5 great batsmen who dominated the best bowler of their times

In my opinion, the greatest spectacle in the game of cricket is a truly great batsman going head to head against an equally great bowler. With there being no team sport where individual battles play as crucial a role in deciding the outcome of a match as cricket, it is often fascinating to see who emerges triumphant in a battle of equals.Over the years, many great batsmen have been pitted against bowlers of outstanding ability, and unsurprisingly, such contests tend to remain fairly even. However, there have been a few occasions where the batsmen have completely dominated and gained a stranglehold over the bowler that they are up against. Here are five such instances:

#1 Sachin Tendulkar vs Shane Warne

When the Australians visited India in 1998 for a 3-match Test series, the contest was popularly billed as the greatest batsman in the world vs the greatest spin bowler in the world. Despite both having played Test cricket for a period of 7-8 years, they had never played a Test against each other in India before. There was naturally enormous hype and anticipation surrounding the battle as a result, with the entire cricketing world eager to see who comes out on top.

The first innings of the 1st Test in Chennai went Warne’s way as he dismissed Tendulkar caught at slip by Australian captain Mark Taylor for just 4. The Mumbai batsman would have been bitterly disappointed without doubt, but he made up for it in emphatic fashion as he hit a majestic 155 off just 191 balls to hand India a 179-run victory. He knew that he couldn’t afford to allow Warne settle into his rhythm and attacked the blonde leggie right from the start of his innings, thereby getting into the psyche of Warne.

Some of his other great innings against Warne are his consecutive ODI innings of 143 and 134 against Australia at Sharjah in 1998, which made Warne jokingly remark that he had nightmares about bowling to the Little Master.