DURBAN, Nov 22: India’s master-blaster Sachin Tendulkar was all praise for West Indian captain Brian Lara after the latter’s brilliant century at Multan against Pakistan on Tuesday.

Lara, who equalled Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 34 hundreds, is just one century behind Tendulkar. “Old is always gold and Lara has proved it. He is getting better with age and his batting gives me extra energy,” said Tendulkar. “When he goes through a bad patch everyone starts saying that he is finished but he has now scored two centuries in a row to silence his critics,” he said.

I know that Lara is not in a century race. He has always played some great knocks and is always hungry for runs. A lot many centuries are yet to come from his bat and I wish him good luck,” said the Indian batting genius. —Agencies