England new-ball bowler Simon Jones rates Sachin Tendulkar as the best batsman in the world and is looking forward to bowl to him when England tour India for the Test and one-day series in March.
"I rate him (Tendulkar) as the best batsman in the world and Brian Lara is also there. As for Indian batsmen, it is going to be tough to bowl to them. I am not targeting anyone, but am going to bowl to my potential for wickets," he told reporters in Chennai.
Jones, who has been in and out of the team due to frequent injuries, arrived here late last night to gain fitness for the series. He was accompanied by bowling coach Troy Colley, assistant coach Kevin Shine, three other bowlers -- Amjad Khan, Sajjad Mohamed and Mark Footit and physio Kirk Russel.
Another English Academy bowler Kabir Ali is scheduled to join them when Dennis Lillee starts his coaching tomorrow evening.
Jones said he had recovered fully and that the 10-day training with a bowling great like Dennis Lillee would make him better, both physically and mentally, for the India tour. "Coming to MRF Foundation is a bonus for me and that too, to train under Dennis," he said.
"It should be very interesting to work with Dennis, with whom I have interacted on a couple of occasions, but never worked with," he said, adding "we had a tough series against Pakistan. The coming series is also going to be tough. India have many talented batsmen like Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and so on."
Jones, with 59 wickets from 18 Tests, was at the Academy at Loughborough to get himself fit after missing the Pakistan tour.
On the coming series, Jones said he did not have any goal as of now. "I have not set my mind on taking any particular player's wicket, but would like to be amongst the wickets all the time in our tour in March."
He said he had been to the sub-continent before and that it was different for him, being a bowler from England. However, one has to bowl under all conditions, he observed.
"I picked up reverse swing in Adelaide and used it when I toured here with the under-19 team and it worked well. I suppose I will be successful in the coming series too."
Meanwhile, Troy Cooley, the English Academy coach, who will join the Australian team as a bowling coach after a three-year stint with the Academy, said he considers India as "one of the most passionate places to play."
"I have always recognised India as one of the hardest places to play cricket. Coming here for training is an excellent development for the boys to become all-round players."
On the facilities he said, "the facilites at Loughborough are world class, but it is a winter programme. I want to integrate everything with the basics, which you have here. It is a fantastic environment to come and put your skills in the middle. Here you have everything for a cricket player. It comes into building a good cricketer."
Stating that fast bowlers would get injured, Cooley opined that a team needs to have bench strength. "We are here to prepare our youngsters to that level. We need to keep that balance. It is a learning curve for our bowlers to be able to bowl in all conditions," he said.
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