'Tendulkar greater than Bradman'

Melbourne, Dec 22 (IANS) India's batting great Sachin Tendulkar and not Australian legend Don Bradman is the greatest Test batsman who ever lived, a Gold Coast academic says.

Griffith University researcher Nicholas Rohde said he can prove with statistics that Tendulkar is the greatest. Rohde, however, admitted that if he could go back in time, he would prefer to watch Bradman every time.

Rohde said that by applying economic principles to batting performance, he has been able to rank players back through time.

'People are welcome to disagree and there would be other statistical ways of looking at it which would give you different results,' The Daily Telegraph quoted Rohde as saying.

Rohde said his obsession with cricket led him to the idea of coming up with a ranking system, even if it did mean trying to marry sport with economics.

'I don't see it as entirely trivial, but it isn't an indisputable result either; it's somewhere in the middle. My feeling is that devotion to Don Bradman probably robbed India of a national icon a little bit. And if you wanted my personal opinion on who was the better of the two, Bradman or Tendulkar, I would say that it was perhaps too close to call,' he said.

As a part of his calculation, Rohde took the total number of runs a batsman has scored in his entire career, and subtracted the number of runs that an average player of the same era would have scored if they'd played the same number of innings. He constantly updates the figures and calculates new ranking tables.

'Bradman has been number one until recently, but Tendulkar for the time being is just a little tiny bit ahead. No ranking system is definitive and people are always free to disagree, although I do feel it's a fairly sensible and intuitive way to rank the players,' he said.

Tendulkar's son bowls to Indian batsmen at Lord's

12-year old Arjun Tendulkar was spotted bowling to Suresh Raina, under the watchful eyes of his father

 London: Arjun Tendulkar, the son of Sachin Tendulkar, practiced at the Lord's cricket ground along with Indian cricketers ahead of the first of four Tests between India and England.

The 12-year-old was confident as he bowled to middle-order batsman Suresh Raina during a net-practice session in the presence of his father.

Media reports suggest that the little maestro would accompany his father during most of the sessions of the Lord's Test.

Sachin Tendulkar needs just one more century for his 100th international hundred. He has 51 tons in Test cricket 48 in one-day internationals. He has never made a ton at Lord''s.

Lord's will provide a fitting backdrop for the 2000th Test in history and the 100th between the two teams. England is seeking to challenge India's position as the top-ranked Test side.

Notorious slow-starters in Tests, India are coming off the back of a lacklustre display against Somerset in Taunton. However, Dravid advised people not to read too much into that performance.

The clash between the two sides sees one of the world's best batting line-ups meeting an England bowling attack that has performed well recently.

The presence of India's new coach Duncan Fletcher also adds spice to the contest, with the Zimbabwean overseeing England's rise to number two in the rankings before his departure from the post in 2007.

Tendulkar meets Schumacher and Ecclestone

Greater Noida: Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar showed his passion for motorsports by being the first of the high-profile guests to arrive at the Buddh International Circuit for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix here Sunday.

"His love for motorsport is well known and I was not surprised to see him three hours before the race time. I went to the gate to welcome him," Sameer Gaur, managing director of Jaypee Sports International, told IANS.

Tendulkar, who will do the honours of waving the chequered flag, spend a lot of time at the paddocks before going to the VIP lounge area.

His meeting with seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher was widely anticipated and that was one of the first things he did after arriving here.

Tendulkar went to the Mercedes GP team garage and chatted extensively with Schumacher and fellow driver Nico Rosberg. He also introduced his wife Anjali and daughter Sara to Schumacher.

It was Tendulkar's second meeting with seven-time champion Schumacher after 2002 when the German gifted the Indian the keys of a Ferrari.

The Mumbaikar then went ahead to meet F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone in the Formula One Management team building where they were joined by Bollywood actor Gulshan Grover and legendary three-time former champion Jackie Stewart.

Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh was the second cricketer to reach the venue.

Besides Tendulkar and Harbhajan, Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone were also spotted.

Jammu and Kasmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was spotted in the paddock for the second consecutive day. Robert Vadra was also seen chatting with the organisers.

Earlier in the day, 24 drivers took part in a vintage car rallly and waved to the fans to kick off the celebrations.

Tendulkar's promise of a glorious summer

Just before tea on day two of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. James Pattinson and Ben Hilfenhaus had bowled with serious pace and menace. Pattinson in particular. Rahul Dravid had struggled, but he had hung on. Virender Sehwag had sizzled, but he had been bowled. Every head at the stadium, all 52,858 of them, plus the others working on the match, turned towards the change rooms. There was a delay of about 30 seconds before they saw Sachin Tendulkar and gave him a reception to rival Ricky Ponting's.

 The second ball Tendulkar faced he inside-edged. Safe. A sigh. Michael Clarke brought on Michael Hussey to bowl the last over before the break. Tendulkar was playing to block out this over, and Hussey's slow-mediums could be dangerous. He has a history with those. He bat-padded, but it didn't carry to a fielder. Another sigh. The MCG was abuzz. Australia could sense they were back into this one. Dravid had not been at his best; he was just clinging on. Tendulkar had made an iffy start. India were still 214 behind. 

Many times before this, sides have come back immediately after a Sehwag dismissal. It's just the change of tempo that is huge, which leaves an opening for bowling sides. India needed somebody to take charge of the situation. The tea break arrived at the right time. Twenty minutes later, Clarke went to home boy Peter Siddle. The first ball was a bouncer, over the stumps. Tendulkar arched back, for there was no room. He had to use the wrists to make up for the lack of room. He did. And he guided it over slip. 

If this were a cricket documentary, I would tell you the rest of the story - at least a major part of it - through an almost fast-forward video of one shot merging into another: another cut behind square, a drive on a bent knee, an on-the-up drive through extra cover, a punch straight down the ground, a glance off the pads, a slog-sweep placed expertly in front of deep backward square, another upper-cut for four. 

It all happened that fast. Yet it wasn't an awe-inspiring Sehwag fast. You could savour this. Usually when batsmen score this fast in a Test - he was 54 off 62 at one stage - the bowler's faces tell a story. Here the story was happening at the batsman's end. There was the class, there was the innovation. There was the high elbow, there was the arched back. There was the glorious sun that wouldn't set till quarter to nine. During that period it seemed he couldn't find fielders even if he tried to. 

India had well and truly taken charge. Dravid was allowed the space to struggle, and hasn't he earned it after a fabulous year? Test cricket, though, doesn't go at the same pace all the time. Clarke finally found some control on proceedings through Lyon, David Warner and deeper fields. Tendulkar settled down too. Not in a playing-for-stumps sort of way, but in a long-innings sort of way. The singles were on offer; he kept taking them. 

Inevitably the talk of the hundredth hundred reached fever pitch. Not that there hasn't been talk. There has been talk all through the year. There has been talk it plays on his mind. However, if you had been deprived of cricket all year long and if you were dropped in at the MCG today, you wouldn't have guessed the man had scored 99 international hundreds, had been stuck there for nine months, had been out in 90s twice, and came from a country that could think of little else. 

Tendulkar here was setting the tone for the summer; if the hundredth was on his mind, it didn't show. India's last four tours have all begun with batting failures; he was trying to make sure this one wasn't going to. He knew Dravid was having an off day, and it's only a few like Dravid who come out of such off days unconquered, but if Tendulkar hadn't scored that fast from the other end Australia could have cornered India. 

Tendulkar fell to a superb spell of bowling, when two Victorians, Peter Siddle and Pattinson, chugged in for another spell of testing fast deliveries in front of their home crowd, just before stumps. He left India needing another brief period of recovery if they needed to take full control. That was the imperfection in an otherwise perfect innings. But four years after every Australian ground had bid him farewell, he also made us a promise of another glorious summer.