Tendulkar is the greatest - Says 'Typhoon'

Frank 'typhoon' Tyson compares the three best players of this era ( Tendulkar , Lara and Ponting) and considers Tendulkar to be the greatest of them all.

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Coincidentally all three must be classified as front-foot players — symptomatic perhaps of the pluperfect wickets on which they bat. Ponting even hooks and pulls as he advances his front foot down the pitch in front of the batting crease and only gets into trouble when he plays back, becoming chest-on and cramped by incoming balls which often lead to his downfall, lbw or caught in the slips.

Lara's backlift is initially all hands and vertical, followed by a good shoulder rotation: a feature which allows him to play those characteristic "Not a Man Moves" cuts, drives and pulls which bring him his enormous scores. His footwork is as nimble as Nureyev's and he has inherited Garry Sobers's mental ability to play long innings. His only discernable weakness, exploited by McGrath in the 2005-06 West Indies series in Australia, is the chasing drive outside the off-stump and the inevitable edged catch to gully.

Tendulkar has been burdened with the traditional comparison with Bradman — an analogy made by the "The Knight" himself, who likened the diminutive Indian to himself in his younger days.

Tendulkar is my favourite in this trio of stars — because of his correctness. He is the Parnassian batsman: a player who seeks technical perfection and is never satisfied until he achieves it. His initial trigger movement is a slight shift of weight on to the toes of the front foot, followed by a full commitment to the chosen stroke. Classically straight, his achilles heel is his tendency to flirt with balls outside the off stump; deliveries which he sometimes edges when he fails to move across and get behind them.

So abideth these three; Ponting, Lara and Tenduilkar. But the greatest of these is Tendulkar.

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Tendulkar is the greatest