Adelaide curator wants a century from Sachin

Burdett’s first love is Test cricket, and he derives extreme pleasure from the fact that the world’s finest will be in action on a stage set up by him. So Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will play, for all practical purposes, their last Test on the Australian soil at Adelaide that he calls an “honest Cricket wicket.”

“It’s so humbling for me that world’s greatest players will show themselves on a wicket of my liking. I have always prepared wickets where there can be good cricket. This Adelaide wicket is the best I have seen in my whole lifetime. Glenn McGrath took a look at the wicket this morning, and he called it a belter. I have watered it a bit this evening. There is a bit of grass and will pack it a bit tight with the roller. It’s flat and even throughout, so the batsman can have a go, the bowlers can have go, and the wicket here always assists turn from the third day. So there’s everything in it for everyone.

But Burdett admitted that he is very fond of Tendulkar, and wants the maestro to score a hundred here, just as he had the privilege of watching Brian Lara score a big ton in his last Test in Australia here. “That would be great, if Sachin gets a hundred. He’s a fantastic batsman, I enjoy watching him bat. It would be a great fulfillment for me to have seen Lara and Sachin both waving Australia goodbye with a big century. Lara needed 118 to get past the world record, and he scored a big one here. Now, I hope Sachin does that as well,” he said.

With 30 years of experience, and handling 15 hectres of turf which includes five cricket pitch squares and ovals, two bowling lawns, 65 practice cricket pitches and six tennis grass courts, Burdett has seen it all.

... contd.