London, July 15: After the former England captains Graham Gooch, Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and Michael Vaughan, it is now England’s current Test captain’s turn to heap praise on Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. While speaking to the media, Andrew Strauss hailed the achievements of the legendary batsman.
Strauss said, "It goes without saying that it is a phenomenal achievement, not just the fact he scored those runs, but his desire and motivation to play that long and keep chasing down those records.” Tendulkar is on the brink of his 100th century and is 334 runs behind Sunil Gavaskar to become the highest scorer in Test matches played between England and India. Tendulkar has made 2150 runs while Sunil Gavaskar has scored 2483 runs.
"He seems to be playing as well as ever at the moment. It is a great example for us all that if you are still hungry, there is no reason why your powers should decline as you get older,” added the south-paw about the renewed Tendulkar. "He has been one of the great players over the last 20 years and I'm sure he will want to have a big series.”
Strauss observed, "Technically he is fantastic, his mental strength to bat under that amount of pressure for all that time, is fantastic.”
Like many before him, Strauss too feels, "He (Tendulkar) is a very dignified and humble man as well. If there are good examples out there, he is probably the best of them."
Speaking about India’s ability to negotiate pace and short-pitched balls he said, "Are India susceptible to short deliveries? I think all the sub-continent sides have got better at that in recent years.
"It comes as a result of touring here quite often. Certainly their senior players are no strangers to these shores,” he explained.
"We are not excepting any dramatic weaknesses there but we know someone like Chris Tremlett performed very well against them last time around here. He was a lot younger and probably less developed as a bowler then,” he mentioned while discussing India’s ability to negotiate pace and bounce.
Further he added,"I think we saw against Australia and Sri Lanka, that type of bowling, if done consistently and accurately, will trouble most people."
Speaking about his other pacer, Stuart Broad he said, "I am not worried about it. He has not been bowling badly. He has not got as many wickets as he would like.
"But we see Broady as a high-quality performer, a world-class bowler who, if he bangs his length out with a bit of swing and bounce, will trouble most guys around the world.
"Of course we want him to confident and taking wickets, and we have every confidence that over the next few weeks he will be doing that again."
