Sharjah knocks still a great feeling: Tendulkar
Little Master, who turned 45, sees nothing wrong in off-spinners bowling leg breaks
In a walk down memory lane, birthday boy Sachin Tendulkar recollected his twin hundreds against Australia at Sharjah, exactly two decades ago. The first is still known as the ‘Desert Storm’ hundred while the second came in the final in a match-winning cause.
“It’s a great feeling. All these things have happened in my life. I feel blessed to have had all these wonderful moments in my career. I think those two Sharjah matches are etched in people’s memories.”
Tendulkar also spoke about the brutal assault on Abdul Qadir during the rain-curtailed exhibition match where his power-packed batting was noticed by one and all.
“I never realised the kind of impact that little innings had on people. Obviously, it’s moments like these that stay with people and I feel happy about it.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Tendulkar, who turned 45 yesterday, said an off-spinner who can bowl leg-breaks is like a multilingual. While Tendulkar did not take any names, his observation would certainly be music to Ravichandran Ashwin’s ears, as he tries his hand at wrist spin with an eye on a national comeback in the shorter versions.
“I feel it can only help. It’s like you know two to three different languages. Now there is no harm in knowing five or six different languages. It can’t take away anything from you,” he said. “It’s exactly the same when one develops more variation. So it’s wrong to say that they [finger spinners] are joining a bandwagon now that they are bowling leg spin. No, they aren’t. Rather, we should see that they have put in effort to develop a delivery,” he said.
Another weapon
And what does he think of the view that the off-spinners’ attempts are futile? “I think it’s wrong thinking of people. I am not blaming the player here. I am blaming the people here. Leg-break could be just another weapon in your armoury.
“People can bowl off-spin but along with that off-spin, if they are capable of bowling legspin as a variation, then why not,” Tendulkar said.
The legendary batsman feels that if someone can get his leg-breaks right, it should be considered a strength. On the younger lot of batsmen failing to read leg-break bowlers’ wrists, Tendulkar feels that the current crop of bowlers have really made the willow-wielders think.
“I don’t think it would be a great thing to generalise that batsmen are not reading the googlies from leg-breaks. A batsman can see an outswinger and still manages to edge it. To err is human. But I agree that leg-spinners have forced today’s batsmen to think more,” said the legend of 200 Test matches.”