Sachin Tendulkar was one of the toughest to bowl to: Sir Curtly Ambrose

Sir Curtly Ambrose has said that Tendulkar was one of the toughest batsmen he has bowled to

West Indies legend Curtly Ambrose, who was recently knighted, troubled many a batsman in his times, and was without the best bowler of his era.

Talking about the best batsmen he has bowled against, he said that recently retired Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar was one of the toughest batsman to bowl to. Ambrose claimed that it was not easy to get Tendulkar out.

In an interview to Mid-day‘s Clayton Murzello, Ambrose said, “He has to be one of the greatest batsmen ever to play this game — no two ways about it. He would be in my top five batsmen of all time. It was always a big challenge. I relished the challenge of bowling to a great player. If you got him out cheaply, you’d have done a wonderful job and if he scored a hundred, you could say he played extremely well. It was always a good contest between us.”

He added, “He was one of the toughest batsmen I bowled to. I have got a lot of respect for him and everything he achieved, he worked very hard for. He achieved so much, yet he is so humble and that to me, is a great quality.”

He also remembered an incident relating to Tendulkar, “I remember we lost to India [in Gwalior]. We had India on the ropes with some early wickets, but Sachin Tendulkar was dropped by the wicketkeeper Courtney Brown [when he was on 22] and he went on to get 70 to win the game for India. We were defending a small total [173]. Had we got Tendulkar, we would have won the game. He played a wonderful innings.”