Sachin Tendulkar Closed His Eyes When Up Against Shoaib Akhtar’s Bouncers: Mohammad Asif

Former Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Asif claimed that India legend Sachin Tendulkar closed his eyes while facing express pace bowling from Shoaib Akhtar.

The incident took place during the third Test of the 2006 series at Karachi, which Pakistan won despite Irfan Pathan claiming a hat-trick in the first innings.

“When the match started, Irfan Pathan claimed a hat-trick in the first over itself. Our morale was down. Kamran Akmal scored a century lower down the order. We scored around 240 runs,” Asif said in the Burgerz show.

“When we started bowling, Shoaib Akhtar bowled at express pace in that match. I was standing at square leg near the umpire and I myself saw that Tendulkar closed his eyes while facing one or two bouncers bowled by Shoaib.

“The Indians were playing on the back foot and we didn’t allow them to score even 240 in the first innings. We snatched victory from jaws of defeat.”

Asif also spoke about how the India team’s deep batting line-up intimidated the hosts, adding that someone of the calibre of MS Dhoni had to bat lower down the order due to the star-studded batting line-up the visitors’ had.

“If you remember the Indian team that came to Pakistan in 2004, they had a solid batting line-up. Dravid was scoring plenty of runs, Sehwag smashed us at Multan,” said Asif, who was not a part of that series.

“During the Faisalabad Test, both teams scored 600 runs each. We were a bit worried as their batting line-up was deep, MS Dhoni was batting at number seven or eight,” Asif added.