World’s premier leg spinner Shane Warne, who recently had a successfulAshes campaign, has named Sachin Tendulkar in his dream team

Staff & Agencies06-Sep-2001* Tendulkar finds a place in Warne’s dream teamWorld’s premier leg spinner Shane Warne, who recently had a successfulAshes campaign, has named Sachin Tendulkar in his dream team. In hisjust-released autobiography ‘Shane Warne’, he has named separateAussie sides for both the versions of the game to take on the World’sBest XI, the criterion being the spin-wizard should have played withthe Aussies or against the rest of the world in a full international.Warne is the most successful spinner in Test cricket with more than400 Test wickets and he has chosen nine players of the Test side ofthe rest of world in the One-Day squad too. Tendulkar, Saeed Anwar,Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, Moin Khan, Chris Cairns, Wasim Akram,Saqlain Mushtaq and Curtly Ambrose make the cut.He explains the recurrence of players thus: “There is a place forlimited-overs specialists, but from experience I think that greatplayers are great players whatever the form of the game. People ofthis quality are good enough to adapt to any situation.” While Warne,who once admitted being tormented by Tendulkar in his nightmares,justifies Tendulkar’s presence in the Test side quite at length, thereasons for picking the Indian in the One-Day squad is explainedtersely in just one sentence!* Borde welcomes Tendulkar and Kumble fitness newsThe Indian selection committee chairman Chandu Borde, has welcomed thenews of Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble’s fitness for the tour ofSouth Africa. Borde is disappointed the youngsters failed to deliverthe goods in the recently concluded tour of Sri Lankla.”The Indian team is bound to benefit from the experience of Tendulkar,Kumble and other seniors who missed the Sri Lanka tour as theyoungsters on that tour failed to grab the opportunity given to them,”he said.”It was unfortunate the youngsters got a start but failed tocapitalise on them which made the big difference to the ultimateresult of the Test series. However, the team showed its fightingqualities to rally in both the triangular and test series. They cameback into contention after losing three games in a row to win the nextthree in the Triangular one-day series but slipped in the final.””Again in the Test series they levelled 1-1, winning the Kandy Testonly to lose the third Test at Colombo,” he said.Borde and his colleagues have a tough task tomorrow as they meet inMumbai to pick the team for the One-Day triangular series in SouthAfrica. There are a good number of players who are back in thereckoning after been on the injury list for a while.* Tendulkar confident about his formWorld’s premier batsman Sachin Tendulkar said he has completelyrecovered from the toe injury, and added that the lack of matchpractice would not affect his performance in South Africa. Tendulkarhad flown down to South Africa to consult arthroscopic surgeon Dr MarkFergusson who prescribed the use of special inner soles.”I have been playing top-class cricket for more than 10 years. I don’tthink it would affect my performance on the field,” Tendulkar said inMumbai.He said the new inner soles, which he last week acquired from SouthAfrica had helped him tremendously and there was absolutely no pain onhis right big toe.”The inner soles cushion the injured toe and I feel very comfortablewhen I run. I think I have totally recovered,” said the Indian battingmainstay.Tendulkar suffered the injury in Zimbabwe during the last league matchof a triangular series against the West Indies on July 4.”In fact, every one contributed for my recovery, especially the peopleat Adidas. I wanted shoes of different sizes and styles and thesepeople provided everything I needed,” Tendulkar said.”I have started running a bit and the doctors said I can graduallyincrease the workout sessions. I should be perfectly alright in acouple of weeks,” he added.Asked about the pain in his right toe, Tendulkar said “though I am notrunning hard and just jogging for the time being, I do not feel anypain.”Now I will let the muscles get used to the new soles and thengradually start training hard. I don’t want to push hard right now.”Once you are mentally prepared you can overcome any difficulty,especially after playing 273 One-Dayers and 84 Test matches. You cango in the middle and do what you have been doing. However, a couple ofpractice matches help.”Anyway it is very important that I think positively and not worry toomuch over what happed in the past eight weeks.”I can only say I am happy to play for the country again as I reallymissed cricket when all my colleagues were playing in Sri Lanka thoughI was mentally in Sri Lanka as well.”Tendulkar is a certainty in the squad to be chosen for the SouthAfrican tour on Thursday in Mumbai.