England vs India 2018: Sachin Tendulkar Believes Test Cricket Keeps Batsmen in Check

The Indian cricket legend, Sachin Tendulkar believes that surfaces must be challenging to bloom far and wide in Test cricket. In his conversation with BBC‘s Test Match Special in England, the former skipper of India feels that pitches are the quintessential ingredients for the Test cricket.

Tendulkar on the sidelines of the Lord’s Test match between England and India said that Test format tests the temperament and determination of the batsmen. He said that in case of One-day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals, it mounts pressure right on the bowlers.

“The key ingredient of Test cricket is the surface that we play on,” he said.

While sharing his concerns for the lack of attraction towards the Test format, Tendulkar feels it is the time to come up with new ideas.

The Mumbaikar is dejected by witnessing a wave of the newer generation that accepts, the shorter format of the game only.

“it’s important to come up with ideas which are accepted by the newer generations,” he maintained.

Sachin Tendulkar on Edgbaston Test:

While talking about the conditions of the pitch, Tendulkar suggests that surface should be exciting. He feels pleasure on the Edgbaston track that provided an enthusiastic advertisement.

“When you keep flat, dead surfaces, where the bowler thinks, ‘I have no chance, I’m going to stick to my channel’, and the batter thinks, ‘Okay, on this surface if I don’t do anything foolish, I [won’t] be out,’ that game is becoming boring, it’s becoming dull,” explained Tendulkar.

Tendulkar shares a right amount of experience when it comes to an understanding of alien conditions.

In the Test cricket for India, Sachin Tendulkar himself registered an average of 51.73 in England.

However, There is no significant difference in his average in Asian conditions. He averages 54.70 on the sub-continent surfaces.

“I’ve always enjoyed [playing] on good surfaces – of course, scoring runs and winning matches are essential – but I enjoyed those challenges,” Tendulkar remarked.

 

“It’s not about batting on flat surfaces. I enjoyed playing on surfaces that were given to us, more so when it was an attacking field,” he said.

 

“I’d much rather have three slips and two gullies. Because I know if I bat well and connect the ball well, it’s a boundary for sure. But when you have a deep extra cover, and you’re trying to hit the ball as hard as you can. There’s no fun in it,” he concluded.