‘I want to be England’s Tendulkar’

By Will last year, at the end of August Leave a comment on this post

Not my words, but those of Ravi Bopara, the Essex and England batsman (oh alright: he’s an allrounder. Just). My miniature magazine colleague, Daniel Brigham, did an excellent interview with the future Tendulkar in a recent issue of The Wisden Cricketer, and Bopara’s claims are nothing if not ambitious.

“Sachin’s my ultimate hero. He’s the one who I learnt all my batting off, just watching him constantly. I always tried to copy his batting and put it in my own style. I want to be a top-four Test batter - similar to Tendulkar. I don’t think anyone’s going to score as many runs as him but I want to have a career close to his - do everything he did but do it for England.”

He’s got drive, I’ll give him that. But has he got Tendulkar’s drive? Patrick Kidd, who has championed Bopara’s talents since the lad was about 10, will hopefully tell us more…

Tags: england, ravi-bopara, sachin-tendulkar |

Comments to “‘I want to be England’s Tendulkar’” Patrick Kidd wrote:
August 24th, 2007 at 11.59 pm

Hi Will, I’ll rise to your challenge. I’ve been a fan of “Rav the Chav” since I saw him as a 16-year-old score something like 46 against the touring Pakistanis at Chelmsford. The next year he made a similar score against the touring Indians and, of course, made a hundred against the Australians in 2005. I like a player like that who rises to the occasion against big opposition.

He is cocky, a bit arrogant and full of self-belief, yet manages not to be a dickhead like, say, a Pietersen. He has started to make big hundreds for Essex, having initially failed to get out of the nervous forties. As a one-day player for England he is becoming indispensible, but why bat him at 7.

Of course, there is one significant way in which he does not and never will compare to Tendulkar. Ravi made 40s for Essex at 16; Sachin was playing for India and well on the way to deification. Perhaps Ravi’s first aim should be to be another Alastair Cook, rather than the next Sachin Tendulkar

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‘I want to be England’s Tendulkar’