Spanky rates Sachin against the best

skully wrote:Aye, rather odd choice of comparison (although I think your "2/3rds" is a bit of a massive exaggeration, TO), but I think taccy hit it on the head.

well maybe 'poor run of form' is a bit too harsh. but his average in the 1st third of his career was almost 50% more than in his last 2/3rds

he reached a peak average of 62.76 in his 43rd test

the next 78 tests he averaged 42.85, which is test class. but certainly not worthy of ATG status on its own

with the passage of time of course people put him up there with sobers, tendulkar, etc. since they remember the better bits. but thats a big drop in performance for the majority of your career

i think the fact that tendulkar is pretty much the gold standard for batsmen (not counting the don of course) is quite noteworthy. i cant remember the last debate of kallis vs richards or ponting vs sobers or lara vs gavaskar

and as gary said, tendulkar's game has changed immensely over the years. he does a lot more deflections and high percentage shots than the earlier hard hitting over the top. since his career threatening back injury in 1999 you hardly ever see him loft the fast bowlers over mid-on. one of his favourite shots now is the paddle sweep to the spinners, which he did not have. in 1998 he learnt the slog sweep while training to face warne with siva and other leggies bowling in the rough at practice. he started using the ramp over slips in the 155 at bloemfontein and used it again quite successfully in australia in 2007-08

i dont think any elite sportsmen can leave their game unchanged, especially in this era of high technology. the opposition can usually shut off your high yield areas quite quickly and you would see a huge drop in performance if you are unwilling or unable to change

I've heard Peter Roebuck called "Spanky" by people who've never had contact with Flaming Bails.

So we either have an enormous cultural influence or it's just a very obvious nickname.

Hass wrote:I've heard Peter Roebuck called "Spanky" by people who've never had contact with Flaming Bails.

So we either have an enormous cultural influence or it's just a very obvious nickname.

Of course his conviction has nothing to do with it