Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting believes Sachin Tendulkar is the finest batsman he has ever faced, saying that the iconic Indian cricketer always found a way to counter whatever bowlers threw at him.
Ponting went on to say that he would wait till Virat Kohli’s international career ended before drawing a “fair comparison” between the two Indian cricketing titans.
“I’ve said forever, Sachin’s technically the best batter that I’ve ever seen, and played with or against”.
“Whatever plan that we came up with as a bowling group, he found a way to combat it, whether it was in India or Australia,” Ponting said on ‘ICC Review’ on the eve of Tendulkar’s 50th birthday.”
“It’s hard to rank and judge players as everyone is different and everyone plays the game differently. But certainly through the generation that I played, he was technically the best player that I saw.” Ponting went on to say that he would wait till Virat Kohli’s international career ended before drawing a “fair comparison” between the two Indian cricketing titans.
“Trying to compare the times and I know Virat played a little bit in the back end of when Sachin played, but it is a bit of a different game now,” said Ponting.
“There’s different rules, for instance, around 50-over cricket, with less fielders outside the circle, two new balls, it makes it a lot easier now for batting than probably ever before.”
“There’s no doubt that the bats have got better. Field restrictions and new balls is a big part of it as well,” Ponting expressed his thoughts.
He stated that confronting the old ball, which was reverse swinging, was a difficult assignment during Tendulkar’s heyday”When Sachin was playing ODIs, the ball at the end of a 50-over game was very hard to see. It was very soft. It was very hard to hit, it reverse swung. You don’t see that at all in the modern 50-over game,” said Ponting.