
Australian skipper Ricky Ponting on Tuesday vowed to make life difficult for Sachin Tendulkar in the upcoming Test series, which is likely to see the Indian replace West Indian batting great Brian Lara as the highest run accumulator in cricket's longer version.
Ponting and his teammates had no doubt whatsoever that it is just a matter of time before Tendulkar, with 11,877 Test runs under his belt, overtakes Lara, who quit the game with 11,953 runs against his name.
Those 77 runs, however, would not be easy to come by, vowed Ponting.
"Hopefully not (in this series)," Ponting said in reply to a query on Tendulkar reaching the milestone.
"I don't have too many great memories of him, for he tends to score heavily against us," quipped the cheeky Australian.
"But I have the highest regard for him. Sachin is a true champion, one of the all-time greats of the game and reaching this milestone would be a great reward for him," Ponting said.
"But we are here to win and know pretty well that we have to get rid of him early if we are to win here. We have come here with a few plans for him and hope our plans would click," Ponting, in Hyderabad for the warm-up match against the Yuvraj Singh-led Board President's XI, told reporters on Tuesday.
Ponting would rely most on spearhead Brett Lee to silence Tendulkar in the four-match Test series and the speedster said he is up to the challenge.
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