‘Sachin, a Bradmanesque genius’
IANS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2003 03:38:49 PM ]
SYDNEY : Australian Test cricket captain Steve Waugh has shed all his iceman-like inhibitions to brand Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar a Don Bradman-like sporting personality.
“Bradmanesque is probably how I would sum his (Sachin’s) technique up primarily because the Don himself said that Sachin was the closest thing he’d seen to himself,” Waugh wrote in an article on Sachin Tendulkar in Sydney 's The Daily Telegraph newspaper on Friday.
This highly laudatory article has come days after another international cricketing legend Imran Khan retracted on his earlier words and declared Sachin to be a real match-winner.
Sachin, in the Australian cricketer’s opinion, holds the same position in the Indian sporting folklore as Sir Donald Bradman in Australia or Babe Ruth in America .
“Rarely does a sportsman carry the weight of the nation upon his shoulders each time he goes out to perform, but such is the stature of these three icons that any failure to deliver sparks debate as to what is wrong and can it be solved,” he wrote in the Sydney tabloid.
Steve Waugh has also tried to analyse Sachin the man who “loves to surround himself with close friends and family and spend quality time with them, especially his children”.
The fierce spirit of competition possessed by Sachin has also been noticed by Steve Waugh who has been involved in numerous turf battles with the living Indian legend whom he found to be an “average man” off the field.
Tendulkar, Waugh wrote, would stretch himself to the optimum to get better of his opponents in any sphere of the competitive world.
Waugh, who is reportedly viewing the Australian Test series in India next year as his swan song, has mentioned a filming of a TV commercial involving a go-kart race.
Sachin, Waugh and West Indian cricket superstar Brian Lara were featuring in this commercial and were needed to race against each other in front of a 5,000 strong audience.
While Lara, Waugh wrote, did not bother much about his “lack of prowess” in go-karting, another “novice” Sachin took this competition very seriously.
Sachin, who “loves the big occasion”, stayed back on the penultimate day of the celluloid competition to take lessons in go-karting and almost hurt himself while negotiating a turn. No wonder the Indian megastar got the better of a seasoned Steve Waugh to finish right at the top of the dais.
Sachin the “world’s best” cricketer “gets his juices flowing” when playing arch enemies like Australia or Pakistan. Unlike Imran Khan, Waugh has always been a Sachin admirer and never doubted his ability to change the course of a match.
Waugh, while doing a technical analysis of Sachin’s batting, thinks it is the low back-swing of his bat which helps the Indian star to play straight and hit through the line.
Any weakness in Sachin’s batting technique, “if possible”, is to bowl him “through the gate off the quicks because he likes to drive on the up”.