Sachin Tendulkar
Kumar Sangakkara
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Sachin Tendulkar leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Sachin Tendulkar at #2 and Kumar Sangakkara at #11.
Head-to-head FAQ
Who leads more shared metrics?
How do the published ranks compare?
Are these live stats?
The case for Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar is the most prolific run-scorer the game has known. Across a 24-year international career he amassed 34,357 runs, 15,921 in Tests and 18,426 in ODIs, both records, and scored 100 international centuries, a milestone no one else has reached. He played 200 Tests and 463 ODIs, carrying the expectations of a cricket-obsessed nation from the age of sixteen. He finished his ODI career holding the first men's ODI double century, 200 not out against South Africa in 2010. Tendulkar's technique was near-flawless against pace and spin alike, and his straight drive became an emblem of orthodox batting. He finally won the World Cup at home in 2011, in his sixth attempt, on a wave of national emotion. For sheer weight of runs and longevity at the top, he is without peer.
The case for Kumar Sangakkara
Kumar Sangakkara was one of the most prolific and elegant batsmen of his era and a fine wicketkeeper for much of his career. The Sri Lankan left-hander scored 12,400 Test runs at 57.40 with 38 centuries, eleven of them over 150, and 14,234 ODI runs, the second-highest ODI tally ever. In the 2015 World Cup he became the only man to score four consecutive ODI hundreds. Sangakkara combined classical technique with a voracious appetite for big scores, and his double and triple hundreds anchored Sri Lanka's batting alongside Mahela Jayawardene, with whom he shared a record 624-run Test partnership in 2006. Articulate and cerebral off the field, he was equally commanding at the crease. Whether keeping wicket or purely batting, his run-scoring consistency across formats places him firmly among the greatest batsmen of the modern game.