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Don Bradman
Don Bradman played for Australia from 1928 to 1948 and finished his Test career with a batting average of 99.94, a number so far ahead of every other batsman in cricket history — the next closest all-time Test average sits more than 30 points lower — that statisticians regularly cite it as the single most dominant record in any major sport. His famous final Test innings, in 1948 against England, needed just four runs to finish his career average at a clean 100; he was bowled for a duck, second ball, meaning the final average of 99.94 has become as much a piece of cricket folklore as any of his actual scores. Bradman scored 29 Test centuries in just 52 matches, a rate of centuries per match that no other prolific Test batsman has matched, and England's cricket establishment was so concerned by his dominance during the 1932-33 Ashes series that it developed "Bodyline," a deliberately intimidating short-pitched bowling tactic aimed at his body, specifically to try to contain him. Bradman's dominance is frequently used as a cross-sport statistical reference point — his average sits roughly four standard deviations above the mean for elite Test batsmen, a gap that sports statisticians say has no real parallel among the greatest performers in other major sports, baseball included.
VS
Viv Richards
Vivian Richards played for the West Indies from 1974 to 1991, anchoring the batting lineup of a team that dominated world cricket for the better part of two decades, and built a reputation as the most feared and aggressive batsman of his generation, frequently walking to the crease without a helmet against fast-bowling attacks that intimidated most other batsmen of the era. Richards held the record for the fastest Test century by balls faced for nearly three decades, a 56-ball hundred against England in 1986, a mark that reflected an attacking approach built around dominating bowlers from the first ball rather than settling in cautiously. He captained the West Indies from 1985 to 1991 and never lost a Test series as captain, continuing a run of West Indian dominance that had made the team essentially unbeatable across the 1980s, built around a fearsome fast-bowling attack that Richards's own batting had to counter in the nets before facing anyone else's. Richards was named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, and his blend of aggressive stroke play and captaincy success during West Indies cricket's most dominant era is still the reference point players from the Caribbean are measured against.
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