Tendulkar is an lbw candidate,
says Andy Roberts
For bowlers the world over, the singular mission has been to find a chink in Sachin
Tendulkar's armour. And now, after a rare string of three
consecutive failures for the maestro, comes West Indian bowling
legend Andy Roberts's statement that there are a few flaws in
the master batsman's technique.
"One of the things I have noticed is that he gets behind
the ball so much all the time that he is a leg before
candidate," Roberts told PTI in an exclusive interview at St. John's, Antigua, while helping out the West Indies fast bowlers at the nets.
"He also doesn't push out [his legs] much. This tour is the most I have seen of Sachin. I have never
watched him that close before. He is a good player, but like
most players, he has his weaknesses," said the affable Roberts.
"I have noticed a couple of things which I think would be
useful if I was bowling at Sachin," said Roberts, with a
twinkle in his eyes.
Tendulkar, widely regarded as the greatest batsman of
modern era, was dismissed for 0, 0 and 8 in his last three
knocks, after scoring a century in the first innings of the
second Test.
In four of his five Test innings on this tour, he has been
out leg before wicket.
Roberts, widely regarded as the father of modern West
Indies fast bowling, also rated Gundappa Vishwanath a better
batsman than Sunil Gavaskar on bouncy wickets.
"Sunny was a great player, probably one of the greatest of
all-time. But on a bouncy wicket, he had his problems,"
Roberts said about Gavaskar, who has 13 Test hundreds from 27
Tests against the West Indies, for an aggregate of 2749 runs at a 65-plus average.
"Vishy, in my estimation, was a better player on a bouncy
wicket than Sunil. This was also because Vishy was a wristy
player," said Roberts.
Inevitably, Roberts was drawn to comment on Vishwanath's
unbeaten 97 on a bouncy Madras pitch in the 1974-75 series, a
Test which India won handsomely.
"It was a great innings on a bouncy wicket. A lovely
innings and he played very, very well. May be, if the match
was played two years later, India wouldn't have won the game.
"I was a lot more quicker two years later on," said
Roberts. "I was much quicker in Pakistan which we toured after
India."
Roberts, like a true thoroughbred, also didn't find much
greatness in the present batting line-up of World champions
Australia.
"When I look at them, I find a lot of deficiency in
today's Australian team. I think a lot of them are suspect
against good, sustained short-pitched bowling. They always
play on bouncy tracks but they are never good players of true,
short-pitched bowling.
"Adam Gilchrist is the most prolific scorer today and is
seen as a good player of short-pitched stuff, but it depends on
how you are bowling and where you are bowling," said Roberts, who, in his heydays, took the English county cricket by storm.
"One of the things I have always preached is if you are a
fast bowler, you are not just going to run in and bowl short.
I liked bowling bouncers more than anyone else. But for my
bouncers to be effective, the batsman have to be playing on
the front foot. Otherwise the bouncers are not effective.
"If you are bowling the bouncer three quarters of the way,
he is on his backfoot all the time. Also, if you are a fast
bowler, you have got to learn to swing the ball. Whether it is
inswing or outswing. Every time, you can't depend on the ball
cutting in off the pitch. You have got to swing it, especially
if you are a new ball bowler. But the fast bowlers of today
are not prepared to pitch it up," said Roberts.
However, Roberts had quite a few good words to say about
the two Indian left-arm pacemen Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra.
"I think you have two good youngsters. By today's
standards, if you are bowling 85 miles per hour, you are considered
fairly quick."
He also defended the current West Indian fast bowlers and
differed with skipper Carl Hooper who said his bowlers had
difficulty in pitching it on the off-stump or outside it.
"I think they are bowling on the pads because a majority
of our fast bowlers are delivering from outside the crease.
In order to get the ball on to the stumps, they have to angle
it in, push it in; so you continue going in with the angle and
it appears as if they are bowling on pads," said Roberts.
India's tour of West Indies - The complete coverage
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