It's always fun but never correct, to compare sportsmen over different eras. It's even worse then, to compare sportsmen from different sports. 

Charles Davis, a statistician from Melbourne, wrote a book titled, "The Best of the Best" almost a decade ago. Being the statistician that he was, he reverted to the simplistic standard deviation method to see what he could come up with (obviously it's a little bit more complicated than that).

Most critics rightly question the veracity of results such as these. The factors that come into question are endless. How many countries play cricket and baseball as compared to football. Duh. 
That shouldn't be the focal point. 

Picking the most dominant sportsman of his sport is hard enough so we'll do it spontaneously. When you see the name of the sport, just say the first name that comes into your head and we'll leave it at that. Ready?

1. Baseball
2. Cricket
3. Basketball
4. Golf
5. American Football
6. Football

What did you come up with?

1. Babe Ruth would be a likely answer. The fact is, a true baseball fan might equally consider Ty Cobb for the enormity of his stats. The "Georgia Peach," over the course of his career, set 90 Major League records and still owns the highest career batting average at .367, a hallowed statistic for baseball.

2. Don Bradman ? You should have said that if you answered without sentimentality. There's no possible way one could think of an argument for a Tendulkar /Lara , the reason being that there's no argument against that kind of consistency.

3. Michael Jordan ? Good. Although Wilt Chamberlain still has the most unbelievable records, it is a measure of Jordan's impact on the game (not to mention his scoring average of 30.12) that makes him the first basketball name on everybody's lips.

4.Jack Nicklaus ? The majority of you would be thinking Tiger Woods and justifiably so. I'm a big fan. But, until he gets to that magical mark of 18, we'll leave it at Nicklaus.

5. Did you say Joe Montana ? I couldn't think of anyone else. Dan Marino for the stats but Brett Favre 's right up there as well now. Maybe Brady and Manning will be around there once they've retired, but Montana's a perennial favorite. No disservice to non-QB's like Jim Brown or Jerry Rice.

6. This is tricky because there's so much heart involved. There's no more than two choices, Pele and Maradonna , and the argument is record vs skill. Either way, I'll let the goals speak for themselves and we'll leave it at Pele for now.

So we've got our names. Cobb with a batting avg. of .367, Bradman with a famous but infamous average of 99.94, Jordan with a scoring average of 30.12 (no disrespect to the six rings and innumerable clutch plays), Nicklaus with the 18 majors, Montana with the four Super Bowls (Personally I would have preferred a stat stuffer like Favre or Marino), and Pele with his 1,280 goals in 1,363 games.

Those are some astounding statistics right there. The good news is that the hard work is already over. Davis's findings revealed a final standard deviation mark which proved how ahead each of them were beyond their contemporaries. Again, this is where a problem arises because you have to ignore crucial factors such as opposition, popularity of the sport etc. There are simply too many intangibles. Nevertheless, here's what it looks like.

Joe Montana stood at 3.1 which is not bad at all, considering the fact that he's not famous for his yardage. Jordan was at 3.4 (Chamberlain's is almost as much but the rest of the data are way behind).Jack Nicklaus was 3.5 (obviously a bit less now considering Woods' charge up the major list). Cobb was 3.6 and Pele was a 3.7. These are all pretty close even though they're simply measures of the deviation. 

And Sir Donald George Bradman? He was "calculated" to be 4.4!

To provide a picture of the difference, it was statistically formulated that with such ratings as the basis, Jordan would need to have scored 43 poinst per game to have a 4.4 rating! It's impossible to imagine any basketball player achieving that. Furthermore, Nicklaus would have required 25+ majors and Ty Cobb would have needed a batting average of .392, an unthinkable mark for any player.

We needn't remind ourselves of the uselessness of comparisons and speculation. We're all aware that it's impossible to assign a "number" or "rating" on certain performances and statistics. In spite of all that, Bradman's legacy is a strong one and will hopefully remain that way. 

It's quite simple really. I wouldn't be surprised if some (some?) golfer won 18 majors, a baseball player averaged .367 or a basketball player averaged over 30 points per game. I wouldn't even mind putting money on it (for an unlimited time period, that is). 

I would bet everything in the bank, however, on the fact that no cricketer will ever, ever come close to breaking the 99.94 mark that has long since become part of cricketing folklore