Two fine pacers of the current era, Dale Steyn and James Anderson were lucky to get to bowl against great Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin, who quit cricket in 2013, was a tough batsman to bowl because of his solid technique, which also justifies why he has 100 hundred in international cricket.
South Africa's Steyn and England's Anderson discussed their plan against Sachin considering he was the big fish who could turn the game either sides.
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Speaking on Sky Sports Podcast, Anderson said, “I don’t remember having a specific game plan against Sachin Tendulkar."
"Once he came on, I would just think that I cannot bowl a bad ball here, he was that kind of player. He was a key for India as well. If you get him out in India, the whole atmosphere, in the ground changes. He was such a big wicket.”
“You just try on bowling your best ball, top of off-stump, the whole time, and hope he miss a straight one. In England, he might knick the odd one, but generally, I’d try and get him out LBW early. I had some success against him, but he had success against me as well. He got runs against us quite a lot,” he added.
Steyn continued where Anderson left and added that it was not easy to trap the India legend in front of the stumps. “When he came in, you had to up your focus and think on how you are going to hold that length and try and hit the top of off stump. Especially in India, if you could just get the ball to get back in, you could get him out LBW. But he was so good, he rarely got out that way,” he said.
The Proteas pacer also talked about Sachin's impact on the Indian crowd. “You never want to bowl a bad ball to him. If you bowl a bad ball to him and he hits you for four, especially in India, it feels like the world is closing in on you. He might just be on 4* but he might as well be batting on 500,” he said.
“You don’t want to bowl a bad ball and you would think to just bring the pace down a little bit, and bowl at the right place for as long as you possibly could. And then you just hope; because he’s got it covered, he has every shot in the book. You just hope that one ball would do something off the seam or he’s got an off day and it goes in your favor,” Steyn said.
