India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his English counterpart Andrew Strauss were united in their praise of SachinTendulkar with the batting great on the verge of another landmark.
Arguably the world's best batsman needs just one more century to become the first batsman in the history to score a 100 international hundreds. He has already scored 51 Test centuries and 48 in one-day internationals.
In what will be the 2,000th Test ever played and the 100th between the two countries, Tendulkar could create yet more cricket history when England and India meet in the first of a four-Test series at Lord's starting here on Thursday.
Dhoni, asked what had motivated Tendulkar, who has scored over 14,000 Test runs at an average of more than 56, to keep playing at such a high level for so long told reporters at Lord's on Wednesday: "I think he loves the game, he has a passion for the game.
"Every time he turns up on the field he wants to improve his game. He may spend one-and-a-half hours on the field, but in that time he makes sure he is learning something, and when he goes back to the dressing room he can proudly say today's time I utilised to the best.
"He tries to keep it very simple and doesn't complicate things.
"Overall, I think he's an ideal cricketer to look up to, the way he has conducted himself on and off the field, irrespective of the fact that when he made his debut in one year's time he was a superstar.
"He has remained the same for the last 21 years."
England skipper Andrew Stauss is confident that his team can stop SachinTendulkar from achieving this feat at Lord's.
"I'm sure Sachin would love to score a hundred here and it's our job to make sure that doesn't happen.
