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3 Brian Lara
For much of his career, Brian Lara was among the world's best batsmen and will go down in history as one of the world's all-time greats.
Lara's scintillating stroke play, ingenious technique and the ability to bat long made him an incomparably great batsman and from 2000-2005, he continued his reign as one of the world's top Test batsmen. In an uninspiring West Indies side, Lara was the team's primary run scorer and in only 56 Tests, he ran up a tally of 5631 runs at an average of 56.31.
It was during this span that Lara mastered the Sri Lankan spinners, including Muttiah Muralitharan, to score in excess of 650 runs in only 3 Test matches and in 2004, he brought up his world record score of 400 not out against England.
It was well and truly a purple patch like no other as Lara scored 18 centuries and 17 half-centuries to maintain his position as world's premier batsman.
