On a day when scientific research of batting achievements in Test cricket has revealed that Sir Don Bradman was best and Virender Sehwag is greater than Sachin Tendulkar, the economist, John Mangan, who along with other expert, Vani K Borooah, conducted the research, emphasised that Sachin Tendulkar has not been neglected.

Speaking to this scribe exclusively over the phone, he said, "Tendulkar is certainly not neglected. He comes in at No 6 for a contribution to the team score, No 11 for average adjusted all-time scores and No 13 for value-adjusted average. So this is all very impressive.

"The emphasis was on Bradman (only) and the research was really trying to see if Bradman's record would be effected by allowing for things like consistency, importance to an innings, who the opposition was etc, were taken into account. So we didn't concentrate on other great players such as (Brian) Lara, Tendulkar, (Ricky) Ponting.

"We only considered data up to 2006 (1877-2006) and therefore the more recent performances of Tendulkar were not included," he added.

Mangan, however, admitted, "what we could have done is pay more attention to the number of Test matches played -- some of the batsmen such as (Vinod) Kambli have played far less Tests and so may have got an advantage.

"My co-researcher (Vani K Borooah) is an avid Indian cricket fan so we were certainly not trying to reduce the achievements of Tendulkar -- if we re-run the paper to take into account the 2007-2010 data he may go even higher in the rankings," he said.

"Sachin's ranking remains unchanged in Table Four and Table Five shows his great importance to the Indian team as a whole. In short, I hope this clears up any suggestion that we were being critical of Tendulkar, to be ranked No 6 in the all-time rankings is a great achievement," he signed off.

With extensive academic, consultancy, editorial and 'expert opinion' experience, Mangan is a skilled economic modeller, and a leading researcher.

The writer is a freelancer