Sachin Tendulkar was one of the most versatile modern-day batsmen: Sir Vivian Richards
Former West Indies great Sir Viv Richards has heaped lavish praise on Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, saying that he is one of only two batsmen in the modern game who was able to adjust his game to the needs of the three different formats. The fact that this is coming from Sir Viv would definitely be extra special for the Little Master as he has acknowledged the West Indian icon as being one of his two cricketing idols growing up, the other being Sunil Gavaskar.
The other batsman held in high regard by the 62-year-old is none other than Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara, who became the fastest to reach 12,000 runs in Test cricket yesterday.
"It is, after all, all about making the necessary adjustments. It is about being smart enough to know how to make those changes from one format to the next. Two names from modern day cricket come to my mind, Sachin Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakkara," Richards wrote ahead of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
"They (Tendulkar and Sangakkara) are batsmen who made that adjustment across all formats quite easily. If you love cricket, you can accomplish that, and then basically you can achieve anything. I am not sure that many batsmen think like that in the present day,” he added.
Richards, who was equally adept in Tests and ODIs with 8540 and 6721 runs respectively, also failed to understand why players like to pigeonhole themselves as specialists in only format, adding that the truly great cricketers should strive to master all formats.
"Today, there are certain players who are described as Test cricketers and others as ODI cricketers (or even Twenty20 cricketers). I find it rather ludicrous. I wouldn't want to be left out of an ODI team because I am just a Test cricketer and had only reasonable success in shorter formats."