'Invincible' Neil Harvey: Sachin Tendulkar is the best since Don Bradman
The Aussies who allegedly shouted slogans against Sachin Tendulkar in the Commonwealth Games Village are surely a minuscule minority in their own country.
Ever since Sir Donald George Bradman likened Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar's batting style to his own, the Indian legend’s fan club Down Under has only been swelling. Now Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’ teammate Neil Harvey has said the Mumbai maestro is as much revered in his land as here.
“People love him here, he’s quite popular in my country. They call him the Little Master and he will remain so till he keeps playing,” the 82-year-old Harvey told DNA in a telephonic chat from Sydney.
“I think he is appreciated wherever he goes because he’s so great a player. People go to watch him saying ‘Today I am going to watch the best player in the world play’,” said Harvey, who made his Test debut under Bradman’s captaincy against India in 1948. Tendulkar scored 403 runs in the recent two-Test series at an average of 134.33.
“Tendulkar is the best batsman I have seen since Bradman and most people will agree with that,” said the batting great who scored 6,149 runs in 79 Tests. “One reason I love to watch Tendulkar bat is because he is among the few current players who plays as well on the back foot as on the front. All great players have been back-foot players. Bradman himself got more runs off the back foot than the front foot. Tendulkar is just a complete player.”
Harvey thinks the Australians love a champion and Tendulkar averages 60.59 (31 Tests, 3151 runs, 11 hundreds) against them. His overall average is 56.96. “He gets a lot of enjoyment [doing well versus Australia] from there, isn’t it?” Harvey quipped.
“I was in Chennai in 1998 [first Test] when he belted [Shane] Warne and [Glenn] McGrath all over the place. He plays differently now. He no longer takes apart attacks; he sort of picks the right ball to hit and gets the job done with less risk. He has certainly tightened up. His concentration in the last Test was absolutely fantastic. He just grinds out the attacks. It doesn’t take away anything from his ability. He is still good to watch.”
Harvey said Tendulkar is aware of his responsibility of holding the Indian innings together. “He's matured and experienced, but more importantly it’s the responsibility of knowing that he’s got a pretty dodgy batting line-up; [Rahul] Dravid is not consistent anymore and [VVS] Laxman is in and out; [Virender] Sehwag is devastating but he can be a bit off his game too. He has learnt that it is up to him to make the majority of the runs and he’s doing a great job.”
The only thing Harvey doesn’t want to concede is a comparison with Bradman.
“Tendulkar is a complete batsman and you can probably compare him with Bradman. But Bradman was a cricketer apart. If he were playing on today’s flat pitches [with] shorter boundaries and jet-propelled bats, he wouldn’t be averaging 99.4, he would be averaging 199.94. That is the difference.”
