Sachin's career was sublime. But Cook's could surpass it ( Article by Peter Oborne)

[Muloghonto]

Thats some thing i am also perpetually perplexed about...if i had played some first class cricket in 1990's even i would be called better than current indian test bowlers...its styllish and romantic to call the past better..i guess thats the explanation. Reality is probably the exact opposite.

Err no, there is no basis to the theory that ALL sports show linear or exponential growth in quality over time and technology applied to it. Your theory of 'newer is more developed, therefore better' can perhaps be applied to sports like athletics, where advances in medical science and better training at a younger age leads to better physical development & talent identification, which translates to EVERYTHING in terms of performance in athletics (the physical attribute). But you cannot engineer a messi, or a Tendulkar or a Curtly Ambrose. Cricket is a game of skill, first and foremost. If strength equated to fast bowling linearly, then trust me, Brian McMillan would've been way, way faster than Alan Donald. If better hand-eye coordination was the key to batting well, then Kaluwithrana would've been the best batsman ever. Cricket is a contest, like soccer, where there are ups and downs in quality, as real top level talent cannot be cultivated, it simply has to be 'found', which may not always work. In cricket, I'd say the highest quality of batting & bowling spread amongst all the teams, would be the 1990s era. Yes, in the 75-85/90 was a good era for fast bowlers, but they were not actually better than the 90s IMO. The 90s Pakistan, India, Australia were a better team than the 80s version of them but the 2014 version of India, Pakistan, Australia are all inferior to their 90s counterpart. On the other hand, the west Indies were still a worldclass side in the 90s but are completely hopeless now, turning out performances in such fits and spurts that they are essentially, the best of the minnows. England on the other hand, has been a much better team in the 2005-2014 period than they were in the 1990s, Sri Lanka of 2000-2010 period are much better than SL in the 1990s, NZ of the 2010-onwards is probably the best NZ side i've seen since the days of Hadlee & Crowe. RSA has better batsmen than they had in the 90s but are a worse side now than before simply because of 'No Kallis replacement' factor. Their bowling on the other hand, hit its peak in the 96-2000 period, when Donald, Pollock, Ntini & Klusener coincided, supported by one of the most underrated fast bowlers of alltime (who IMO would walk into most sides for his skill): Fanie deVilliers,.

[cricketfan28]

yes cook can surpass tendulkar .

[Zero_Unit]

To be completely fair and unbiased, regardless of what cook ends up with, he will most likely never stay in peoples mind. People like Sachin, Pointing, Bradman, Warne, Murali, Lara and co left something behind to talk about but cook is cook. He is characterless, too much of a quite guy.

[BlueBee]

Cook can only score against us :((

[Temujin Khaghan]

lot of morons keep saying that if any player shows up for 200 test games, then they will eventually score as many runs as Sachin. But that player has be good enuf to be selected consistently for 200 test games - smthg morons conviniently seem to forget always.

[Zero_Unit]

lot of morons keep saying that if any player shows up for 200 test games, then they will eventually score as many runs as Sachin. But that player has be good enuf to be selected consistently for 200 test games - smthg morons conviniently seem to forget always.

This just triumphed all the previous comments!:hatsoff:

[donks1]

lot of morons keep saying that if any player shows up for 200 test games, then they will eventually score as many runs as Sachin. But that player has be good enuf to be selected consistently for 200 test games - smthg morons conviniently seem to forget always.

neither was sachin good enough to get selected for 200 games. he was basically carried by other team members for close to 3 years while he went on his personal vanity quest to play 200 tests. cook reminds me a lot of tendulkar. a punchy stroke player without the frills and audaciousness of a lara or a ponting or even a sehwag. i don't think cook will ever match tendulkar's average though. but one thing cook does have over tendulkar at this point in their careers is a greater number of match/series defining knocks. i believe none of sachin's knocks led to his team winning a game away from home for an astonishing 13 years from his debut or something?

[Temujin Khaghan]

neither was sachin good enough to get selected for 200 games. he was basically carried by other team members for close to 3 years while he went on his personal vanity quest to play 200 tests.

the other option was rohit sharma

cook reminds me a lot of tendulkar. a punchy stroke player without the frills and audaciousness of a lara or a ponting or even a sehwag. i don't think cook will ever match tendulkar's average though.

topic is not about technique. its about if cook will reach tendulkar

but one thing cook does have over tendulkar at this point in their careers is a greater number of match/series defining knocks. i believe none of sachin's knocks led to his team winning a game away from home for an astonishing 13 years from his debut or something?

topic is not about that either. see above.

[CSK Fan]

neither was sachin good enough to get selected for 200 games. he was basically carried by other team members for close to 3 years while he went on his personal vanity quest to play 200 tests.

False, Sachin never looked wholly out of form, except for one or 2 really poor series. He did show lots of flashes of brilliance. If any player deserved a longer rope he did The idea of him deciding the 200th test is also false, when it was clearly BCCI which wanted him to retire on that landmark at home Not to forget the part where he played a big part in grooming players like Kohli and Pujara who openly acknowledge his role in transitioning to international cricket instead of falling by the wayside like our bowlers, a fact openly acknowledged by them You might be a good poster if even one single post of you depended on facts instead of hating everything about India and it's players including the simple fact that a win depends on the entire team and not a century knock.

[singhprakash72]

Wait till our trundlers bring him back to solid form....if Clarke,Ponting, McCullum, F du Plessis and Kallis could bring up centuries including double & triples from their slump, why can't Cook ?

[nevada]

Wait till our trundlers bring him back to solid form....if Clarke' date='Ponting, McCullum, F du Plessis and Kallis could bring up centuries including double & triples from their slump, why can't Cook ?[/quote'] Absolutely. I expect a 700+ run total for Cook in this series with at least 3 centuries.

[Muloghonto]

neither was sachin good enough to get selected for 200 games. he was basically carried by other team members for close to 3 years while he went on his personal vanity quest to play 200 tests. cook reminds me a lot of tendulkar. a punchy stroke player without the frills and audaciousness of a lara or a ponting or even a sehwag. i don't think cook will ever match tendulkar's average though. but one thing cook does have over tendulkar at this point in their careers is a greater number of match/series defining knocks. i believe none of sachin's knocks led to his team winning a game away from home for an astonishing 13 years from his debut or something?

Horseshyte. Sachin was only carried by his team for the last three series he played. So maybe thats 7-10 tests. The rest Sachin fully deserved to be there- first as a young prodigy, then as a great batsman for almost 20 years. Sachin's last three years saw declining dividends but he still was the second highest run scorer in England and Australia for team India. That indicates fully deserving his spot. As for Cook and Tendulkar, lol. Tendulkar on his most sedate day was more dominant than Cook on his fieriest day. Yes, Tendulkar was not as utterly brutal as Sehwag (though he did come close at his peak) and his strokeplay was not contemptuously stylish as Lara's, who sometimes oozed so much class that it looked like God toying with a mortal, but he was utterly dominant for well over a decade where his strike rate is in the top 5%. Cook never has been that aggressive.

[GoldenSun]

Cook is being flogged and branded as Captain Weasel right about now in Pomland. He has no heart.

[Straight Drive]

Peter Oborne has got it all wrong.

[BlackMamba]

To be completely fair and unbiased' date=' regardless of what cook ends up with, he will most likely never stay in peoples mind. People like Sachin, Pointing, Bradman, Warne, [s']Murali, Murali * (Murali with an asterix) , Lara and co left something behind to talk about but cook is cook. He is characterless, too much of a quite guy.

[vvvslaxman]

neither was sachin good enough to get selected for 200 games. he was basically carried by other team members for close to 3 years while he went on his personal vanity quest to play 200 tests. cook reminds me a lot of tendulkar. a punchy stroke player without the frills and audaciousness of a lara or a ponting or even a sehwag. i don't think cook will ever match tendulkar's average though. but one thing cook does have over tendulkar at this point in their careers is a greater number of match/series defining knocks. i believe none of sachin's knocks led to his team winning a game away from home for an astonishing 13 years from his debut or something?

That is as much sangakkara reminding me of Alec stewart.

[BlackMamba]

Cook has got 81 Tests scheduled till 2020 and he will only be 36 by then. At 46 Avg he is going to add 7000 plus runs. So I'd say he is well on his way to overtaking Tendulkar

[vvvslaxman]

Cook has got 81 Tests scheduled till 2020 and he will only be 36 by then. At 46 Avg he is going to add 7000 plus runs. So I'd say he is well on his way to overtaking Tendulkar

Assuming he doesn't get kicked out before. Lot of people are already calling for his head. In the last few series his average is mere 22.

[JaiRamesh2]

If Cook wasn't captain, then he would have been dropped for this series. And if England loose this series to india, then Cook will surely get axed both as captain and from the team (if he remains in this form).

[Laaloo]

Cook has got 81 Tests scheduled till 2020 and he will only be 36 by then. At 46 Avg he is going to add 7000 plus runs. So I'd say he is well on his way to overtaking Tendulkar

lol