Sachin speaks(-worma)

Sachin talks to IE in this interview touching on some new aspects of his game, besides giving his support to the theory of a bigger say for coach and captain in selection matters. This bit is interesting

There were times when Sunil Gavaskar asked his Mumbai teammates like Raju Kulkarni to bowl from 18 yards to play the West Indian quicks. You too once made L. Sivaramakrishnan bowl to you in the nets in 2001 to counter Shane Warne. Are there any ways that you prepare before a major tour?

At that stage I did it with the help of Sivaramakrishnan and a few others spinners because I hadn’t faced anything round the wicket from mid-off till then. I just wanted to practise and check it out what other shots I could play.

Here he mentions that practising against Siva before facing Warne was more to do with the possibility of discovering new shots...finding out more about his own game...developing it further. I'm not sure if such preparation is the norm amongst modern cricketers...but then again, where is the time? I hope they can practise playing the awkward bounce of Freddie and Harmy before the English series when they have the time, according to the new schedule.

Then this bit, in the Sachin interview, about the captains he has played under.

You have played under captains like K. Srikkanth, Azharuddin, Sourav Ganguly and now Rahul Dravid. Who was the best?

• All of them have had different styles. I think Ravi Shastri was a very good captain. Sandeep Patil was also an excellent captain in domestic cricket.

Again, good to see him break the norm and name someone who, by many, has been rated as one of the better captains in the list of could-have-beens.