Tendulkar may be god but he worshipped cricket: Strauss
18 Nov 2013 5:49 AM IST
Sachin Tendulkar might be considered God but the legendary batsman has always worshipped the game of cricket, said former England captain Andrew Strauss in his tribute to the former Indian cricketer on Sunday.
‘Cricket made him into a god but, ironically, the game of cricket was what he worshipped,’ the left-handed opening batsman writes in The Sunday Times.
‘Gary Kirsten once described Tendulkar as a ‘Professor of Batting’. ‘His obsession with the art, his outrageous talent and herculean work ethic have turned him into the most productive cricketer of all time,’ he adds. Striking a personal note, the retired Middlesex county cricketer picked out the Chennai Test against England in 2008 as Tendulkar’s ‘fairytale moment’.
‘In the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings India needed its great hero to deliver. He scored an unbeaten century to win the game.
That day, though, he wasn’t thinking about rising to his nation’s need, he was simply analysing, plotting and executing a method to play Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar on a violently turning wicket,’ he writes.
Strauss bemoaned the lack of a final century for the batting genius in his final Test against West Indies at Wankhede Stadium.
‘Cricket made him into a god but, ironically, the game of cricket was what he worshipped,’ the left-handed opening batsman writes in The Sunday Times.
‘Gary Kirsten once described Tendulkar as a ‘Professor of Batting’. ‘His obsession with the art, his outrageous talent and herculean work ethic have turned him into the most productive cricketer of all time,’ he adds. Striking a personal note, the retired Middlesex county cricketer picked out the Chennai Test against England in 2008 as Tendulkar’s ‘fairytale moment’.
‘In the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings India needed its great hero to deliver. He scored an unbeaten century to win the game.
That day, though, he wasn’t thinking about rising to his nation’s need, he was simply analysing, plotting and executing a method to play Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar on a violently turning wicket,’ he writes.
Strauss bemoaned the lack of a final century for the batting genius in his final Test against West Indies at Wankhede Stadium.
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