“T20 is the only format in which you can become a hero in three or four deliveries," says Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar. His words were resonated by his former teammates Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid by saying that T20 adds just another dimension to the natural way of playing cricket and somewhere or the other it also helps in building the character for an intense situation, but at the end of the day it’s the Test cricket which is the real deal.
Tendulkar was very happy that T20 has helped in getting more results in Tests and was quoted by Times of India saying, "Cricket is the only sport to have three formats and its only getting more exciting not only for players but also for spectators. There is creativity and more results are coming by (in longer version of the game). The batsmen are willing to take chances."
Meanwhile the reports published in The Hindu quoted the former India captain Sourav Ganguly saying, "It has brought innovation to the game. When it comes to Test cricket you need to adjust and no two players are similar in technique wise. Players have to stick to their basics and that is important."
Former test Captain Rahul Dravid feels that T20 requires much more adjustment in comparison to the other two formats and the reason is that you can’t block the ball all the time or match will slip away from your hands. "You have to learn to play a few shots. You just can't block it which I did in Test cricket," he said.
"Good players learn to adapt and if we look Chris Gayle, Michael Hussey or an AB de Villiers in last IPL, these guys who sort of dominated are all really good Test players. So, we need to have our basics right," he added.
Tendulkar also recalled the incident where he was first introduced to the technology in 2003 in the Indian dressing room and was quite struck about how will this help in improving his game, but he later found out it was worth the weight of gold for him.
"I wondered how this technology would help us learn cricket, but over the period of time figured out its importance. It helped us plan our innings," he said.
Tendulkar has been the cornerstone of Indian team for almost two and a half decade and according to his experience so far he looks for someone who can handle the pressure well rather than someone scoring heaps of runs. He wants that the player representing the country should be able to handle that pressure first and then think of what kind of a record he carries with him.
He was quoted by Deccan Chronicle saying, "Selection is not about looking at the scorebook. A selector can pick up players who have scored heavily. But that does not work out. For the past many years that I have been part of the Indian cricket, I have seen players who were exceptionally good at domestic level, but somehow could not replicate it at the next level.”
Tendulkar stressed on the fact that technique is of utmost importance when it comes to Tests and ODI but not so much in T20 format.