5 Greatest Test batsmen of all time

Cricket is quite possibly the only sport in the world that is played across three different formats at the highest level. ODIs and T-20s are not bad for generating temporary excitement, but Test cricket is unparalleled in terms of judging a player’s true quality.

It has always been the connoisseur’s delight and the purist’s choice. No cricketer can be called truly great unless he has performed well in test cricket, howsoever good his record in limited overs cricket might be.

Batting in tests is far more difficult than in ODIs or T-20s. A batsman has to be technically perfect as well as have enough strokes to be consistently successful in Tests. Moreover, he has to have the temperament to succeed in all kinds of playing conditions.

A great Test batsman should be comfortable playing against both pace and spin bowling. However, there have been a lot of great batsmen in the history of the game and it is not easy to pick the top 5 ones out of them. We would try to do the same in this article.

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#5 Sir Garfield Sobers (West Indies)

Sir Gary Sobers

Sir Gary, as he was famously known as, was the most complete cricketer of all times. In 93 tests, he scored 8032 runs at a very healthy average of 57.78. He was a brilliant left-handed middle-order batsman, who could tackle pace and spin bowling with equal ease.

There has never been a more complete cricketer than him and he also remains the greatest allrounder the game has ever seen.

Sobers also held the record of the highest score made by a player in an innings as he scored 365 not out against Pakistan. That record stood for more than 3 decades till his countryman Brian Lara broke it in 1994. He also destroyed Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson to score a memorable double-century in Australia, which still remains one of the finest knocks played in cricket history.

Sobers made 26 centuries and 30 half-centuries. His hooks and pulls against top-quality pace bowling were exemplary and h also drove very well against the spinners. Sobers could also score runs very quickly with his wide range of strokes. The great man retired in 1974 and the sport has not quite seen anybody like him since then.

#4 Sunil Gavaskar (India)

Sunil Gavaskar

It was a scary proposition for most of the batsmen in world cricket to even think of facing the fearsome pace battery of West Indies in the 1970s and 1980s. Gavaskar scored 13 centuries against the West Indian attack in his Test career and that piece of information should suffice in justifying his inclusion in this list.

He was a brilliant player against spin bowling too and his inning of 96 against Pakistan on a viciously turning track remains the finest exhibition of the requisite technique to play spin bowling.

Gavaskar was the first batsman to surpass 10000 runs in Test cricket and scored 10122 runs in 125 tests at an average of 51.10. He also made 34 centuries and 45 half-centuries in his brilliant career. He scored 771 runs in his debut series against the West Indies in their own backyard and never looked back after that. His shot selection was superb too and the straight drives and extra-cover drives still have very few matches. His achievements seem to be even more staggering when one considers the quality of bowling attacks he faced throughout his career.

#3 Sir Vivian Richards (West Indies)

Sir Viv Richards

It is quite commonplace for a batsman to be scared of a big, strong fast bowler with extreme pace. In Sir Viv’s case, the tables were turned as most of the fast bowlers were actually scared to bowl to him.

He could decimate any bowling attack on his day with his powerful drives and audacious pulls and hooks. He played 121 test matches and scored 8540 runs at an average of 50.20, but mere stats would not be able to do justice to the impact he had on bowlers all over the world.

Richards scored 24 test centuries and 45 half-centuries and was a part of a dominant West Indian team that managed to beat every other test playing nation during that period. His knock of 291 against England or the 56-ball century he scored in Antigua are still etched in the memory of a lot of cricket-lovers. He also never wore a helmet in his career and relied on his superb reflexes instead to slay the demons of hostile fast-bowling.

#2 Sachin Tendulkar (India)

Sachin Tendulkar

The greatest batsman in modern day cricket was a run-machine with a very wide range of strokes and a very solid batting technique. Tendulkar’s test career lasted 24 years and he made 15921 runs in 200 tests at an average of 53.80, the highest by any batsman.

Moreover, he faced top-class bowlers like Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan throughout his career and was successful against all of them. He also scored runs in every possible playing condition and on all sorts of surfaces.

Tendulkar made his debut at the age of 16 against Pakistan and went on to score 51 test centuries in a remarkable career. He scored centuries against all test playing nations both home and away. He also carried the batting burden of the Indian side almost single-handedly for a considerable part of his career. Tendulkar’s straight drives were his signature strokes and he silenced many hostile fast bowlers with them.

#1 Sir Donald Bradman (Australia)

Sir Don Bradman

Sir Don was probably the only cricketer whose stature and fame transcended the sport itself. It is safe to assume that his incredible test batting average of 99.94 would not be broken ever. Bradman made 6996 runs in only 52 test matches with 29 centuries. He was also the only cricketer to have scored 12 double hundreds.

Most of Bradman’s batting stats defy belief and seem to be other-worldly. He was the only batsman for whom an altogether different bowling strategy was invented. It was named as the “bodyline series” in which the English bowlers continued bowling hostile deliveries at his torso and legs. Bradman still managed to average 56 in that series, which is more than the career averages of many great batsmen!

He was also one of the very few batsmen to have scored 300 runs in a single day in a test match and two triple hundreds. The mythical Bradman needed to score only 4 runs in his last test innings to end up with a career average of 100, but was dismissed without scoring a run. That fallibility on his part maybe only confirmed that he was a human being after all!