New Delhi:
Playing
for one last time together in a cricket match, albeit for different
teams in the Champions League Twenty20 summit clash here, Sachin
Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid on Sunday heaped encomiums on each other with
the latter saying that his long time former India team-mate had
inspired him to strive for excellence in the game.
Tendulkar's
final T20 act and Dravid's last hurrah in competitive cricket were the
talking points at the Feroz Shah Kotla here as the two legends got
together though in the colours of Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals.
The two legendary batsmen had announced that this would be their final
Twenty20 season.
"Even
though Tendulkar is of my age or two months younger to me, he is seven
years senior to me as an international cricketer. When I came into the
Indian team, in my third Test, Tendulkar was India captain. He was
someone you would look up to as a young cricketer growing up. You saw
this young kid do amazing things across the world. It was sort of
inspiration for all of us playing first-class cricket," Dravid said
before the start of the CLT20 finale.
"It was like, look if this
guy can do it, we can also try to do it. The opportunity to try and
share a dressing room with him, that was a huge motivation. For me to be
on that England trip for the first time and share a dressing with him
was a huge trip," said Dravid.
The 40-year-old Dravid had retired
from international cricket at the beginning of 2012 while Tendulkar,
who retired from One-Day Internationals last December, is in the
twilight of his Test career. Together they have scored close to 92,000
runs in all formats of the game.
Tendulkar, who is also 40, returned the compliments, by describing Dravid as the 'master technician'.
"Absolutely,
he is a master technician. Any day in my team, he will be number three,
because there were so many innings in which he batted brilliantly. When
the rest of the guys found it difficult, he was comfortable. He loved
challenges and I knew we could bank on Rahul at the times of
difficulty."
Tendulkar, who has already retired from One-day
cricket but still playing the longest format, holds the record for most
Test and ODI runs -- 15,837 and 18,426 runs respectively -- while Dravid
has scored 13,288 Test runs and 10,889 in ODIs.
Tendulkar has also scored 100 international centuries (51 in Tests and 49 in ODIs).
The two cricket legends played together for the country for 16 years but rarely they have played against each other.
Asked
about this, Dravid, who is leading the Rajasthan Royals side, said, "I
can't remember playing against Sachin in Ranji Trophy for Karnataka
versus Mumbai. Only played against him in West Zone versus South Zone.
All our contests have been in coloured clothing, surprisingly, in spite
of the fact that we played for so many years together. So one final time
it is always great to play against Sachin."
Tendulkar also said that he would cherish this moment.
"I
remember Rahul being part of Wills Trophy team when I was his captain
but we played in whites. That was the first time I saw Rahul. I think it
was way back in 1993-94 and since then we have been in whites and
colours but playing in same team," he said.
"This is rare moment
where we two actually get to play against each other in colour clothing,
obviously in IPL. But on any other platform we have not been able to
play against each other in whites and that would have been something
special," said the senior batsman who is standing on the cusp of playing
his 200th Test.
Tendulkar has not been in top form in this
tournament, having scored only 20 runs in four matches with a highest of
15, but the Mumbaikar opened up in the semifinals against Trinidad and
Tobago last night, hitting a 31-ball 35.
In the process, he completed 50,000 runs
in all formats of cricket, becoming the first Indian to do so and 16th
in the world. Before today's CLT20 final match, he has 50,009 runs in
956 competitive matches, which includes 551 List A matches, 307
First-class matches and 95 Twenty20 games.
Today's venue -- Kotla
-- has been lucky for Tendulkar and it was here he struck his 35th Test
century to surpass legendary Sunil Gavaskar.
Tendulkar did not
have a great run as captain of the Mumbai Indians but played some
memorable innings for the IPL franchise. In the T20 format, prior to
today's outing, he had accumulated 2782 runs from 95 matches at an
average of 33.11.
After playing in the last edition of IPL, which
was won by his team, Tendulkar announced retirement from the format,
but was somehow was convinced to play in CLT20.
Dravid, on the
other hand, had a successful stint both as captain as well as a batsman
in the Twenty20 format. He has scored 2528 runs from 108 matches at an
average of 27.79.
He felt that IPL and CLT20 have helped India in doing better in the limited over formats.
"It
(CLT20) is a great tournament. The crowd, the atmosphere. Some of the
boys who are on our side, they never get to experience such things
anywhere they go. And for them just to get the experience of playing
against the likes of Tendulkar and others is great.
"And it's
great for Indian cricket because a lot of these kids would go on to play
for India and when they come in this sort of environment they are
comfortable they know what to do. That is India has been doing
exceptionally well in limited over cricket," Dravid said.
Tendulkar
agreed and said the experience of playing with some of the best in the
international circuit has helped Indian youngsters.
"It's a great
tournament. You talk about players from West Indies, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa and England, all the players love this tournament
and look forward to it, such is the importance of IPL and now CLT20. We
have thoroughly enjoyed being in the dressing room where we have got to
know so many players we thought were just okay as a person but once you
got to know them you find this is different and perceptions change about
the players.
"It's about sharing knowledge with the players.
It's not about senior players giving lectures to juniors, it is also
about absorbing things and that has happened in the last six years. The
bottomline is what Rahul said that Indian cricket is benefiting. You see
so young players sharing dressing room with players from across the
world. It's about understanding the game and that is what has happened
to the Indian cricket."
For Dravid, it was also about shouldering
additional responsibility as he had to weather the storm during IPL-6
spot-fixing and betting scandal.
For a man who has always relied
on his instincts to look ahead rather than ponder over what had happened
before, Dravid faced questions on the team's integrity and ethics
stoicly and weathered one controversy after another when the Royals were
rocked by the arrest and subsequent life ban on S Sreesanth and Ankeet
Chavan. A decision is still awaited on Ajit Chandila.
After
taking over the mantle of captaincy from Shane Warne during the fifth
season of the IPL last year, Dravid made for a perfect leader.
"It's
been a huge roller coaster. We had some great momentum going towards
the end of IPL. Then some unfortunate incidents happened that brought us
down a little bit as a team. Just the way the boys have responded even
towards the end of the IPL and the way they have got together in this
tournament I couldn't have asked for anything more," he said.
"It's been a privilege to me to captain this side and work with the support staff. It's been a fabulous journey and great ride."
