Who is the greatest?

By BBC Sport Online's Thrasy Petropoulos
"Jessie! Jessie! Come here," Don Bradman once called to his wife while watching television.
"Look there! The batsman on the television. Don't you think he reminds you of me?"
The batsman was Sachin Tendulkar, diminutive, confident and complete in footwork, with an air of invincibility about him.
So, if Bradman saw in Tendulkar the nearest thing to his clone, we can ask ourselves a fascinating question.
How would India's little maestro have fared in the 1930s? Or, more pertinently, what would today's bowlers have made of the Don?
For those who think it sacrilege to compare a batsman who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket with one currently averaging 58, the answer lies not in statistics but in the batsman's style and his influence on the game.
Consider the words of current Australian Test star Justin Langer.
Describing Tendulkar during last year's first Test in Bombay, Langer wrote: "His straight driving off both front and back foot was incredible.
"How a man, who cannot be much more than five feet six inches, can dominate an attack like he does is beyond belief."
The only way to truly to assess Bradman v Tendulkar is to compare the many facets that made up their game.
Ability
In so far as it is possible to quantify ability, it would be tempting to give both batsmen a perfect 10.
But if Bradman was perfect he would not have been bowled for a duck in his final innings and would have ended on the magical average of 100.
And ability is not just about runs scored. Everything about the way Tendulkar goes about his batting, particularly his leg-side play, seems to tally with the Don's method.
Strokeplay
It is almost impossible for a modern-day fan to imagine the speed at which Bradman scored his runs. In January 1930, it took him only 415 minutes to make 452 not out, at the time the highest individual score in first-class cricket.
For that innings alone, Bradman must come out ahead on strokeplay.
But there are two factors which must not be forgotten.
First and foremost, it was commonplace in the thirties and forties to maintain attacking fields throughout the innings (there is one famous picture of the Don with 300 on his name but with three slips and a gully still standing in position).
And secondly, over-rates were far better then than they are today.
Temperament
It would not be possible to score as Bradman did without a character of steel. But even though he has not scored as heavily as the Don, Tendulkar comes out on a par because of the maturity he showed in making a success of Test cricket at the age of 16.
Hunger/consistency
On almost any other comparison, Tendulkar would come out on top by having racked up 28 Test hundreds before his 29th birthday.
But consider this: of those scores only two have been over 200.
Bradman made ten Test double hundreds and two triple hundreds. In all he hit six triple and no less than 37 double hundreds in first-class cricket.
Tendulkar is unique among modern cricketers for never having gone through a bad patch with the bat in more than a decade of Test cricket.
But Bradman was simply phenomenal.
On his first tour of England in 1930 he had Test scores of (and think about this for a second) 131, 254, 334 and 232.
Tendulkar is excellent (7,752 runs in 92 matches before the current Test against West Indies in Trinidad). Bradman was more than that (6,996 in 52)
Conduct
It is here that Tendulkar has the advantage.
The memories of Bradman are of after the war when, in his farewell appearances for Australia, he revealed himself to be a diplomat, an eloquent speaker and an ambassador for both his country and the game.
But it should not be overlooked that Bradman was not always popular with his team-mates who disliked his puritanical lifestyle and his near deification in Australia.
He was not one to court friendship.
Tendulkar is similar in many ways - unfailingly courteous and modest, clean-living and comfortable with his own company. But he has retained his popularity with both team-mates and opponents.
Adulation
This is perhaps the most relevant comparison.
The most important fact about both batsmen is not about the runs they have scored or the averages they have attained: it is about the impact they have had on people.
In Australia, particularly during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Bradman became a symbol of hope for the many unemployed, and a source of entertainment for the rest.
In all the great cities, scoreboards were erected in the streets where thousands would gather just to watch the runs by his name tick over.
If the same were to be done in Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi, or any other Indian city for that matter, the reaction from the Indian public would be the same for Tendulkar.