West Indies batting great Brian Lara came out in support of a struggling Sachin Tendulkar on Monday, saying he was a class act and would bounce back to top form soon.
"Form is temporary but class is permanent. Sachin is a class act and he is too good and my favourite. He will get back to where he belonged," said Lara, who is in Chennai to fulfill his commitments MRF's brand ambassador.
Tendulkar has been under flak for his continued poor run with the bat, especially in the wake of the three-Test series against England in which his average was a shade over 20.
On his own form, Lara said a batsman was as good as his last innings, which in his case was 84 runs against New Zealand. The former West Indies skipper, who holds the record for highest individual Test score of 400, said he was looking forward to the Indian team's tour of the Caribbean later next month.
"It would be an interesting series," he said.
Lara believes that records are meant to be broken and cricketers like Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle and Mathew Hayden were all capable of breaking his record.
"The faster my record is broken, the better for the game," he said.
Lara said he would continue playing for his country till the time he felt he was an asset to this team. "I will continue to play till I feeI I am an asset to the team. The day I feel that I am a burden to myself, I will move aside for new and younger talent to take over. But I am still physically fit and I would like to go on.
"The main thing that motivates me at this point of time in my career is to help West Indies cricket become competitive, if not the best team in the world," he said.
Lara said it was sad to be on the losing side even as he was getting big scores and world records.
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