Australia’s great spinner Shane Warne has recalled how the young Sachin Tendulkar had bewildered Australians with his masterful shots during India’s tour of Australia in 1991-92.
In that tour during the Test series, the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar had scored unbeaten 148 runs in the third Test match. It was Sachin’s second Test century of his career. He scored another century during that series in the last Test match.
Reminiscing that series, Shane Warne said that although Sachin was 21 at that time, he looked a 10-year-old kid. The former Aussie cricketer and his teammates were in shock after they saw the former Indian cricketer scoring boundaries and smacking all over the park. He had at that time noted that Sachin Tendulkar was going to be a big player.
“When I first saw Sachin Tendulkar in the first Test, he was 21. But looked about 10. I thought this guy was pretty special. He’s smacking us all over the park and he’s 10 years of age. You can tell when players come out and it’s the time they’ve got. That’s the class about them. You can tell that about good players… the time, elegance… it all looks easy,” Warne said during commentary on Sky Sports during the second Test between England and Pakistan.
Shane Warne believes that good players like Sachin never leaves a chance to put pressure on bowlers. As per him, bowlers deliver more bad ball when they see batsman hitting boundaries in a good ball.
“The good players, if they get a good ball to score off, they don’t hit the fielder, they find the gaps, hit it to the boundary and that puts pressure back on the bowler,” Warne added.
“That means as a batsman, you can get more bad balls. If you’re just looking to survive and you haven’t got that intent as a batsman as a bowler you feel like you can bowl wherever you want and the batsman is not going to hurt you.”
Both Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne had many battles against each other. The former Indian cricketer retired from the game in 2013. He is still the highest scorer in Tests and ODIs.