The second season of the ICL is about to start, and the world will see Brian Lara in action again, even if it’s only in the shortest form of the game. Simultaneously, Sachin Tendulkar will be plying his trade against Australia. They are the two greatest batsmen of their generation, and two of the greatest ever. But who’s greater?

The numbers. Lara has 53 centuries in international matches, is the highest aggregate scorer in the history of Test cricket, holds the record for the highest score ever made in a Test innings, and also in a first-class innings. Other than Sir Donald Bradman and our own Virender Sehwag, he is the only batsman in Test history to have scored two triple centuries, and the only one ever to have touched 400, and in a first-class match, 500.

As far as numbers go, Tendulkar’s are simple. He has scored a jaw-dropping 81 centuries in international matches, most by any cricketer ever, holds the record for the highest aggregate runs scored in one-day cricket, and is expected to cross Lara’s record for Test runs in the forthcoming series.

Yet, drill deeper, and some interesting facts appear. In his international career, Lara has scored as much as 20 per cent of his team’s runs! This is a feat surpassed only by Bradman (23%) and George Headley (21%). What does that mean? One, that Lara has had to carry his team on his shoulders all through his career, plagued by a lack of prolific batsmen to support his efforts. This is a problem Tendulkar never had; he has never faced a dearth of excellent batsmen at the other end—Azharuddin, Dravid, Ganguly, Sehwag, Laxman and the rest of India’s good men. Two, it proves once and for all that Bradman is in a class of his own, because he too, like Tendulkar, had some pretty outstanding fellows at the non-striking end whenever he batted—Ponsford, Hassett, Barnes, Miller and their ilk. Yet he managed to score nearly a quarter of all the runs his team made when he played.

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