Who is the best batsman in the 10,000 Test runs club?

Over a week ago, Shivnarine Chanderpaul became the tenth batsman to get to 10,000 test runs.

He became the second West Indian batsman to achieve that milestone behind Brian Lara.

It than got me thinking, out of the ten batsmen who have past 10,000 runs, who is the best?

Here are the candidates:

The great thing about this list is the different styles all of the ten batsmen have at their disposal. From classical strokeplay, to tight defence. From a flamboyant player to a stubborn street fighter, it’s what makes this list of players so interesting!

Judging who the best batsman is, you have to take into the account how the individual plays and also what impact that player has on his team. It’s those other factors in which a statistical list doesn’t reflect the full story for every player.

But here we go!

The best batsman in the “10,000 runs club” in my opinion would have to be Brian Charles Lara, with Sachin Tendulkar a close second. I found Lara to be the aggressor of the two, who would take the game on – this is probably a reason for Lara’s very low number of not outs.

Here is my ranking:

1. B.Lara
2. S.Tendulkar
3. S.Gavaskar
4. A.Border
5. J.Kallis
6. R.Ponting
7. S.Waugh
8. R.Dravid
9. S.Chanderpaul
10. M.Jayawardene

Lara, not only scored quick, but made big hundreds. Lara made 9 double centuries and 2 triple tons, compare that to Tendulkar who managed 6 double centuries.

I believe the difference between the two, is that Tendulkar would take the game away from the opposition in a full days play, while Lara would do that in a session.

There’s the argument that Tendulkar has the better technique (a technique Bradman once said was similar to his), and the better record. But for mine what tips the scales towards Lara was that he played in fairly weak West Indies side for at least half of his career.

When Greenige and Haynes retired in the early nineties, Lara has played behind some very ordinary openers, except for perhaps the hit and miss Chris Gayle.

Lara would always come out with the West Indies in trouble, facing the new ball all too often. Apart from himself, Chanderpaul, Gayle and one or two others, the Windies batting hasn’t been up to scratch for some time now.

While with Tendulkar throughout his career, the Indian side would always have a strong batting line-up with the likes of Ravi Shastri, Virander Schwag, Mohammad Azharuddin, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly and VVS Laxman.

But between Lara and Tendulkar, I’ll never forget the respective innings where they announce themselves to Australian cricket fans at the SCG 20 years ago. Tendulkar’s 148* in 1992 was more than matched a year later at the same ground where Lara scored a brilliant 277 before being run out.

In their careers, they did combat two of the best spin bowlers of all time in Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, showing that they were both outstanding players of spin.

The next two I’d rank come from very similar eras in Allan Border and Sunil Gavaskar. Both had to overcome the fearsome West Indies attack of Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Colin Croft etc. But also other great fast bowlers like Ian Botham, Bob Willis, Dennis Lillee, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram.

Gavaskar, an opening batsmen from India, could bat all day. Border, however, was a street fighter, ready for battle at every opportunity. He was also regarded as perhaps Australia’s best player of spin in the last 50 years.

I give the edge to Gavaskar and rank him at 3, with Border at 4. Gavaskar is without doubt one of the best opening batsman of all time with close to a perfect defensive technique, and against the fearsome Windies attack he averaged a whopping 65.45 with 13 centuries in 27 tests.

Border deserves to be ranked at 4. This is simply because he took over a rabble of an Australian side in 1984, where for a long time, he was the lone ranger. Imagine if he didn’t have the added pressure of being captain, he might’ve pushed towards 12,000. When Border retired in ’94, he took the Australian side to the cusp of been number one again.

Also, if both Border and Gavaskar played Test cricket in the last 15 years, from 1997 onwards, their batting records would’ve improved thanks to improvement in bats, ropes brought in for boundaries, and only facing 2 bouncers per over.

Also they didn’t play minnows like Zimbabwe or Bangladesh (although Sri Lanka was a minnow during that period). There’s a fair consideration that “AB” and “Sunny” could’ve scored more than what they have and perhaps be a lot closer to Sachin and Lara, than to all the others are on the list.

Another player in that era was the one and only Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards. As you can see by the list above, he didn’t reach 10,000 runs (8540) and his average (50.23) is lower than many of the others.

They always say that stats don’t always tell the true story, and I think this is the perfect case in point. I argue that “Viv” perhaps is a better player than Lara, but thats another debate altogether!

At the number 5 position, I put Jacques Kallis ahead of Ricky Ponting at 6. Kallis just keeps on keeping on, while Ponting’s last few years have seen him struggle for consistency. On pure talent, Ponting’s the better batsmen, who along with Lara, is the most dynamic, uncompomising batsman of his generation. However, on the technical side of things, Kallis has the edge. It’s that better technique that still enables Kallis to still score runs well into his mid-thirties.

Since 2009, Ponting in 38 tests has scored 2649 runs at 40.13 with 4 centuries. While Kallis in 25 tests has made 2432 runs at an average of 62.35 with 12 centuries. The other thing in Kallis’ favour is he has nearly 300 test wickets to his name.

Steve Waugh comes in at 7, with Rahul Dravid at 8. Both very similar players, both the rock of Gibraltar for their respective sides and both with classical strokeplay. Dravid prefers batting for two days, while Waugh likes coming in when the score is 3/30, rather than 3/300!

“Iceman” Waugh and “The Wall” Dravid had many memorable innings between them. Waugh’s 200 in Jamaica evidenced the changing power at the top of world cricket, while in 2001 Dravid batted all day with VVS Laxman to change the 2001 Test series in India’s favour. Dravid scored 180, as India beat Australia, after India were forced to follow on after being 274 runs behind.

Bear in mind, however, Dravid did score more than 1500 runs in 16 tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Waugh on the other hand played five Tests and managed just under 550 runs against the same nations. It’s this key reason why I have Waugh ahead of Dravid.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul comes in at 9, ahead of Mahela Jayawardene. I felt “Chanders” deserved to be ranked higher than Jayawardnee, simply because Chanderpaul has been carrying the Windies side on his back the last 5 or 6 years since Lara retired. Jayawardene, however, has probably taken advantage of the flat pitches the sub-continitent has provided.

So there you have it. I chose Brian Lara the best player in the 10,000 runs club. I get the feeling not everyone will agree with that choice, or any other choices that I made.

In the coming years, players like Kumar Sangakkara (34), 9,382 runs, Graeme Smith (31) with 8042, Alistair Cook (27) with 6184 and Michael Clarke (31) with 6097 are a chance to join the 10, 000 list. Cook might be a chance to get close or even beat Tendulkar’s record. But at this stage, it is a long shot.

Even if all four make the list, I’d still pick Brian Charles Lara ahead of them.