Babar Azam's drive, Rahul Dravid's defence and other signature cricket shots – in pictures

Which batsmen played the pull, drive and sweep better that the rest?

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Who is the best batsman in the world? Difficult to say, isn't it.

There are so many factors that come into play – technique, record, impact, aesthetics, era, etc – that is impossible to reach a consensus.

But if we break down batting, we can try to gauge which batsman executed a particular shot better than any other.

Admittedly, it is not possible to go back 70-100 years and see which batsman played the best pull or drive; we can properly analyse only the modern batsmen as we have sufficient video evidence of their game.

Keeping that in mind, we have tried to ascertain which batsman played a particular stroke the best. Above is a picture gallery showing them executing the strokes.

To view the next image in the gallery, click on the arrows or if you are viewing it on a mobile device, just swipe.