The Hindu : Sport : We had fun in the middle: Tendulkar

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Sunday, May 20, 2007
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We had fun in the middle: Tendulkar

Special Correspondent

CHITTAGONG: Sachin Tendulkar enjoyed his stint in the middle with Sourav Ganguly and made no effort to hide his feelings for the man.

Conceding that it was "always a pleasure'' to bat along with Ganguly, the maestro, who hit his 36th Test century on Saturday, paid his tribute to his former captain by calling him a "wonderful player".

"We have been playing together for many years. Sourav knows how to take runs and it is a pleasure to bat with him. We enjoyed our innings. We had fun in the middle. We basically remained focussed and tried to keep each other going. The conditions were tough and we had to encourage each other," he said.

No special planning

Tendulkar gave an insight to the approach he and Ganguly adopted. "There was no great planning. The idea was to keep things simple and the simpler you keep things the easier it is. The more complicated you think the more complicated it becomes. I played the way I wanted to play; the way the team wanted me to play.

"My entire career I have concentrated on my job only and my job is to go out and bat. Scoring hundred is always satisfying as the team wants me to do well. And every batsman wants to go out there and score runs. People look at statistics but players don't play for the numbers, they play to score runs. I am no different,'' he said.

He was delighted at scoring a century. "It is really good to get a century after a long time. It was important to score a hundred here. After South Africa I have not played Test cricket for a long time. I was looking forward to playing here. Century is not the only thing. How you play is more important," said Tendulkar, who missed India's tour of the West Indies before the World Cup.

Tendulkar revealed the focus was to "score quick runs" and added, "The pitch will become low and the bounce will also vary. But as time passes the ball will stop coming on to the bat. There is a lot of cricket to be played and we will go flat out to win.''

Nothing to prove

He did not agree that he had anything to prove to anyone. "I had no point to prove. After so many years I do not have any point to prove. Before coming here, I met up with my coach,'' he said, dedicating his century to his father on his eighth death anniversary. He also stressed that this generation of cricketers would set new benchmarks just the way the earlier generation of Sunil Gavaskar and Viv Richards set benchmarks to be followed.

Tendulkar also expressed his admiration for Ravi Shastri, coach for this series. "Ravi is a very positive player and person. It always helps to have a positive person. Ravi has been a great help as I know what he expects from me and he knows what I expect of him.We have played cricket together. He has a good cricketing brain. He has played close to 80 Tests.''

On the subject of players having a say in the selection of the new coach, the veteran batsman was candid, "I have no idea. We did not have a meeting (with the BCCI). We hope that our inputs would be considered and the choice would be unanimous.''

Tendulkar concluded with some encouraging words for Bangladesh. "They are a good and confident side. They have shown that in World Cup.''

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