Staistics caqn decieve but they don't lie. About the comparisons like Sachin and Lara. Their stats are too close for someone to just stand head and shoulders among the next one. (Bradman is the only exception). A true comparison can be made when the 2 players play under the same condition. Ex - Tendulkar v/s Dravid or Pointing v/s Hayden. its ironic that the record of all 4 of them are not that apart. They are all modern test greats. Ifs and buts matter a lot, so a realistic comparison is almost impossible. Example So far Poiting has made only one run in 6 inning he last played in India and shane warnes average was 50+ v/s india in test. So had shane warne or pointing been born in india would they be the great players, who knows but there is question mark. Similarly what if tendulkar was born in south africa etc would he still have that 55 average that made him great. But still statistics do tell a story especially if a carrer has spanned over many years.

@ Steven...again. I know where your going with your points of view but im not sure your really understand cricket or batting.

You failed to comment on my point about Prince and Cook.

It's quite amazing if you look at the facts. Prince scored 328 runs in the series. Cook scored 329 runs in the series.

Prince score a ton in the first test and the second test and set up the wins. The remainder of he innings he totaled 78 runs from 6 innings!!

Cook was far more consistent scoring 4 50's in 7 innnings but only his efforts in the last test made any difference.

By your opinion Cook is the more consistent, more runs, more 50's.

i think i can rest my case.

To say you'd have Chanderpaul over Lara says it all.

You believe Chanderpaul is a more consistent player than Lara was...let me see.

Lara scored a 100 every 6.8 innings and a 50 every 4.8 innings.

Chanderpaul has a 100 every 10.2 innings and a 50 every 3.9 innings.

So the fact suggest that Lara and Chanderpaul will both score a 50 around 4 or 5 innings but Lara scores more frequently in the ton stakes. Hence my point, 100's are more vaulable to a team than 50's.

ps, your comment about the 400* has been discussed ad nauseum. It was more about not losing the match and the series 0-4 than trying to win. Also i think it was important that the record was re-taken by a 'great' (Hayden is very good) player(Like previous players Sobers,Hutton, Bradman) against a proper team (not ZIM!).

The 400* is often seen by many non-west indian fans as an innings of selfishness and meaningless. This record was all the Windies fans could shout about at the end of a dreadful series and decade. To a true cricket fan will know how difficult it is to score 100, let alone a 200 or 300 or 400*

I think an interesting thought is highlighted in your argument about Jimmy andersen and Mark Butcher. You rightly pointed out the strange extremes in which ther careers have progressed. Well, statistics is exactly the same. They can be highly useful and highly useless in any given situation depending on what the context is. But, over a reasonably long career, definitely, it comes out as a useful tool to judge performance. I'll give you a statistic... 99.94.. few of us have ever really seen Don bat, but we accept him as the greatest batsman this planet has seen on the sheer awe of that number. In some ways, Jacques Kallis' achievements should be considered in the same light. A cricketer who has scored 30 centuries and 200-odd wickets surely is up there with the greats of the game. At the same time, there are others, who have made it cuz of their sheer competence to play in pressure situations. I think both these set of players deserve to be remembered as greats.

@Eddy- Did Windies win their series against England when Lara scored his 400 not out after a series of low scores . I think not. Why? Cause he was not consistent during that series. Similarly, after Bell scored his 199 and later failed to make any meaningful contribution during the rest of the test series against South Africa;did England win that series? You already answered that.Lets try a different approach .( Maybe you might get what I'm saying). A team with 7 consistent batsmen scoring at least 45 runs every match will more than likely lose less matches than a team who has players who score one big hundred every four innings. Don't get me wrong scoring hundreds is important but CONSISTENCY (at least 40 runs) is more important . If a player is consistent at scoring big hundreds then great. Case in point- West Indies would not lose that many matches if they had at least 3 more Chanderpaul(not a big 100 guy)like batsmen, than a player who scores one big hundred every six inning.

@ Veritas......i agree with most of your comments, i was only comparing Drav and Sunny because they have played the same number of games and very similar innings, i definatley wouldnt compare them as batsmen. @ Steven...lets not go down the 'he said he was better route' i.e. warne saying tendulkar was better or Murli/ McGrath saying Lara was better, really its just opinions that could go either way. But what i would say Steven is that your observation that a batsman 'Mr. A, scoring 40,42,43,45,42,40,49 and 39 in eight innnings to me has played better cricket than Mr. B who has scored 10, 12, 21 ,2,19 ,400 in six innings. Yes,Mr.B has played fewer innings and has more runs yet in my book he is not the better cricketer' Doesnt hold water. Scoring mid-forties again and again will not help you win a match or be considered great just as scoring 10's or 20's will have the same effect. But a few 10's and 20's followed by a 100 or 200 is something else.

I'll make a bet with you. I bet most readers of this blog would rather score 10, 10, 20, 100, 10, 200 (350) in 6 innings than 49, 40, 46, 37, 55, 32, 46, 45 (350) in 8 innings.

Big scores often win/help to win matches. 40's and 50's hardly ever!

We all look for tons scored and scores that win or set-up wins as judges of players perfomances. Give me a ton and a double ton in 6 innings (3 tests) anyday over nice litte knocks that dont do much for the team.

Check this out as a case in point. Ali Cook recently scored 60,18,60,76,9,39,67 against SA in 3 tests. England lost the series.

In the same series Ash Prince scored 101,9,149,39,2,4,24. SA won the series.

think about it steven.

Nice column and observation, but out of that piece only one thing is proven that none of the English men apart from KP has a world class record (ie batting average of 50 + over the carrier or bowling average of less then 25) over the last 15 to 20 years and by all accounts they are and have been an average side all along and have won nothing but an ASHES series at their home GROUND . So it proves the point if they would have players (atleat 3 to 4 ) with 50 plus averages or bowling averages of less then 25 or 25 plus centuries or 400 plus wickets,and not have results accordingly then YOU COULD HAVE A CASE but ............... STATS DONT LIE check out Aussies RECORDS Both individual and TEAM as well

Bla bla bla. thanks. last time i read this blog. i gave it three tries. the first time, kallis isn't a great instead of just giving him credit for being a better batsman than england has had for years and a better bowler than a lot of the crap they have had in their attack the last 15 years. the following week, graeme smith's 154 not out is basically useless because he isn't regarded by you as a fluent batsman. nevermind if your hero chanderpaul isn't that fluent either. and now, you're backing up your arguments with a lot of hot air of statistics. statistics are a true measure of what you're looking for. if you want to know who has the best career average, statistics will give that to you. doesn't mean that the one player helped his side out of more holes, no. but it does show you that the one performed better in his career against the teams he played. butcher's career average shows that he was simply a below average player.

I believe statistics are useful but you cannot use them at high level. To have valid comparisons, you have to remove certain data points that dont fit the analysis. Completely agree with Graeme's post that Tendulkar's mass of runs don't mean much without winning the World Cup. If you remove Tendulkar's ODI centuries made on Asia subcontinent and against mediocre attack, you realize that his record is actually quite poor in comparison to Lloyd, Richards, Aravinda de Silva, Ponting and Gilchrist. This explains why he has not been able to win the World Cup.

Going by stats alone, then Vinod Kambli (remember him any one?) must be the greatest Indian batsman. Enjoy what you see and who makes your heart flutter at the moment. Do not look back to see how they stack up in one's career. Afterall, a 300+ on the flattest of pitches, that does not earn a win for the team shouldn't count much. Ask Lara (his dragged out 400, just for the world record sake), Gayle (his 300), Sehwag (his 300 against SA recently)...drats these stats. Means nothing in my book. Enjoyed the hammering Laxman/Tendulkar (that too playing only on the on side)/Dravid/Ganguly handed out to Waugh's team (and NHussain's england and M.Vaughn's england). Now that will be in my memory for ever. Not what their career stats are. Who cares what they scored on flat pitches and ofcourse against B'desh and Zimbabwes (and more recently WI) of this world?

Thanks for all the comments.

I think statistics are very useful, but they only measure what they measure. In order for them to be useful to an argument, you have to show why the number is of relevance and, if using them to compare players, demonstrate that the basis of comparison is fair.

In my view, the career average is hardly ever relevant to any interesting question, and even if it might be, it is often not a fair basis on which to compare two players with markedly different career patterns.

And, as Tushar so eloquently says, numbers can rarely capture the true value of a performance in the context of a particular game.