4. Sir Vivian Richards:
His stats are impressive enough as they are, but they become even better when put into perspective by comparing with the par numbers during his playing days. Viv’s career spanned for 16 years, from 1975 to 1991, and he finished with a career average of 47 and a strike rate of 90.2 runs per 100 balls. But during the period in which he played one-day internationals (from his first game to the last), the batting average in ODIs for the top seven batsmen was 29.38, while the average strike rate was a mere 65.96. This shows that he was a class apart and in a league of his own.