The Border-Gavaskar Trophy has overtaken The Ashes. While history favours the England vs Australia rivalry, in terms of quality of cricket and competitiveness, no other rivalry in the last two decades comes close to that of India and Australia. Currently, the two teams are duking it out. After Perth and Adelaide, the series is at parity (1-1).
Cummins, Head and Smith pick Sachin Tendulkar
As the excitement builds on, the Australian cricket team asked about their favourite Indian players growing up. Considering most of them are 30 and over, they had one cricketer over others. It was none other than Sachin Tendulkar. Hailed as the ‘God of Cricket’ by many, there is no doubt that the Master Blaster was one of the best ever to play in Australia.
20 of his 100 hundreds came against the Aussies, who were the best team during his career (1989-2013). In the toughest format, Test cricket, he was always at his best against them. He averaged 53.20 in Australia and scored 6 hundreds with a best score of 241 in Sydney, where he didn’t hit one cover drive. Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Steve Smith, and Mitchell Marsh all picked him as their favourite Indian cricketer growing up.
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MS Dhoni, VVS Laxman & Sehwag get a shout as well
But three other names were also mentioned. Alex Carey decided to go with a wicketkeeper, MS Dhoni. Being a gloveman himself, it wasn’t exactly a shock when opener Usman Khawaja went with Virender Sehwag. But perhaps the most unexpected one was Glenn Maxwell picking VVS Laxman. Everyone knows the current NCA head enjoyed facing Australia and even played one of the greatest Test innings against them in 2001, but you’d expect Maxwell to pick someone like Sehwag given his own batting style.
