Former India cricketer Sachin Tendulkar is undoubtedly one of the best players of all time and his popularity around the world still hasn’t plunged despite him not being active in the sport for the past 10 years. Tendulkar retired from all forms of the game in 2013 after playing his 200th Test for India. Tendulkar played for India for more than two decades and has inspired generations of players in the country including the superstar Virat Kohli.
Kohli has admitted several times that Tendulkar played an enormous part in inspiring him to play cricket for India. Kohli even got the opportunity to share the dressing room with Tendulkar during the early part of his international career. Both players were part of the Indian squad that won the World Cup in 2011. After the final at Wankhede Stadium, Kohli famously confessed that they wanted to win the coveted trophy for Tendulkar as it was his last World Cup appearance.
Sachin Tendulkar vs Virat Kohli debate
Despite the respect that Kohli has for Tendulkar, he often gets compared to the legendary player due to his batting prowess and technique. The latest to join the Sachin vs Virat debate is former Pakistan spinner Saqlain Mushtaq. Speaking at Nadir Ali’s podcast on YouTube, Mushtaq said Tendulkar is bigger than Kohli for him because of the kind of bowlers that the India great faced during his playing days.
“Sachin Tendulkar is widely considered the greatest batter of all time, not just by me, but by people around the world. His technique is often used as a copybook example for aspiring batters. While Virat Kohli is a legendary batter in today’s era, Sachin faced some of the most challenging bowlers in the history of the game,” Mushtaq said.
“Did Kohli face Wasim Akram, Walsh, Ambrose, McGrath, Shane Warne, Muralitharan, all big names and clever bowlers? Today, there are only two types of bowlers – one can stop the batters from scoring runs and the other can trap batters. However, the bowlers during Sachin’s era could do both. They knew how to stop batters and also how to trap them,” he added.
