Indian cricketers regularly get the question asked of them, regarding who is the greater batter between Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli. Between the two of them, the pair of legends have dominated international cricket for nearly forty years, and sit right near the top of the mountain in terms of runs scored and centuries hit.
Indian cricketers have therefore also become very good at sidestepping the question, making sure both players get their flowers. Sourav Ganguly has been one of India’s greatest captains, and was in charge during some of Sachin’s strongest years. So while Dada’s vote seemed to go to his former opening partner, he had a lot more to say about how playing alongside such legends of the game can make everyone in the team stronger.
“Don’t ask me that,” said Ganguly with a smile while speaking at the WITT Summit on TV9 Network. “Both are great, both are very good, and I am happiest that both are from India. Both have won so many matches for India. You cannot even imagine, because when you play, you realise how difficult it is to score so many runs and so many centuries,” he explained.
“Sachin Tendulkar is a very big player. I have seen him from up close, I have played so much with him. I had opened around 250 ODIs with him, so I would always come home and say that my game should not go down,” he elaborated.
‘At the other end there is an average player…’
For Ganguly, it was a blessing and a curse to share the crease with arguably the greatest ODI batter of all time. While it pushed him to look better, Sachin’s quality would often earn denouncements for his batting teammates, who struggled to look as at home on tricky pitches as the little master often managed to make them look.
“Sometimes my wife would ask why, since form goes up and down. I would say no — people will say that at one end there is such a great player, and at the other end there is an average player. So I never wanted my game to go down,” reflected the former BCCI president.
“One thing I believe in life is that when you play with good people, players who are better and stronger than you, your game also improves, your level rises to theirs,” said Ganguly. “So in my opinion, there should not be a comparison between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Both belong to India. But I have seen Sachin very closely, and he is a great player.”
Kohli overtook Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the most centuries in the one day international format, but the overall centuries and international runs marks still stay firmly in Tendulkar’s hands. Nevertheless, with Kohli taking gradual steps away from the game, the lineage of batting greats needs a replacement, and India’s focus will be on finding the player who can continue that great legacy into the future.
