http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_BradmanSir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest Test batsman of all time.[1]
Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is often cited as the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.Batting Average:
Rank Batsman Career average
1 Don Bradman 99.94 2 Graeme Pollock 60.97
3 George Headley 60.83
4 Herbert Sutcliffe 60.73
5 Eddie Paynter 59.23
6 Ken Barrington 58.67
7 Everton Weekes 58.61
8 Wally Hammond 58.45
9 Garfield Sobers 57.78
10 Jack Hobbs 56.94
11 C.L. Walcott 56.68
12 L. Hutton 56.67
13 Jacques Kallis 55.37
14 G.E. Tyldesley 55.00
15 C.A. Davis 54.20
16 V.G. Kambli 54.20
17 G.S. Chappell 53.86
18 Dudley Nourse 53.81
19 Sachin Tendulkar 53.78
20 B.C. Lara 52.88
World sport context
Wisden hailed Bradman as, "the greatest phenomenon in the history of cricket, indeed in the history of all ball games".[1] Statistician Charles Davis analysed the statistics for several prominent sportsmen by comparing the number of standard deviations that they stand above the mean for their sport.[238] The top performers in his selected sports are:[239]
Athlete Sport Statistic Standard deviations
Bradman Cricket Batting average 4.4
Pelé Association football Goals per game 3.7
Ty Cobb Baseball Batting average 3.6
Jack Nicklaus Golf Major titles 3.5
Michael Jordan Basketball Points per game 3.4
The statistics show that "no other athlete dominates an international sport to the extent that Bradman does cricket".[2] In order to post a similarly dominant career statistic as Bradman, a baseball batter would need a career batting average of .392, while a basketball player would need to score an average of 43.0 points per game.[239] The respective records are .366 and 30.1.[239]