Defining the true 'Greatest of All Time'

         Virat Kohli has just played a stupendous innings in a losing cause in the WC T20 Semi-final. Just a couple of days earlier, he played what is arguably the best T20 innings of all time. Commentators and newspaper articles are searching for adjectives to explain his performances any further.  All this while he is having a purple patch in all formats of the game. Inevitably, comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar have sprouted everywhere.

         In my opinion, there are certain human tendencies that are fundamental to our existence. A few characteristics that can’t be changed. Quest for power is the most pervasive of those. Another such characteristic is to compare. So, despite rational thought saying that comparing people across two different eras is a futile exercise, we always compare. Comparing in itself is Ok, but we always attach a judgement to it. And thence the conflicts.

       One of the obvious things that our brains use to define greatness is statistics. Find the best performer by numbers and certify him the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). But then our heart doesn’t agree with that most often. Why is that?

         If greatness was to be defined only by statistics, Michael Schumacher, Jacques Kallis, Lionel Messi would be the greatest in their respective sports. But it is not as simple as that, is it?

         Schumacher is certainly up there, but there is a majority of fans who respect Ayrton Senna more. If not for his death, he certainly would have achieved more. His tragic death created a bigger halo around him than his numbers. The Russians have won more in Chess, but Bobby Fischer is always considered by many as the greatest. Because of the impact he had on Non-Russian Chess, for breaking through the impassable barrier.

        Jacques Kallis won more matches for South Africa than Sachin did for India in Tests, had a better average, was the greatest all-rounder of his times. But still, Sachin is one notch higher. Why is that? It is the impact Sachin had. The hope he gave to a developing nation still reeling under poverty and an inferiority complex, the defeats after many heroic innings by him, for pioneering those multi crore contracts, for scoring a century days after his father’s death, for ‘Desert Storm’, the list goes on. None of them deal with stats.

        Bob Paisley possibly won more trophies and titles as Manager than Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, but Shankly and Busby are one step better. Bill Shankly created the new Liverpool out of dust and Matt Busby built his Manchester United team after the Munich Air Disaster. Messi is one of the Greatest, but to me, he will continue to be one level lesser than Pele and Maradona as long as he does not win the World Cup for Argentina. League titles and Champions Trophies don’t touch our souls like World Cup wins do. 

        Usain Bolt may have won more, but Jesse Owens is a Symbol. To win in Germany in front of Hitler. Similarly, there could be better players than Muhammed Ali in numbers, but Ali will always be ‘The Greatest’.

       Take any sport, as long as statistics agree with our emotional favourite, we are Ok with ‘the greatest’ debate, but once the numbers don’t favour our hero, we turn to emotional reasons.

 So how do we define a GOAT? What does one need to do to become a GOAT.

It is the emotions around a player, the tragedies he faced and won, the failures, the vulnerabilities, the player’s contribution to the sport as a whole, the sporting statements that he made for his country and the world that defines greatness. Statistics only help create the Greatness Myth, but only emotions complete them.