Now that Sanga retire :

Sanga also only averages 44 vs non minnows outside the subcontinent/UAE, and with only 7 centuries there. It's the massive number of subcontinent games that jacked up his average by about six or seven runs.

Good stuff as always Trini. I just took a look at Sanga's numbers away from home against Australia, South Africa, England and New Zealand and I have his average at 45.92 in 30 matches overall with 13 50s, 7 100s. In 12 matches when playing as a wicketkeeper, he averaged just 27.45, while in 18 matches playing solely as a batsman, his averaged jumped to 58.24.

For comparison, Lara played 90 matches against these teams he averaged 52.93 with 36 50s and 21 100s.

For his career, Sanga averaged 42.99 against pace bowlers and 64.93 against spinners. Lara averaged 46.24 against pace bowlers and 53.78.

...

Obviously, both are best of the best in the history of the game, but if push came to shove, I'd take Lara over Sanga, although the decision becomes much tougher when looking at Sanga playing as a batsman only.

BCL gets my Vote !

For the Triple , Quadruple and whatever Five hundred is 

Half a thousand.

______________

Another way of gauging players is this: the ICC Player Rankings are the "official" guide to the relative merits of batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders in Test match and ODI cricket. They take into account bowling quality and pitch conditions. Currently, the mighty Joe Root has a rating of 917 in Tests, and Steyn 905.

Below is a list of average ratings over the entire career of some notable players.

Name - Rating

Brian Lara: 783.55

K.C. Sangakkara: 762.80

R. Dravid: 741.79

R.T. Ponting: 736.86

J.H. Kallis: 734.60

S.R. Tendulkar: 731.86.

K.P. Pietersen: 730.80.

M.J. Clarke: 727.24.

M.L. Hayden: 723.27

S. Chanderpaul: 709.19

Jayawardene: 705.22

V. Sehwag: 703.94

Inzamam-ul-Haq: 697.55

Younis Khan: 697.32

G.C. Smith: 695.97

A.N. Cook: 685.58

A.B. de Villiers: 682.40

Mohammad Yousuf: 681.21

H.M. Amla: 670.02

V.V.S. Laxman: 632.47.

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I don't have the figures for Viv, but I'd imagine it's crazy high.

Lara's ICC Ratings graph:



Sangakkara's ICC Ratings graph:



(Graphs can be enlarged by clicking on them)

Not surprisingly, there is a strong correlation between a big increase in Sangakkara's ratings once he stopped keeping wicket back in August 2006. I wish there was a way to get Sanga's average rating once he gave up the gloves. Remarkably, in the first six years of his career while keeping wicket, he hit 800+ only twice. Yet, since January 2007, he dipped under 800 just once. For comparison, Lara dipped under 800 26 times over the last 8 years of his career.

Viv had a peak rating of 938, the same as Sangakkara - tied for sixth all time. Lara's highest rating was 911 - 26th all time.

He was and always will be one of my favorite players.

Sangakkara and Lara's ICC ratings graph compared:




(Graph can be enlarged by clicking on it)

One thing that I think points in Lara's favour is that he faced the likes of McGrath, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Brett Lee, Donald, Warne, Murali, Vaas and Gough 5+ times in his career, whereas Sanga faced the likes of Anderson, Ajmal, Harbhajan Singh, Kumble, Pollock, Steyn, Johnson, Morkel, Broad and Tahir.

Lara also squared off 31 times against a dominant Australian side (during a period when they amassed 100 wins and 32 losses with a 27.62 bowling average), whereas Sangakkara played 11 matches against an Australian team that were a slight notch below (62 wins, 20 losses, 30.08 bowling average).

Of note, Sanga needs just 2 runs to become the 11th batsman to score 10000 against the top eight teams. The 10 to have already achieved this feat are: Tendulkar, Ponting, Dravid, Lara, Border, Chanderpaul, Steve Waugh, Jayawardene and Gavaskar. Seeing that stat further emphasises my point earlier in the thread that Allan Border was seriously hard done by in the poll.

Another big Sangakkara knock coming up. I'm calling it now. If I'm wrong, I pledge allegiance to all things Guyana.

Dammit.

Now Ketchim has to sign my adoption papers.

No problem, TD : You can prepare the Pelau for Amazon Warriors  ::LOL::