These two openers would diffinatly be in my world XI sides, they are arguably the most technically sound batsmen in cricket long history. Both batsmen were openers for thier country at Test level, Gavaskar for India and Boycott for England.

Both batsmen's game were build around unbreakble defences, and enormous powers of concentration. But above all these two batsmen had an attitude of not gifiting their wickets to bowlers, they made the bowlers work damn hard to get their wicket.

Both batsmen played on picthes which helped bowlers alot more than it does now for batsmen, and also they played against some of the greatest fast bowlers in cricket history- Marshall, Holding, Garner, Roberts, Dennis Lillie, Thompson, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Hadlee and many more.

Both of these two are great and are very similar in style but who do you think was the best of out them?

Its very hard to choose but for me Boycott just about wins it. My reasons for this is that Boycott had an attitude that consisted of not getting out and not worring about scoring runs. He was the perfect opener- all he wanted to do was take the shine off the ball so that the stroke-players below him in the order will be able to take advantage of the old ball-this is what I consider the most important objective of an opener when he goes out to the crease to take the shine of the ball.

Also the other reason I picked Boycott over Gavaskar was because he played most of his cricket in swinging conditions of England which makes it very hard for any opener to take the shine of the new cherry and he was successful most of the time.

Boycott or Gavaskar-Who is wins, you decide...

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Gavaskar for my money - but I really could not stand watching Boycott bat. I remember getting bored watching an Ashes match at the WACA.

England batted first and Australia claimed two quick wickets of Gooch and Randall, this then brought Brearley to the wicket to join Boycott. The then proceeded to put every person to sleep with there batting. After facing 104 balls Brearley was out and the score was now 3-41, but somewhere around 75 overs had now been bowled.

Boycott to me was could only bat one way - defensively, while Gavaskar could attack the bowling when he wanted to.

I've got to agree with A-Y here and go with Sunil.

Technically, both were technically so 'proper' that I cannot decide between them technically.

Also, they both had their 'selfish' moments. There's the countless times that Boycott sacrificed the batsman at the other end for the sake of his average, and of course there's the famous time that Gavaskar had a sulk in a ODI and decided not to bother chasing the target.

Frankly though, the selfishness of Boycott trumps Gavaskar. Although Boycs held England together at times, he also cost them quite a bit through defensive play when putting the opposition to the sword was more appropriate.

I think you are talking about India's very first World Cup match. In this match the English batsmen ranked up 334-4. Knowing the target was too much to chase for India, Gavaskar decided to bat out the full 60 overs because he thought it would be good batting practice, which would come in handy for the remaining matches in the tournament.

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