Sachin Tendulkar pays tribute to Don Bradman on his 111th birth anniversary

Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar pays tribute to legendary Australian batsman Don Bradman on his 111th birth anniversary

Mumbai, August 28: Sachin Tendulkar still remains an idol in the minds of several aspiring cricketers even six years after his retirement. But Tendulkar too is an admirer of another batsman, from a totally different era. Sir Don Bradman. It was the 111th birth anniversary of the 'GOAT' on Tuesday (August 27) and Tendulkar offered his memories of Bradman and the experience of meeting him in 1998 at his home on Sydney.

1. Tendulkar's homage to Bradman

"A lot of people remember Sir Don Bradman for his extraordinary batting; I remember him more for his graciousness and sense of humour that I experienced when I had the privilege of spending some time with him in 1998," he tweeted. Tendulkar met Bradman along with Australian leg-spin legend Shane Warne during India's tour of Australia in 1998-99.

2. What Bradman thought of Tendulkar

Bradman had famously said Tendulkar's batting style remined him of his own. "I saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at him. Now I never saw myself play, but I feel that this player is playing much the same as I used to play, and she looked at him on television and said yes, there is a similarity between the two, his compactness, technique, stroke production; it all seemed to gel," Bradman had said about Tendulkar.

3. The Don of batting

Bradman made 6996 runs from 52 Test matches at an astonishing average of 99.94 with 29 hundreds and 13 fifties. Since then the average has not matched by any player. However, the Aussie legend was dismissed for a duck in his final Test innings by England spinner Erik Hollies that prevented him from achieving the perfect 100 as average.

4. The Tendulkar saga

Made his India debut at the age 16 against Pakistan in an away tour, Tendulkar went on to break several batting records in a career that lasted for 24 years. In 200 Tests, first and only batsman to play that many Tests, Tendulkar made 15921 runs at 53.78 with 51 hundreds, the runs and hundreds most by a batsman in the history of the game. From 463 ODIs, Tendulkar made 18426 runs at 44.83 with 49 hundreds, another set of records owned by him though current Indian captian Virat Kohli is closing in on him with 43 ODI centuries. Kohli has also surpassed a few other records set by Tendulkar but the Mumbaikar remains one of the greatest batsman to have graced the game.