Test cricket will always be at the very top: Tendulkar

Even as he acknowledged that the shortest format of the game has helped players to innovate with their technique, Sachin Tendulkar insisted that Test cricket will reign despite the rising popularity of Twenty20.

Speaking to reporters at the launch of his autobiography, Playing It My Way, at Lord's Cricket Ground in London on Friday, the cricket legend said, "It's only fair that all three formats have their own place, but, according to me, Test cricket will always be at the very top.

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"Somebody who is interested in Test cricket is not going to get satisfaction by playing just T20s. If you go to most of the players, they will back Test cricket as No. 1 spot," he said.

He, however, highlighted the impact of T20 in attracting new audience to the game and in players going for experimentation in their shots.

"T20 has just opened up a different kind of audience to be attracted to cricket and somewhere we can have more audience watching the sport, that's good for the sport," said Tendulkar, who played for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League till 2013.

Regarding the impact of IPL and the T20 format on the game, he said, "T20 is exciting, it allows you to experiment a lot, allows you to be innovative and because of T20, you are seeing such high scores in One-Day cricket as well.

"Also, in Test cricket batsmen are now prepared to play reverse sweep, which didn't happen earlier.

"I remember, around 14 years ago, Andy Flower was playing a lot of reverse sweep shots in India and I said Andy is possibly eight-nine years ahead of the rest of the world as far as reverse sweep is concerned and now you see a lot of reverse sweep being played and that is because of the introduction of T20," said the 41-year-old batting icon.

Tendulkar said that as cricket is the only sport which has three different formats, it is impossible to keep all three formats as popular as each other.

"You are going to have differences and eventually it boils down to opinion and choice, and if you go by players' choice, most guys would want to play Test cricket for the nation," he said.