Who is the real master?

New Delhi: Sachin Tendulkar has a lot of things commom with Sunil Gavaskar apart from their short stature.

Both have nearly identical Test averages with Tendulkar holding a slight edge at 57.661 compared with Gavaskar's 57.05.

They also scored their 28th century in their 88th Test match, 30th in 99th match and 34th in 119th match.

Gavaskar's highest score in a Test is 236 not out whereas Tendulkar missed his 250 by just two runs.

But one thing that perhaps puts Gavasker on a higher pedestial than the Bombay bomber is that Gavaskar was an opening batsman unlike Tendulkar, who is a middle order batsman, and faced the feared West India fast bowlers like Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcom Marshall and others without the aid of all the modern safety equipments like the helmet.

But Tendulkar also faced some of the best bowlers seen in the history of cricket like Shane Warne, Muttaiah Muralitharan, Glenn Mcgrath, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

While Gavaskar's played 24 Test matches against arch-rival Pakistan scoring 2089 runs at an average of 56.45, Tendulkar played only 13 Test matches socring 855 runs at an average of 42.75, much below his overall Test average.