advantage of not having to play against the fearsome quicks, as Viv did. His average against Marshall, Roberts, Holding, Garner, Imran and Hadlee is a solid 50.58. Sunny's average against the same bowlers was 49.91. Greg was dismissed 22/53 (41.5%) times by these bowlers, while Gavaskar was dismissed 39/74 (52.7%) times. Thus, stats show that Gavaskar was as good as the best of his era against the great fast bowlers. You can't say that about Sachin. However, Sachin averages more than Lara overall. To have achieved that, it is quite clear that he outscored Lara against weaker bowling sides by a big margin, not just to make up the deficit from his penury against the fast bowlers, but to get ahead of Lara.

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: No it is not quite clear. please explain. it looks more like you twisting things to suit yourself again Here is a suggestion. Take the stats only for 90s for both Lara and Sachin and take the best fast bowler and compare. Dont take stats for 2000 after Sachin changed his style of play to prolong his career

[CSK Fan]

@ the OP. Looks like another instance to prove you are never going to understand the game of cricket or enjoy it ever. you are looking for it all the wrong places. (cricinfo stats guru is not where cricket begins and ends)

[Dhondy]

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical: No it is not quite clear. please explain. it looks more like you twisting things to suit yourself again Here is a suggestion. Take the stats only for 90s for both Lara and Sachin and take the best fast bowler and compare. Dont take stats for 2000 after Sachin changed his style of play to prolong his career

This is very worrying, MTC. You don't understand stats, you can't do basic maths, you can't read....have you had any education at all? I'll explain this very slowly, very patiently to you because quite clearly you struggle to keep up with the rest despite your best efforts. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification- I will repeat myself if necessary. So if Sachin averages 37 v the best bowlers and Lara averages 42, and if Sachin's overall average is 55, and Lara's is 52, how much will Sachin average vis-a-vis Lara versus the other, lesser bowlers? a. More than Lara, more even than his own career average of 55 b. More than Lara, but less than 55 c. Less than Lara d. Doesn't matter. Sachin will always average more than Lara, given MTC's maths skills. This shouldn't take you more than a few hours to work out, fella. Get started. Don't forget to take a break. I wouldn't want you to become over-wrought.