Tendulkar vs Lara.
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Lara
Selfless when it comes to professionalism.
Selfless when it comes to playing for country.
Selfish when it comes to money, but top two characters will wipe this off :)
Very responsible, because hardly he had any Top grade batting support through out his career.
Very agressive especially against best teams like Aus/SA/Pak/Eng - 21 centuries
Technically a great test batsman.
Has hit several big scores saving the match/winning the match for his country.
Tendulkar
Not so professional, his utterance to media after not reaching 200 (due to decl) shows he is not professional but ’record centric’, his visits to temples after breaking records underlines that Tendya is ’record crazy/savy’.
He sports extra sticker of tri-color on his helmet and within this helmet lies dirty brain which manipulates scores, he has walked ’out’ even though he was not out, sometimes he shows negative body language when ball hits pads prompting umpire to send him off.
Selfish when it comes to money, dodges taxmen every year with influence and even cheats (setting up wind mills and getting tax back, use influence to cut excise on his Ferrari, etc etc). On field, I see the Multan test outburst by Sachin as an example that he’s more after records than team success. May be he is against Team India or against Dravid or may be favoring betters?.
Azzaruddin, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman have performed very well and have supported Tendya throughout his career. Not even a single knock of Tendya made it to ’100 best batting performance’ of Wisden list, and Wisden even clarified why he doesn’t deserve a place in that elite list.
Not great performance compared to Lara, for information, Gavaskar has scored 13 tons against WI when it had the deadliest bowlers of all time that too w/o helmet.
Technically best suited for 20-20 and ODIs. I still can’t believe the way he played 2006 Pak series, I can’t forget how cheaply he got out to Asif (jumping & crumbling like a Jackass) and ducking even low deliveries of Shoaib, making Shoaib to smile and laugh every delivery. Can anyone forget his batting performance in the last ODI against SA??
Has hit highest number of of centuries but none are of significance, that’s what Wisden says and justifies too.
So India’s best test batting star is still Gavaskar and in the contemporary world cricket it is Lara, Tendya is greatest in ODIs as of 2004, last two years he’s just hanging around blocking way for young and budding cricketers. Hope he knows his worth and does justice to himself rather than for others.
Updated 14thDec2006 : I forgot to touch upon leadership point, This is where Lara scores very high. Lara has played under all captains(both Seniors & Juniors) superbly, finally he’s back at the helm and is getting the lost pride of West Indian Cricket. He’s loved by all his team mates. Sachin can only be measured on negative attitude scale and not leadership qualities. His performance under Dravid is a big question and everybody knows that he’s not a team man. Hail Lara !!!
Thanks for reading
Chandra Shekhar
Bangalore