11:06 AM
Editor
Tendulkar, who is the highest run-scorer in Tests with 15921 runs from 200 Tests, emphasised the need to prepare "interesting tracks" to revive interest in the longest format.
"I think Test cricket is going to revive if we produce interesting tracks, but if the tracks are flat and dead then Test cricket is going to find its challenges. I know this World Test Championship has been announced but even to have this World Championship, you've got to make cricket interesting, just by having another championship, cricket is not going to get interesting.
Tendulkar also stressed on the art of leaving and defending the ball while heaping praise on Australia's Marnus Labuschagne. After his defiant 59 at Lord's coming in as Smith's concussion substitute, he made a well-crafted 74 and 80 at Headingley, pulling Australia out of trouble on all three occasions.
"I have been watching a little bit of Ashes and I thought someone like Marnus Labuschagne has left the ball brilliantly, which is something that you don't get to see in Test cricket. Normally you tend to glide those balls to third man and pick [up] a single. But the kind of surfaces they are playing on, if you steer the ball you go to the dressing room.
"You need to leave those balls or defend solidly. And the guys who have not been able to do that, they have been watching the game from the dressing room."
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