Ravi Shastri also had advice for England on how to win Ashes in Australia
Ravi Shastri is one of the most beloved figures in the cricketing world. The reasons are numerous – either it be for his booming voice on the air, his clever quips off the field, his record of six sixes in a first-class games and his glittering track record of being World Cup winner as a player or for guiding India to two Border-Gavaskar Trophy titles on Australian soil as a coach.
When he picks India’s greatest players of all time, the list is a summation of his own experiences playing with them or mentoring them or just interacting with them as a broadcaster or as a former player.
In a chat with former England players Phil Tufnell, Sir Alastair Cook, David Lloyd and Michael Vaughan, Shastri named an expected Top-5 but named his reasons for picking them.
“Starting from the 70s, (Sunil) Gavaskar, Kapil (Dev), Sachin (Tendulkar), Virat (Kohli) and MS (Dhoni). I would pick (Jasprit) Bumrah, but I want to focus on players who are done or close to completing their careers,” Shastri said on ‘Stick To Cricket’ show on YouTube.
Even though he didn’t rank the remaining four, Shastri singled out Tendulkar for the top position for more than one reason. Tendulkar is still the highest run-scorer in both ODIs and Test cricket and has 100 international hundreds, three feats which are yet to be surpassed. Kohli has been able to overtake his idol’s 49 ODI hundreds and has 51 centuries
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“As a batter, I would put Sunny on the top. But as a complete package, it’s Tendulkar for me because of the expectations he handled, the longevity of playing 24 years, the 100 hundreds and then facing every fast bowler out there. He started with Wasim (Akram), Waqar (Younis) and Imran (Khan). Then the Aussies, then the English attack, then the South African bowlers,” Shastri explained.
When asked about winning a series in Australia, Shastri had few pointers for England ahead of their Ashes tour later this year.
“If you have four pacers and are able to put up totals around 270 or 300, you are in the game. I think England can win it if they have Archer and when Mark Wood comes back. You need a good spinner to do the controlling job. And ideally, you need runs from your spinner, more than anything else. I think Liam Dawson is a great choice,” the former Indian head coach said.
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