BANGALORE – Sachin Tendulkar and Kevin Pietersen are poised for a heavyweight World Cup clash of superstars on Sunday when India and England go head-to-head. Tendulkar is the world’s leading scorer in both Test (14,692 runs) and one-day (17,657) cricket, while Pietersen is relishing his new role at the top of the order. “He (Tendulkar) has been one of the mammoths of world cricket over the last two decades,” said England captain Andrew Strauss.
“The fact he’s been able to do it for so long and so consistently is a great testament to him and his preparation. “There aren’t many negative words you can say about the guy. He’s an absolute legend. But at the moment our job is not to build up the Indian players, our job is to beat them.” Pietersen opened against the Netherlands and scored 39 as his team successfully chased a 293-run target.
“I think this is the sort of match that brings out the best in him (Pietersen). Opening the batting is giving him a fresh outlook on his one-day cricket and we hope he’ll transfer all that into big runs,” said Strauss. “He’s performed well in the sub-continent before and he obviously knows this wicket well, because he’s played IPL (Indian Premier League) here. In the big matches and big tournaments, generally we see the best of Pietersen.”
Pietersen has scored 3,556 runs in 111 one-day internationals with seven hundreds and 21 half-centuries. “I don’t think it’s time to take the pressure off him. It’s a World Cup and we all need to stand up and perform. He knows that as well as anyone else,” added the England captain. “We know what he can bring to our side when he does perform because he’s a match-winning player and one that other sides fear.
I’m very confident he’s going to put in some telling performances over the course of this World Cup.” Strauss said his team planned to gatecrash crowd favourites India’s party by playing “smart” cricket in the Group B day-night clash. “We’d love to spoil an India party here in Bangalore,” said Strauss. “It would be potentially a huge lift for us and would send out a pretty strong marker to other sides, but we’ve got to do it first, concentrate on the process of doing it.”
England’s last tour of India in 2008 ended in failure as they lost five successive one-dayers under Pietersen, but Strauss said his side had been playing good cricket of late. “We’ve played well against them in England, but not in India.
But we’ve evolved quite a lot as a side over the last 12 to 24 months and we just need to play good, smart cricket,” said Strauss. “Perhaps there’s more pressure on India than us in this game. If we can play good, smart cricket and put them under pressure, we hope that pressure will come to the fore at some stage and allow us to get over the line.”
Meanwhile, England will have problems if hard-hitting Indian opener Virender Sehwag bats through the innings in Sunday’s World Cup clash, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said. Sehwag, fit to play the day-night game after suffering a rib injury on Friday during a practice session, said ahead of the tournament he would like to bat the entire 50 overs. The opener narrowly missed his pre-tournament aim in the opening match against Bangladesh in Dhaka when he got out in the 48th over, but not before giving his team a blazing start.
Sehwag hammered an explosive 175 off just 140 balls to set up his team’s 87-run victory. “If he (Sehwag) bats 50 overs I don’t have problem with that, but definitely the opposition will have problems,” said Dhoni. “But his most important role is to bat aggressively and give us a good start and momentum from which the middle order can capitalise.” The Indian captain said his side were well-equipped to cope with the pressure in the high-profile match.
“It was in 2004 when I made my debut and I have never played a series when we’re not under pressure, whether it’s the pressure of winning the game or playing against a strong opponent,” said Dhoni.