Jaques Kallis. The best ?

[Rachael]

I didn't overlook Dravid, Maranello... and right now I think he's well worth his world no 1 spot. Thing is.. I'm not sure he's a distinctive "type" of player in the way that Lara and Tendulkar are: I'd be inclined to say he he is, if anything, the player who best combines the strengths of the others.

I truth, though, you'd be hard picked to come up with any player of the past 2 decades who could, without question, displace one from a midddle order that read 3. Dravid, 4. Tendulkar, 5. Lara, 6. Kallis :-D

[Milo]

Rachael, once again you make these fanciful comments without any thought for what they mean. If you really think Kallis is anywhere near that of Steve Waugh then you are probably very much on your own.

If you consider players that have actually played since 1990, Kallis (and possibly even Dravid) has a lot to reach the performances of of Javed and Border who showed their true worth against the best, under pressure and not through scoring runs in this era of all-round heavy run scoring. You only need to look at the records of the likes of Gary Kirsten, Thorpe, Ponting, Hayden etc who have all suddenly started banging in century after century once the Ambroses, Walshes, Donalds, and Akrams have retired.

To be honest, I could quite easily make a case for Boon or Richie Richardson to be considered every bit as good as Dravid and clearly better than Kallis.

[Maranello]

Milo, I agree about Javed, Border and Waugh being as good as any of the current players, and probably better than the likes of Ponting, Hayden, Kallis et al. To that, we can also add Gavaskar and Viv Richards, both played within the last 20 years to an extent, and both could be classified as true greats, because they sustained excellence over a long period of time, against great bowlers. The current lot have to do it for a period of time to be thought of in the same class, but in any case, the conditions now are much more batsmen friendly, and apart from two great spinners, there are hardly any very good bowlers around anymore. Quite unlike the 80s and the 90s. However, disagree about Boon or Richardson being in the same class, I never saw the latter master spin, or his defensive game, and the former, though good, was no Allan Border.

[Milo]

Boon was not as good as Border - I grant that, but I still could make a case for him being better than the likes of Kallis, along with Richardson who they said could not play in English conditions until he arrived in 1991. The captaincy ruined him, prior to that he was the number one batsman in the world, having taken apart the Aussies down under in 88, India at home and then the Aussies at home before coming to England. You will be aware of the Pakistan v West Indies series in Pakistan in 1991 and 1986. How on earth can we compare the batting conditions then with those that players bat under now? They were appalling and a 30 was considered a better knock than many double hundreds made nowadays.

Players in different eras cannot be compared statistically or objectively - they simply can't. All I can do is compare the likes of Richardson and Boon with those batting in their time - and they were leaders at times. I had a look at the Daily Telegraph annual of cricket in 1987 last month that listed the career averages of all the players playing test cricket at the time. There were only 6 players averaging over 45 in the whole of test cricket. A good batting average was over 40 - nowadays there are 30 players averaging more than that. Is Trescothick better than Greenidge?? In 30 years time we will have to tell our grandchildren that this is not the case when they pick up the Wisden.

I must agree that Dravid is probably better than Boon or Richardson (not sure about Kallis though) even though he has still yet to convince me against quality pace bowling (just like Richie against spin) - and may never have the opportunity to.

[Beny]

It's not worth comparing players from different Era's as it's almost always doomed to fail from the start. For me the best Batsmen in the world at the momment is Kallis followed by Dravid followed by Ponting.

Kallis beats Dravid because he has another gear to go to. Dravid is not really good as an attacking batsmen but is still a fantastic player.

[Paoli]

Kallis, IMHO will end up with a batting average of +60. I hope he can get his bowling average to about 27 or 28, but it could balloon to 35

[Seamer]

Excellent point. The strength of bowling is very weak at the moment which makes many current batsmen look better than their predecesors. But i would have to have Lara up there because he has had to perform with limited support from his fellow batsmen. Kallis the same at the moment because he is holding the team up by himself. The Australians and Indians are quite clearly up there statistically, but they have a lot of good players around them which results less pressure on them making it easier to perform. Right now though, Kallis would have to be no1

[10dulker]

Kallis bowls custard now he should stick to batting 2003 world cup bowling avg of about 80 on home ground turned me off his bowling

[Paoli]

You can't abandon bowling altogether when you bowl at Kallis' speed of 125-138 kmh.

If he was a Sean Ervine type bowler, then he could decide to turn into a Damien Martyn.

[Zainub]

Speaking of Damein Martyn, there was a time, under Steve Waugh, when Martyn regularly bowled 5-6 overs in LOIs, sometimes even 10, now though, with Symonds, Clarke and Lehmann bowling their part time stuff he hardly bowls at all.