The Great Batters

Across 80 innings over two decades he averaged almost a hundred, while batters with similarly long careers average around sixty. The size of that lead over second place is what has no parallel.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Facing the leg-spin of Hollies, Bradman was bowled second ball without scoring. Four more runs would have lifted his average from 99.94 to an even 100.00.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The 1930 series was five Tests. Bradman passed 130 four times, including 334 at Leeds and 254 at Lord's, and no one has scored as many in a series since.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Bradman went to stumps on 309 on the first day at Headingley and finished with 334. No batter has scored 300 in a single day of a Test since.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Bradman's Test scores of 334 (1930) and 304 (1934) were both at Headingley in Leeds, which became known as his favourite English ground.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Bradman averaged 56.57 in the 1932-33 series, far short of his career 99.94 but still a return many batters would take. Bodyline curbed his scoring rather than removing him as a threat.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Australia played 34 first-class matches on the 1948 tour and lost none, a feat that earned the team the lasting nickname "The Invincibles". It was Bradman's last tour.

Source: Wisden · recall

No Tests were played from 1939 to 1946, which took in Bradman's early thirties, so his 52 Tests are spread thinly across a 20-year span.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Bradman's first-class average was 95.14, from 28,067 runs and 117 centuries. The pattern held whoever he played: he scored very heavily at every level of the game.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

In most sports the best career figure is a few per cent clear of second place. Bradman's is around 60 per cent above the next comparable batter, which is why the number is quoted as shorthand for dominance.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Hobbs made 61,760 first-class runs and 199 first-class hundreds, both still records. He played into his fifties and scored heavily throughout.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Hobbs and Sutcliffe opened together for England through the 1920s, famed for stealing singles and surviving sticky wickets. Hammond, Woolley and Hendren were middle-order players.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Headley averaged 60.83 in Tests and carried a thin West Indies batting line-up almost alone, so Caribbean supporters answered the "Black Bradman" tag by calling Bradman "the white Headley".

Source: Wisden · applied

Hammond's 336 not out passed Bradman's 334 as the Test record. Hutton took the mark to 364 in 1938. Hammond averaged 58.45 in Tests and was a brilliant slip fielder besides.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Hutton batted more than 13 hours for 364. The record held until Garry Sobers made 365 not out in 1958. England won that Oval Test by an innings and 579 runs.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Until Hutton, England's captains were amateurs. His appointment in 1952 effectively ended the amateur-professional divide at the top of the English game, though the formal distinction lasted to 1962.

Source: Wisden · applied

Compton scored 3,816 first-class runs with 18 centuries in 1947, both still records for an English season. He batted with a flair that drew big post-war crowds.

Source: Wisden · recall

Sobers, 21, passed Hutton's 364 in only his 17th Test. The record then stood for 36 years until Brian Lara made 375 on the same island in 1994.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Weekes, Worrell and Walcott were all born in Barbados between 1924 and 1926, within a few miles of one another, and formed the core of West Indies' batting from the late 1940s.

Source: Wisden · applied

Worrell led West Indies on the 1960-61 tour of Australia, the series that opened with the Tied Test at Brisbane. His appointment ended a long run of white captains.

Source: Wisden · applied

Gavaskar got to 10,000 Test runs against Pakistan at Ahmedabad in 1987 and finished with 10,122. He also passed Bradman's 29 Test hundreds, ending on 34.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Gavaskar missed the first Test through injury, then made 774 runs at 154.80 in the remaining four as India won a series in the Caribbean for the first time.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Tendulkar finished with 15,921 Test runs, 51 Test hundreds and 100 centuries across Tests and ODIs combined, a set of totals no other player has reached.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Tendulkar was 16 years and 205 days old on Test debut against Pakistan at Karachi in November 1989. He played his last Test in 2013, a span of 24 years.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Dravid faced 31,258 balls in Tests, the most on record, and batted for more than five days' worth of playing time overall. He also took 210 catches, a record for a non-keeper at the time.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Dravid took the gloves in around 70 ODIs in the mid-2000s so India could field a seventh batter or extra bowler, and he opened in Tests when asked despite it not being his best position.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Sangakkara got to 12,000 Test runs in his 224th innings, at Wellington in January 2015, quicker than anyone before him: Tendulkar and Ponting had needed 247. He finished with 12,400 at an average of 57.40.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Jayawardene made 374 at Colombo in 2006 and shared a stand of 624 with Sangakkara, a partnership record for any wicket in Tests. Only left-handers Lara and Hayden have gone past 374.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Younis finished as the first Pakistan batter past 10,000 Test runs and one of a small group with a Test hundred against each of the other Test-playing countries.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Dravid and Sangakkara each played more than 100 Tests and scored heavily home and away over 15 years or more, which is what marks out the game's greatest accumulators.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Lara made 375 at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St John's, passing Garry Sobers' 365 not out. Sobers, watching from the stands, walked out to congratulate him.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Lara made 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in June 1994, passing Hanif Mohammad's 499. It is still the highest score in first-class cricket.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Hanif Mohammad made 499 for Karachi against Bahawalpur in 1959, run out going for the 500th run. His record stood for 35 years until Lara's 501 not out.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Hayden made 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in October 2003, passing Lara. The record then changed hands again about six months later.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Lara reclaimed the record with 400 not out, once more against England. No other player has regained the Test record for the highest individual score after losing it.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

No one else has reached 400 in a Test innings. West Indies declared on 751 for 5 and the match was drawn, so it was not scored in defeat.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Lara's 277 at Sydney was his first Test century and one he often called his best. He named his daughter Sydney after the ground where he made it.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Chasing 308, West Indies were 105 for 5 when Lara took charge. He saw the side home by one wicket, with last man Courtney Walsh surviving the end.

Source: Wisden · applied

Lara made 375 and 400 not out, joining Don Bradman as the only men with two Test triple-hundreds until Virender Sehwag and Chris Gayle later matched them. His 11,953 Test runs remain the West Indies record.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

For a spell in 1994 Lara held both the Test and the first-class records for the highest individual score, and he alone has regained the Test mark, which is why the three innings are grouped together.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

The shorthand pairs Virat Kohli (India), Joe Root (England), Steve Smith (Australia) and Kane Williamson (New Zealand), all born within about two years and each his country's best batter of the decade.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Kohli has more ODI centuries in successful chases than any other batter, and his average batting second is well above his average batting first, which is why he is called a chase specialist.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Under Kohli India invested in a rotating group of quick bowlers and often played an extra bowler to force results, and the side rose to number one in the Test rankings.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Smith made 774 runs in the 2019 series at an average of 110, including 144 and 142 in the first Test at Edgbaston, and Australia retained the Ashes.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Smith first played for Australia in 2010 as a leg-spinning all-rounder batting at seven or eight. He rebuilt himself as a specialist batter over the following years.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Root passed Cook's mark of 12,472 during the first Test against Pakistan at Multan in October 2024 and has since taken England's Test run record past 14,000. England's most-capped player is James Anderson, with 188 Tests.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Root's 1,708 Test runs in 2021 is the third-highest total in a calendar year, behind only Mohammad Yousuf and Viv Richards, and a record for an England batter.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Williamson captained and top-scored as New Zealand beat India at Southampton to win the inaugural World Test Championship, the country's first ICC title since the 2000 KnockOut Trophy in Nairobi.

Source: ICC · applied

Ponting finished with 13,378 Test runs, second to Tendulkar, and had captained Australia to the 2003 and 2007 World Cup titles. Only Tendulkar had scored more international centuries.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Kallis took 292 Test wickets as a front-line seamer as well as scoring 13,289 runs, and is the only cricketer with 10,000 runs and 250 wickets in both Tests and ODIs.

Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied