My Favourite Batsmen

I have six favourite batsmen – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden & Jacques Kallis. Each of them are in tremendous form at present and each one of them has been playing terrifically well for the last 20 years. And they are the best batsmen of the world – the best of their generation and among the greatest ever. They are a class apart from the rest and have been ruling the game ever since they made their debut. Sachin Tendulkar has been a master since 1989. He started at the age of 16 and has played with the likes of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock. Curtly Ambrose too had been a great bowler of his time and had dismissed many a batsmen with his fierce deliveries. Brian Lara also belongs to the generation of Sachin Tendulkar and was his contemporary and competitor for most of this time. They were compared throughout their playing days. If Sachin was massively consistent, then Lara had the capability of hitting big centuries. Ricky Ponting came in 1996 and Jacques Kallis in 1995. Both were good players from the beginning but they were not of the class of Sachin & Lara. They rose to this class eventually. Ricky hit 1500 runs in Tests in 2003 and ever since has been hitting more than 1000 runs in both Tests and ODIs in each calendar year. He has been breaking all records and now is behind only Sachin in all types of statistics in both Tests and One-days. Jacques Kallis was not an extraordinary batsman till 2004 but ever since he lost his father in 2005, this event had a major impact on him as a person and this has shown in his batting. He has grown in phenomenal form and has hit 2000 runs in 2006. He now belongs to the class of the greatest batsmen of the world and is one of the finest of the last decade. Rahul Dravid was a classy batsmen ever since he made his debut against Eng in Lords and scored 95. He has been awesomely consistent since then specially in Tests. He is a Test specialist and had recorded batting average of 58 or 59 for most of his career. His batting average in One-dayers is also close to 40. Though his Strike rate is not great but his stability in the team is immense. He was also a very good captain and led from the front. He inspired great performances from others through is able captaincy. Matthew Hayden came in 2001. He started his career by hitting 549 runs against India in a 3-Test series and hit a double century in that. Ever since then he has been a great batsman. He hit 20 centuries in 4 years and finished at 30 in the end. His average in ODIs also is 46. He was an aggressive batsman and one of the most destructive of his time. These 6 batsmen are among the greatest ever and it can be said that the present phase of cricket is of great batsmen and explosive batting as there are many great batsmen in the world. All this started with the new rule of field restriction in 1995 which stated that one two fielders could be outside the 30-yard circle in the first 15 overs. The NZ were the first team to take advantage of this rule and start the trend of hitting big shots and scoring runs in bulk in the first 15 overs. SL realized this possibility next and made use of it in the 96 World Cup. Ever since then it has been normal practice.