I agree Pie_C, he IS suspect against decent quality pace bowling - he always has been, particularly when the ball has some lateral movement.

I don't rate Hayden at all, I never have, he's a flat track bully as far as I'm concerned and makes the majority of runs on his own flat Australian tracks, or against medium pacers and spin.

His overall Test batting average is 53.18, his average against pace bowling is 38.36! The bowlers who have taken his wicket most times are all pace bowlers and interestingly the top 3 out of 4 are all England bowlers - Hoggard, Flintoff and Caddick.

Away from his beloved flat Australian tracks overseas he averages 42.53, still a decent score for a Test batsman, but not quite as high as his overall average. Now look at his average against pace overseas - 32.61! Over 20 runs adrift from his overall average, which isn't really good enough for a Test Batsman of his class.

In New Zealand where the conditions generally favour seam bowling his average is 28.14 and in England it's 34.50. He also benefits from the fact that he never had to play against McGrath who terrorised top order batsmen around the world.

If that's not conclusive, I really don't know what is - he's a flat track bully, nothing more.

Come on mate, you can't be serious in thinking that Ponting is better than Lara/Sachin. Ponting has been brilliant this decade, but he has had it easy if you compare it to Lara and Sachin who both batted amazingly in the 90's against much better bowling attacks. An in-form Lara or Sachin is head and shoulders above Rocky Ponting IMO.

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CC

Lets have a look at the stats shall we...

Ponting 9512 runs at 59.08 with 33 hundreds and 39 fifties
Tendulker 11351 at 55.10 with 37 and 48
Lara 11953 at 52.88 with 34 and 48

Both Lara and Tendulker have had about 50 more innings than Ponting hence the higher total runs but Ponting's average is superior (cue debate on pitches and quality of oposition bowling).

That might be your opinion, but I don't have to share it. In fact, I don't.

Ponting is no doubt very talented and one of the best batsman to come from Australia. His record supports it. But if you take out the contribution of the "Centre for Excellence" (the factory manufacturing robot- cricketers in Australia) in developing his talents to mechanical proportions, Ponting would be no where near the natural talent and ability of Lara and Tendulkar. I wonder if Lara & Tendulkar had got such backing/support where would they have reached??

The argument against any Aussie batsman will be that they didn't have to face 2 of the best bowlers of the last 10 years as they are in the same side.

A very difficult one to judge but all the batsman who have been mentioned are high quality players and you will always have arguments over who was better,a bit like the Warne v Murali argument.

I thought that there is a limit ot nonsensical arguement but this has managed to surpass it. What is to stop others from having similar Centres for excellence. If the Kiwi authorities refuse to put in funds for a similar organisation, why show cheap jealousy against those who have one in place?

As for Tendulkar not having backing or support, that's a laugh. The man probably cannot fart without a dozen people jumping in support. I wonder if the poor guy has a private life because in India he certainly gets no privacy. I should know - I come from there.

how there Ponting take advantage of the opportunities to grow and develop his games presented to him by Australian cricket. That evil little man, he should rely only on natural ability to give others from countries with less resources a fairer chance!

As I understand it, Tendulkar has worked harder at his game than almost any player of the modern era... and reached the top as much through his capacity to learn and adapt as through anything else, and more especially through his ability to work out most of it for himself. Many Indian players may end up failing to live up to potential... including Sehwag, who's apparently quite un-moved by Boycott's efforts to persuade him to work on his footwork... but Tendulkar doesn't strike me as one who falls into that camp.

As for Lara... he's often regarded as the most talented of the trio... but could any experience in an academy have given him a better game? That seems unlikely: he also worked hard on his game, and his spells in County Cricket gave him as good a professional environment as any as a "finishing school". What Lara needed wasn't an Aussie style academy but simply team-mates of the callibre of Ponting's lot.

Can you imagine the difference we'd have seen if Lara had not been carrying his side's batting so single-handedly? What if he'd not had to captain in such difficult circumstances (and with such a difficult board / bunch of selectors)? I suspect both had more impact than anything else in his career!

There is nothing to stop others from having similar Centres for excellence, but they do not at this point in time and this is the whole point. Time and time again I have mentioned that it is not jealosuly, but a statement of fact and the main reason behind Australian dominance. Most countries can only dream of spending the amount of resources that CA spend on these centres. For example, can one imagine West Indies cricket authorities even having this amount of money to spend on cricket? This is not to say that Australia should not do so or that it is wrong of Australia to do so. All I am saying is that this is only reason why Australia is miles ahead of others.

As for NZ, I am resigned to the fact NZ will never be extremely good at cricket simply because Rugby takes precedence over any other sport here. Plus the small size of population makes it difficult to have a large number of players to choose from. There is a similar Centre here in NZ, but we cannot match Australia when it comes to the money side of things.

Having a dozen people ready to support is quite different to getting training at the centre for excellence (where probably the number of times Ponting farts is also analysed!!).

As for privacy, Tendulkar is always under pressure of more than billion people whenever batting, which Ponting is never under. And one more reason why Tendulkar's achievements are simply tremendous. Same applies to Lara, more often than not he waged a lone battle against the opposition. Look at Trescothick's case, he could not cope up with the pressures of international cricket and has more or less quit.