Brian Lara-greatest West Indian test match batsman of all time?

[Harsh Thakor]

One of the most difficult points of analysis would be analyzing the best West Indian test match batsman of all.There are so may truly great batsman like George Headley,Gary Sobers,Rohan Kanhai,Viv Richards,Clive Lloyd ,Everton Weekes,Frank Worrel or Brian Lara.However who was the greatest of them? In the end it boiled down to Headley,Sobers,Viv Richards and Lara. What sets Viv Richards apart was the impact he made in games.His batting was reminiscent of thunder and lightning emerging on a cricket ground and he exuded the aura of an invincible emperor.In his peak era from 1976-80 ,including Packer cricket Viv was better than any batsman,bar Don Bradman.In a single series no West Indian batsman has score as much as 829 runs as Viv did in England in 1976 or 862 runs in a season like Viv did in the 1st year of World Series Cricket.V Amazingly George Headley averages over 95 in won matchse and 5 of his centuries won games.Headley was instrumental in his taem winning their first ever series in 1934-35 .His 270 n.o after his team was precariously placed at 1-5 was arguably the best innings ever in acrisis.On wet tracks he was better than Bradman.However Headley only played against England and Australia unlike the other champions.He also did not score at the exorbitant rate of Viv ,Lara or Sobers at his best. Gary Sobers has a phenomenal average of 77 in matches won and a big aggregate of runs in won matches.His best innings have been amongst cricket's classics like his 132 in the tied test ,113 against England at Kingston in 1968-69,254 v.Australia in Melbourne in 1972 and 365 n.o v.Pakistan.The ist 3 of these khocks were all made in a crisis.Gary posesssed al the qualities more than any of the garet batsman -consistency,ability to win and save matches,technical perfection etc. Brian Lara has the highest penchant for making big scores than any great batsman ever.Above all his 5 best knocks ever of 400,375,277,153 and 226 is the highest average of the 5 best scores of any great batsman.Lara's 153 n.o to me is the best innings ever in arun chase when West Indies won by 1 wicket chasing a target of 308 runs on a broken track at Barbados.His 277 at Sydney is arguably the best innings played by an overseas batsmen in Australia.Above all ,inspite of playing for such a weak team,Lara never restrained his agressive approach.Sobers and Richards played for champion teams unlike Lara.He dominated bowling relentlessly but never lost his silken artistic touch.What acted against Lara was his lack of consistency in periods like from 1996 to 1999.Lara also was not as dominant against great pace bowling as Sobers or Richards.In the 2 stats analysis compiled by Ananth Narayana of cricinfo in 2009 Lara,is even ahead of Sachin Tendulkar. and 2nd to only Bradman.He has the best match peformances rating,marginally ahead of Viv Richards.Even adding Viv and Sobers unofficial match stats Lara would still edge them.At his peak,I rate Lara marginally ahead of Tendulkar. Before my final verdict I would like to put theses stats below in 5 sections.I have compiled these statistics from S.Rajesh from cricinfo and later Anantha Narayana of cricinfo blogs. 1.Viv Richards In Richards' career series averages. Of the 29 series he played, 14 times he averaged more than 50, and less than 30 on just seven occasions, most of them coming either during the early years or at the end. Of the 24 Test hundreds he scored, 12 were in wins. Between 1974 and 1991, which is when Richards played his 121 Tests, only Greenidge scored more centuries in wins. Richards also averaged nearly 54 with six centuries in away wins. Unlike some batsmen who struggle to score in the last innings of Tests, his stats were remarkably consistent over the four innings of a match: his average in the first innings of matches was 53, while his average in the fourth innings was nearly 48, which represents one of the lowest variations among top batsmen. (Click here for his career summary.) Richards' best years were between 1976 and 1988. In 92 Tests during this period he scored 22 hundreds and was the only batsman to average more than 55 (among those who scored more than 4000). That was an era when several all-time greats were around - Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Sunil Gavaskar and Javed Miandad are all listed in the table below - but Richards' average was marginally higher than theirs (though he obviously didn't have to face his own bowlers, who were easily the most fearsome attack during that period). He averaged more than 50 in 13 out of the 23 series he played during this period. Performance of top batsmen in Tests between 1976 and 1988 (Qual: 4000 runs) Batsman Matches Innings Runs Average 100 50 Viv Richards 92 135 7091 55.39 22 34 Greg Chappell 50 87 4233 54.97 13 18 Javed Miandad 95 146 7033 54.94 19 35 Allan Border 100 175 7670 52.17 23 35 Sunil Gavaskar 108 180 8655 51.51 29 36 Gordon Greenidge 83 139 6025 48.58 14 30 Richards' best years were between 1976 and 1988. In 92 Tests during this period he scored 22 hundreds and was the only batsman to average more than 55 (among those who scored more than 4000). That was an era when several all-time greats were around - Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Sunil Gavaskar and Javed Miandad are all listed in the table below - but Richards' average was marginally higher than theirs (though he obviously didn't have to face his own bowlers, who were easily the most fearsome attack during that period). He averaged more than 50 in 13 out of the 23 series he played during this period. 2.Gary Sobers Excluding the first three years of his Test career, when Sobers was still finding his feet in international cricket, he averaged nearly 63 in 79 matches, which was easily the best during that period. England's Ken Barrington was the only other batsman whose average was close to 60. Even Sobers' overall career average of 57.78 is among the very best: with a cut-off of 3000 runs, only five batsmen have done better. Best Test batsmen between Jan 1958 and Dec 1974 (Qual: 3000 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Garry Sobers 79 7360 62.90 26/ 27 Ken Barrington 80 6754 59.76 20/ 35 Hanif Mohammad 37 3018 51.15 10/ 11 Doug Walters 50 3869 50.90 12/ 23 Rohan Kanhai 74 6021 49.35 15/ 28 Bob Simpson 50 4045 48.73 8/ 23 Ted Dexter 62 4502 47.89 9/ 27 Geoff Boycott 63 4579 47.69 12/ 26 Sobers was also one of the greatest match-winning batsmen in Test cricket: his average in wins was 77.42, which remains among the highest. Only the Don and Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq have higher averages. Highest Test averages in wins (Qual: 3000 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Don Bradman 30 4813 130.08 23/ 4 Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 4690 78.16 17/ 20 Garry Sobers 31 3097 77.42 12/ 11 Kumar Sangakkara 42 4282 76.46 15/ 15 Greg Chappell 38 3595 70.49 14/ 16 Some of Sobers' most memorable innings came against England. From 36 Tests against them, Sobers scored 3214 runs, which accounts for 40% of his total aggregate. He played eight full series against them, and averaged more than 75 in four of them. His poorest series against England was his last one, in which he managed only 100 runs from five innings, including scores of 0, 0 and 20 in his last three innings. Despite that, he finished with a 60-plus average against them, which is among the highest for any batsman who's scored more than 2000 runs versus England. Sobers was also one of the greatest match-winning batsmen in Test cricket: his average in wins was 77.42, which remains among the highest. Only the Don and Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq have higher averages. Highest Test averages in wins (Qual: 3000 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Don Bradman 30 4813 130.08 23/ 4 Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 4690 78.16 17/ 20 Garry Sobers 31 3097 77.42 12/ 11 Kumar Sangakkara 42 4282 76.46 15/ 15 Greg Chappell 38 3595 70.49 14/ 16 Some of Sobers' most memorable innings came against England. From 36 Tests against them, Sobers scored 3214 runs, which accounts for 40% of his total aggregate. He played eight full series against them, and averaged more than 75 in four of them. His poorest series against England was his last one, in which he managed only 100 runs from five innings, including scores of 0, 0 and 20 in his last three innings. Despite that, he finished with a 60-plus average against them, which is among the highest for any batsman who's scored more than 2000 runs versus England. 3.Brian Lara Top 5 innings analysis Top 5 inns (Runs) : 400 375 277 226 221 Total: 1499 Avge: 299.8 These small analytical segments bring new insights. The first is the average of the top-5 innings played by the concerned batsman. Lara's average of almost 300 is the highest of all batsmen. Next comes Bradman with 292.2 and then comes Sehwag, with 275.2. This confirms Lara's penchant for playing huge innings. Top 5 inns (Balls): 582 538 372 360 354 Total: 2206 Avge: 441.2 The next one is to look at the top 5 innings in terms of balls faced. The balls played data is available even for many older players. But this is not a complete analysis. Notwithstanding his attacking play, Lara has genuinely played many long innings. His average for the top-5 innings is a huge 441. The leader in this regards is Hutton with 588, followed by Hammond, with 566. Amongst modern batsmen, Jayawardene leads with 463 and Lara comes next. Dravid's average is 438. Lara as the highest scorer HS Inns: 65 % of inns: 28.0 HS Runs total: 7613 HS Next Best: 3623 % of Lara's total: 47.6 This is a new piece of analysis. I have determined the number of innings in which Lara was the leading scorer in the innings and worked out this as a % of total innings. More importantly, to get a handle on the level of support, I have added the next highest scores and determined this total as a % of the total of Lara's innings. The numbers are very illuminative. Lara has top-scored in 28.0% of the innings he played in. His is the highest amongst modern batsmen. Only Gavaskar matches this number. Of course, many old timers have figures in excess of 30, Bradman leading with 37.5%. The matching with Gavaskar indicates how often Lara carried his team. The next one is an even more enlightening one. This defines the support received. Lara received the least support amongst all batsmen. The next best batsmen have totalled 47.6% of Lara's aggregate, below even half-way stage. He is the only batsman to have received below 50% support. Sehwag is next with 53.5% and then comes Hutton with 53.7%. Just as a comparison, the number for Tendulkar is 65.4% and for Ponting, 64.9%. This is a clear confirmation of how often Lara carried the burden. Result based analysis Won 32 52 4 2929 61.02 8 16 6.5 15645 18.7% Drawn 36 54 2 3708 71.31 12 10 4.5 18400 20.2% Lost 63 126 0 5316 42.19 14 22 9.0 29004 18.3% This is a dicey area. The common tendency is only to talk about performances in won matches only. That is very nice in strong teams. However in weaker teams it is essential to look at how the player has performed in drawn and lost matches. Anyhow when your team only has won only 25% of matches you have played in, there is no other alternative. This point was also emphasized by in a comment made recently. Lara's average of 42 in lost matches is the highest amongst all contemporary batsmen. Similarly the % of team runs scored in lost matches is a very high 18.3%, the highest amongst all modern batsmen. His performance in drawn matches is also very good and is matched only by Kallis. Probably the more important factor is that Lara has maintained his contributions to the team runs at an even keel whether the matches are won, drawn or lost. This is a trait most batsmen lack in and most followers do not understand and appreciate. The emphasis is on winning. 4.George Headley With West Indies depending so heavily on Headley to put up runs on the board, he had a huge role to play in three of the five Tests that the team won during his career. In the first Test that West Indies won, against England in Guyana in 1930, Headley scored 114 and 112; the next time they won, against Australia in Sydney in 1931, Headley contributed 105 and 30. (Bradman made 43 and 0 in the same game.) Headley's highest score came in a win, too, when he scored an unbeaten 270 in Kingston, in a match England lost by an innings and 161 runs. Overall, Headley's average in wins was 95.75, and had it not been for his final game, when he made 16 and 1 in a game against England, his winning average would have been 124.83. Best averages in Test wins (Qual: 750 runs) Batsman Tests Runs Average 100s/ 50s Don Bradman 30 4813 130.08 23/ 4 George Headley 5 766 95.75 4/ 1 Graeme Pollock 9 1178 84.14 4/ 6 Clyde Walcott 12 1113 79.50 3/ 4 Mike Denness 8 783 78.30 4/ 1 Inzamam-ul-Haq 49 4690 78.16 17/ 20 Headley outscored Bradman in that Sydney Test mentioned above, but in the four other Tests in which the two played against each other, the Don was a clear winner. That was in the 1930-31 series in Australia, which the hosts won 4-1. While both batsmen scored two hundreds, Bradman made the bigger knocks - 223 and 152, to Headley's 102 not out and 105, and finished with a series average that was twice that of Headley. Considering the strength of the rest of his team-mates, though, Headley deserves even more credit for racking up the kind of numbers he did. The No. 3 position was Headley's favourite; it was a slot he occupied in 75% of his Test innings, but he scored 94% of his career runs in those innings. All of his 10 centuries came from that slot - which means, quite remarkably, one in every 3.2 innings in that position was a hundred - as did four out of five fifties. Among batsmen who've scored at least 2000 runs from that slot, only Bradman, Ken Barrington and Wally Hammond have higher averages than Headley's 71.17. They're also the only ones to average more than 70 in that position, with the average of the next batsman in that list, Viv Richards, dropping to 61.54. Best No.3 batsmen in Tests (Qual: 2000 runs) Batsman Innings Runs Average 100s/ 50s Don Bradman 56 5078 103.63 20/ 10 Ken Barrington 40 2626 77.23 13/ 7 Wally Hammond 52 3440 74.78 14/ 4 George Headley 32 2064 71.17 10/ 4 Viv Richards 59 3508 61.54 12/ 14 Brian Lara 66 3749 60.46 9/ 13 Ricky Ponting 177 9421 59.62 32/ 38 Kumar Sangakkara 127 6916 58.11 20/ 30 Rahul Dravid 179 8970 55.71 23/ 45 Hashim Amla 62 2977 53.16 9/ 16 5.Match Performances: The following factors are considered. Base for calculation will be Runs scored. Other factors are explained below. Each of these is a multiplicative parameter, ranging either side of 1.00. For certain parameters such as result, home/away, runs added with late order et al, there would not be a below 1.00 value. 1. Pitch type. 2. Quality of bowling - weighted by actual balls bowled by each bowler. 3. Position at batsman entry (5 for 1, 100 for 2, 24 for 3, 325 for 4 et al). 4. Runs added with late order batsmen (no. 8 onwards). 5. Innings type (1/2/3/4, Score faced, Target et al). 6. Match result, taking into consideration relative team strengths. 7. Match location (Home/Away). 8. Match importance (Series status). The points for each innings are computed, summed and divided by the number of matches played to arrive at the Match Performance Ratings value. The highest Match Performance Ratings value is 40.03 achieved by Bradman. George Headley is the next best in this category with 28.48 points followed by Lara with 27.31 points. Gary Sobesr has 25.48 while Wekes has 25.65 Thus the limit of 50 we set has worked out well. Revised match peformance ratings in 2nd analyssi of 2009 by Ananth Narayana 1.George Headley 24.07 2.Brian Lara 22.63 3.Viv Richards 21.83 4..EvertonWeekes-21.16 5.Gary Sobers 20.67 Headley has an advantage playing far few matches than Viv Richards,Sobers or Lara. Adjusting Viv Richards packer stats he would come much closer to Lara and adding rest of the world stats Sobers would also cross 21.Here Richards has the disadvantage of playing for such a strong taem and Lara vice -versa.Headley,played far fewer tests than the other greats.Amazingly Richards played in 63 tests won and adding Packer stats scored 9821 runs at an average of 52.Half his runs were scored in winning causes.Infact Gordon Greenidge statistically is outstanding as a match-winer winning matches when scoring 14 of his 18 centuries.Infact Viv averages 8 runs more in drawn games than matches won (60 v 52) Conclusion In the end I could only decide the verdict in a photo -finish.I Overall Brian Lara wins my vote as a test match batsman by a whisker because of his ability to single-handedly carry the burden of his team and still dominate bowling as much as Sobers or Bradman.Viv Richards was not sufficiently tested in International cricket under pressure as Brian.Remember Lara has the best average percentage score of the team's total score after Bradman and Headley.Infact Lara may well have been the best match-winning test match batsmen of his era had he played for a strong team ,overshadowing Ricky Ponting.Lara had the uncanny ability of never curbing his strokemaking and amassing mammoth scores.Arguably he is a more eligible candidate for a test match team than Viv Richards or Tendulkar.Lara could win matches and rescue his team in a crisis.True,Headley handled a crisis arguably even better but did not play against such a vast range of countries and pitches or amassed runs at such a phenomenal striking rate.I don't think Headley would change the complexion of game as much as Lara.I would place Gary Sobers 2nd because of his amazing consistency. ,who could like Lara win and save matches.From 1976-81 in his peak years Viv was the best test batsman .but did not mantain his consistency after 1981.A most important aspect is the peak years of Brian Lara when he average over 60 runs for a weak batting team.Above all Lara's batting posessed divine grace. Quoting Anantha Narayana from cricinfo cordon Lara has never been involved in any incident on field. In this matter he is exactly like his close friend, the one who, at last measurement was three inches shorter and a few Test runs richer!!! His fracas with the WICB on payments was something he did on behalf of himself and his team-mates. Where is Lara placed in the pantheon of batting greats? On numbers, nowhere, as do many of the other modern greats. However if we strictly rely on numbers, Lohmann and Barrington are certainties in any selection. There are many other factors. Many batsmen compete for the coveted second spot amongst Test batsmen. Sobers, Hobbs, Tendulkar, Lara, Richards, Hutton and Ponting form a reasonably populated group from which to pick one. I would not question anyone whose selection varies from mine. But as far as I am concerned, Lara is the candidate for this coveted position. If I have to justify this with numbers, a string of numbers would do: 153, 213, 688, 400, 375, 277 and 226. Infact in Anantha Narayana's alltime xi for all countries in his article "the 15 that the Gods stopped to watch" Brian Lara is the only batsmen with Bradman and Hobbs to be selected to play in all test match playing countries,which Tendulkar,Viv Richards and Gavaskar have not been chosen. for all countries.This shows Lara's diversity.

[Number]

Viv is probabaly the greatest ODI batsman. But in tests I rate Lara above him.

[carnish]

Yes, probably Lara's the best but I still feel Sobers was better.

[vvvslaxman]

with so much happening in world cricket, our Harish opens another "time machine" thread lol

[Vijay.Sharma]

As a pure batsman I think Lara was the best. In fact I think Lara along with Sachin and Don are the Virtuoso batsmen of Test cricket. And then we have the first tier of All Time Great batsmen which includes Sobers

[Raghav_12]

I never miss any of Harsh's poll and always vote.