Former Pakistan speedster Aaqib Javed has heaped praise on India's batting legend Sachin Tendulkar as he called the Indian batting maestro the most impactful cricketer of his era.
Tendulkar is among only a few legends of the game who got the respect from the opposition cricketers also and the master blaster still gets even 7 years after retiring from international cricket.
31 years ago, the Indian great started his iconic journey in international cricket as a 16-year-old against a lethal Pakistan pace attack and went on to rule the world cricket for over two decades with his skills and finesse and dominated bowling attacks across the globe.
The master blaster finished his illustrious career as the highest run-getter of all-time in both Test and ODI cricket with 15921 and 18426 runs respectively and Javed reckons that the 47-year old rightfully deserved his place to be called the greatest of his time.
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Aaqib said in a freewheeling chat with the GloFans Q20 fan series, “Sachin created a 100 percent impact on the game with the quality of talent he had. He held the numero uno spot in the game for several years as he was a seasoned cricketer.”
Javed is famously remembered for his exceptional figures of 7/37, which were an ODI record for some time, against arch-rivals India in 1991, and during his spell, the former pacer also claimed a hat-trick, dismissing Ravi Shastri, Mohammad Azharuddin, and Sachin, who all were trapped leg before wickets.
His brilliant bowling helped Pakistan to beat India in the finals of the triangular Wills Trophy by a mammoth 72-run margin in Sharjah – but there was much controversy over one of the umpire's decisions during Aaqib’s hat-trick.
Reflecting back at the same, Javed said that the lack of technology usually assisted the bowlers.
He signed off by saying, “In those days, the lack of technology gave a lot of power to the Umpire at that time and whatever the Umpire said, was considered as the final decision.”
(With ANI Inputs)