'It felt like the eye of the tiger'- Brett Lee on Sachin Tendulkar

image-l855z881Sachin Tendulkar and Brett Lee (PC: Twitter)

Champion Australian pacer Brett Lee paid glowing tribute to Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar on his YouTube channel as he reminisced their legendary on-field battles.

Lee recalled his maiden encounter with Sachin during a warm-up game on India's tour of Australia in the winter of 1999-00.

Lee made his Test debut in that series, and his battle with Sachin in the Boxing Day Test kickstarted a glorious decade of constant back and forth between the two superstars.



Sachin enjoyed immense success against Australia in both formats of the game.

Lee, who was at the receiving end of some of the onslaughts from the champion batter, compared the intensity in Sachin's eyes with that of a Tiger.

The Australians are renowned for getting under the skin of the opposition player through verbal volleys. However, Lee revealed that they refrained from employing the same tactic against Sachin as they feared that it would motivate the 'Little Genius' even more.

Here's what Brett Lee said:

"You see in his eyes, he wants it. When you are bowling to Sachin Tendulkar, you see that look in the eyes and it felt like the eye of the tiger. Someone who wants to get into the battle.

"We as the Australian cricket team always said to each other, 'don't speak to Sachin Tendulkar on the field'. Because if you sledge him on the field, you know he will be out there batting forever. So we just tried to keep our mouth shut and get on with the game,” Lee recalled on his official YouTube channel.


Sachin Tendulkar v Brett Lee- A rivalry to behold

Speaking of the Tendulkar v Lee rivalry, the legendary cricketers came head-to-head 42 times in international cricket- 12 Tests and 30 ODIs.

In those games, Lee dismissed Sachin 6 times while the latter hammered 2329 runs with 17 50+ scores, including 6 centuries.


While Sachin's most celebrated feats against Lee came during the 2004 Sydney Test and the 2008 Commonwealth Bank series, the Aussie speedster had his day out during the 2007/08 BGT (dismissed him 4 times) and the 2000 Carlton-United tri-series.

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