The Indian team’s former batsman and current commentator Sanjay Manjrekar has raised the question of including Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli’s names in the list of greatest cricketers of all time. Manjrekar has given a surprising statement on this matter. According to Manjrekar, West Indian greats like Vivian Richards are far ahead in this race.
Even though Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli’s statistics may be impressive in different formats, he also gave reasons why and said that the reason for this is their one-day and test records are excellent, which made them great batsmen.
During a show on Star Sports, he said in this context, “When you look at the modern era, Virat Kohli is at the top of this list in the last 20 years and Tendulkar is also one of the great players. According to me, Virat Kohli fits the best as a one-day player. MS Dhoni is another player who comes to my mind, but when it comes to the greatest cricketer of all time, no batsman comes close to Sir Vivian Richards. My choice may be slightly old-fashioned.”
Sanjay Manjrekar has explained why Vivian Richards is the greatest cricketer of all time. He understands it well and said, “Viv Richards played cricket between the 70s and 90s. When all the high-category batsmen had an average of around 30 and a strike rate of 60, including Gordon Greenidge, Viv Richards’ average during those decades was 47 and his strike rate was 90. So, in my opinion, Viv is the greatest cricketer of all time.”
Let me tell you that Viv Richards played 187 one-day and 121 test matches, in which he scored 6721 runs with an average of 47 in one-day and 8540 runs with an average of above 50 in test.