Sachin not only scores but also 'wins'

Yes, I am yet another Sachin fan. There had been days, I will check the highlights package to catch a glimplse of his solitary boundary. Yes, he has changed a lot, adapted a lot, curtailed his shots a lot more. But nothing above has happened to my adulation. In fact he made his debut in 1989 and I started my education around that time. He is still playing and I am still studying lol ..

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A few days before one of my friends argued that Sachin has not produced many match winning innings and that is where Lara scores above him. My immediate gut feeling was he was wrong. Having a keen interest in stats I wanted to prove him wrong and that too statistically. The post is an outcome of that.

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When it comes to greatness, stats is not the right tool. And I never want to get into the argument of who is greater. To me, both Sachin and Lara are great batsmen, and by loving Sachin more I am not going to rile Lara. And I dont want to compare greats and rank them. I believe each one is at a different level and it is foolish on our part to attempt a comparison. Yet, I wanted to bring out a common misconception that Sachin has not won many matches for India. And what better than a Test field (ODIs, it is obvious that most of his tons have won matches for India).

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What are the stats am I going to employ? I dont want to complicate reading and interpretation. I will just take into account two things, 100s and average in the matches players have been part of a winning team and a subjective interpretation of some of their big scores, again, when their team has won. So here is that table!

Player	Total	Won	100s	Avg.	Major Venues	Major opponents	Major Scores
Sachin	184	63	20	66.6	Eng, Pak, SL, WI	Aus, Eng, Pak, SL	155* v Aus, 193 in Eng, 165 vs Eng, 194* in Pak, 214 v Aus
Lara	131	32	8	61.02	Aus, NZ	Aus, Eng, Pak	132 in Aus, 213 vs Aus, 153* vs Aus, 167 vs Eng
Richards	121	63	12	52.43	Aus, Eng	Aus, Eng	Lot many to put here
Dravid	160	56	15	65.8	Aus, Eng, Pak	Aus, Eng, Pak	180 vs Aus, 233 in Aus, 148 in Eng, 270 in Pak
Sehwag	92	37	7	57.2	Pak, SL	Pak, SL, SA	309 in Pak, 293 vs SL, 201* in SL, 165 vs SA
Gavaskar	125	23	6	43.97	Aus, NZ, WI	Aus, NZ, Pak, WI	118 in Aus, 102 in WI, 166 vs Pak

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Note: The 'total' column gives the total career matches and the 'won' column gives the number of matches his team has won when the player had been part of that team

All stats pertain only to the 'won' matches.

In the major scores column, 'vs' indicates home matches and 'in' indicates that the score was made overseas

Look at Dravid's stats it is stunning!!

Sachin has also scored a 248* in Bang and a 176 against Zim

Sehwags's average shot up after the tour of SL in 2009!

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The conclusions from the table are immediate and obvious. Sachin has a century in approximately one out of ever 3 wins and Lara has 1 out of 4. Sachin's average is also almost 5 points higher than Lara's. And, a look at the high scores column will indicate Sachin's 100s were by no means small ones. They were big 100s. Both had relatively weak teams and had to carry a heavy burden. Both were greats. No doubt about that. I just want to show that Sachin had also won many matches for India. And, there is a big boost to these stats post 2009, when Sachin is having a golden period.

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Obviously the likes of Bradman, Ponting, Waugh won most of the matches they played in and hence their performance in their career will not be much different from their performance in the wins. Hence it will be an unfair comparison and hence I am not including them. But I fully agree that the above stats will be much better and much higher for them. And then there is that great Sobers, who not only won matches with his batting but also his bowling. Because of his all-round skills I had to exclude him from the list. And so is the reason for Kallis. And again I fully agree that their stats would be awesome too.

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Obviously matches won is not the only thing, there would have been many a matches the above people would have saved and many a great innings but still their team would have lost. But to analyse these innings will bring a lot of subjectivity like pitch and other match conditions. Anyway my objective was to just point out and try to eliminate one misconception on Sachin.

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Why is Sehwag part of the list? It is another belief that most of his tons have won matches for India thanks to his 300 against Pak and 200s against SL. Nevertheless they were one of the greatest innings and lets not forget the fact that Sachin scored a 195* in the same match.

Our side is also 'greener' !

This is my first post.. hopefully a non emotional, non rambling rational one :)

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Comparisons.. As an Indian, we were born and grew up with it all along, that it has been following us faithfully like our shadows. In fact, over time we have actually been consumed by it and WE have become the shadows and the comparison is perhaps leading us!

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What we currently do always looks tough in relative to what we have 'successfully' passed, that is, once the next task is over. For eg, once we start our midschool, primary school looks a cake walk and when we write our board exams, midschool was more fun and easy, and when we nervously sit before the comp for those semester results during our respective degrees (remember that one exam or perhaps more than one, in which you got a nonsense paper or had a bad day and had to bribe Lord Ganesh, a 100 situps to make sure you clear it?), XII exams did not look that hard. Yes, the repercussions at each stage were quite different and had different influences. But, once the hurdle had been crossed and we take up the next one, we always tend to feel the last one was easier...

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And so what's the point? What has it to do with the title? It doesn't stop with personal comparisons.. The title was to intend a dig at "Grass looks greener on the other side" .. Just like how we discount our previous hardships as easy when compared to the present ones, which is perhaps not quite correct as we are comparing two different scenarios in which our capacities were quite different, we make the mistake of comparing our life with others..

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People who are at work, tend to compare their life with those who study. They think while they are slogging for their boss, to earn their pay cheques, their friends are perhaps having a great time playing sports and what not.. The same way those who study think of their friends who work, wondering when they are still studying and cramming for the exams, the folks who work are cool, they earn a lot and enjoy life.. (I am not a sage here and I have fallen prey for this many a times and perhaps still falling)

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What I have listed is just one example of a very common comparison.. There are many such comparisons between jobs, between students, between personalities, between couples and whatever you can dream of. The truth is both of them (the comparing parties) are wrong (though not fully).. the reverse comparison actually shows that their side is greener and that is what is my post about..

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To generalize and take it to a more abstract level, happiness is more from within and it is YOU who decides which is greener.. that is not to say you must be complacent about your status quo and do nothing about it.. Constructive criticism will always be helpful .. It helps in making your side more greener and you do it not because you are worried about the other side being green..

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I think you will enjoy life from this perspective.. This life is about YOU and about YOUR happiness.. You do not need to feel sad about your relative position when compared to others..