Nobody is going to be able to replace Rahul at No. 3 position, says Sachin Tendulkar

Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar feels the retirement of his long-time teammate Rahul Dravid has created an irreplaceable void at number three position in the Indian Test team, says a report in The Times Of India.

Sachin says Dravid will be sorely missed in the dressing room. "Rahul has been an incredible player for India and for world cricket. Nobody is going to be able to replace Rahul in that position," said Sachin. You need someone to be dedicated, be committed and disciplined. The entire country will miss him because we were all used to Rahul padding up batting at number 3. However, these things will continue to happen because that's how the game goes around for years. All great players retire one day."

Dravid retired from all forms of the game in March, ending a glorious 16-year-old career. His decision followed the team's disastrous show in England and Australia where it lost eight Test matches in a row.

Meanwhile according to media reports, there has been a raging debate whether the next crop of Indian youngsters are passionate enough about playing Test cricket but Sachin Tendulkar reckons that players cannot be forced into liking the longer format. "To make someone like Test cricket, it has to come from within. There is no set formula that you have to do certain things and then you start liking Test cricket. I grew up dreaming about playing for India - that was the biggest thing I wanted to achieve: to play Test cricket for India and to do well," Tendulkar said.

"Every practice session I went out, I was prepared to work as hard as any of my coaches wanted me to; the only thing I wanted was an India cap. Yes, maybe there are individuals around who feel, 'If I don't play Test cricket I don't miss much.' You need not force them into something they don't want to be," he told ESPN.

"If someone wants to be in Test cricket, then he will find his way, will be ready to push himself as hard as anyone to realise his dreams. I don't like to push someone to like Test cricket and make him like Test cricket forcibly. I would just keep those two individuals separate," Tendulkar, who has scored 15470 runs from 188 Test matches, said.

Meanwhile according to a report in The Hindu, asked if there was any problem with the system, Tendulkar responded in negative. “I don’t think we can point our fingers at our structure because with that same structure we hit the number one spot. So if there was something wrong with the structure, we would have never reached that spot.

“I just feel, you know, that if you compare the Australian series and you felt they always managed to get one big partnership. We were able to pick up early wickets, then invariably there was one partnership, which tilted the game in their favour and there were not many big partnerships in our side.”

“There are two ways to look at it. The batsmen aren’t scoring enough runs and on the other side the bowlers are allowing that one big partnership because one side was getting that advantage of one big partnership, the other side was not,” Tendulkar said.