Dear Editor,
During the last Test match between Australia and India in the current series being played Down Under, I noted what, in my opinion, was a not too subtle suggestion by some commentators that Sachin Tendulkar should only be compared to the Sir Donald Bradman in terms of who is the greatest batsman ever. This intrigued me, and so I decided to look up the stats of the players who I believe should be in the conversation. Please see table below.
From the table, one can calculate that Bradman scored a century every 2.76 inns. The rest of the players mentioned range from a century every 6.06 inns (Tendulkar) to 7.58 inns (Richards).
I know that other factors such as general quality of the opposition, the level of the technology, the general quality of the other members of the teams on which one would have played, etc, should be taken into consideration. However, based on the statistics presented above, in my opinion, Bradman is by a wide margin the best batsman the world has ever produced. In my opinion as well, Gary Sobers is the best batsman the West Indies has ever produced (in addition to being the best all-rounder the world has ever produced).
Yours faithfully,
Mark Bender
