[zsayeed]

Originally Posted by World Champs
Kallis had bowlers like steyn, donald and pollock in his team and won more. India on the other hand didn't had the bowlers of this caliber. Its a team game after all. I don't think Kallis would have won these games with an bowling attack comprising of agarkar, Prasad etc.

I agree with everyone on Kallis is a better overall cricketer, but when it comes to batting I would rate him just slighlty behind Sachin or Ponting or Lara. These guys has scored more against better bowling attacks. India used to be just like 1 man team in the 90's. Everyone knew that if you get Sachin out, India will/can fold out cheaply. But this was not the case with Kallis. So you can imagine the pressure that Sachin had carried every form of the game.

People can have their opinion but It doesn't look good when you try to bash one great player in order to prove that other is better.

Whereas it is difficult to boil down a player's lifetime into a few numbers - yet we do. Always. In doing so we take the ego out of the analysis altogether and we deal with numbers. The bias may be in how the study is set up - but no where else. Even we chose the same criteria for analysis - the criteria for analysis chosen may be biased.

Let me look at the analysis from a simple point of view. I am sure there will be some interpretation of the results based on the numbers. Here is my interpretation first, then my analysis later.

Conclusion:

Kallis is the epitome of consistency whether his team loses or not. And his performance never deviates on account of his team mates - neither does South Africa depend solely on his performance. He is a complete professional - perform no matter what.

Tendulakar, being given the god ranking - his failure = team's failure. His moniker has probably done more disservice to his team then service.

Here is why:

Let's take a look at the following for each player for Tests only:

a) Player's winning runs in winning cause
b) Team's winning runs in winning cause
c) Take the ratio of a and b.

Do the same for team's draw/loss/tie

So here is the input:
1. Kallis winning runs: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...ing;view=match
2. SA's runs in the wins as a team: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...eam;view=match
3. Kallis' runs in team loss/draw/tie http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...ing;view=match
4. SA's runs in loss/draw/tie: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...eam;view=match
5. Tendulkar's winning runs: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...ing;view=match
6. India's run in their wins: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...eam;view=match
7. Tendulkar's runs in a loss/draw/tie: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...ing;view=match
8. India's runs in draw/loss/tie: http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/eng...eam;view=match

Import into excel and calculate player's runs as a fraction of team runs for test match and the same for the matches lost/drawn/tied.

Here are the findings:
Kallis scored 6109 runs out of 39677 in their wins in 76 tests : 15%
Kallis scored 6788 runs out of 44604 in their non-wins in 81 tests: 15%!

Tendulkar scored 5670 runs out of 37685 in their wins in 66 tests: 15%!
Tendulkar scored 3110 runs out of 66249 in their non-wins in 127 tests: 5%!!!



Now,
Does the above make Tendulkar God-like from the wins ratio. No, Kallis has the same ratio relative to the rest of the team's batting. Neither did Tendulkar, on the average, contribute a superhuman number of runs in the team's winning cause.

On the other hand, Kallis - being the professional - never wavered from his contribution of the 15% even when the going was tough. Whereas, Tendulkar failed in those events when his team did not win. That is the price of god-like reverence and god-like dependence.
God failed = Team failed.