The legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar feels that the Australian pitches have been changed a lot of in recent times. According to him, the present drop-in-pitches have failed to carry the similar past hardness in Australian pitches.

The right-handed batsman is the most Test run-scorer for India on the Australian soil as he scored 1,809 runs in 20 Tests (38 Test innings) with the average of 53.20.

Before the beginning of the four-match Test series between the hosts Australia and the visitors India, Sachin told that the present Australian pitches are not similar qualities like it was previously known.

Prior to the Test series, Tendulkar told Sportstar, “The surfaces, I find, have changed, because they are looking for more drop-in pitches. I remember watching one of the games, Australia was bowling and on day one the ball went two bounces to the ’keeper.”

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The 45-year-old also spoke about the dramatically quality changes of WACA (Perth) pitch in recent times. He feels that it is now easy to score huge runs at WACA.

Tendulkar commented, “It’s the hardness of the surface, pace and bounce. Things have changed dramatically, though. When I played there in the 1990s, there were not many high-scoring games in Perth.

“Sometimes 500 would be scored in both innings put together. But if you see in the last decade or so, Perth has been a happy hunting ground for the batters. They score there in hundreds. Last time England played Australia, close to 1,300 runs were scored in just three innings.”

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However, present Australia vs India Test match is running in the new Perth Stadium (Optus Stadium) that made the international cricket debut in this year. The present Test match is the first ever Test match at the Optus Stadium.

Tendulkar’s first international century was in England during the 1990 Manchester Test but the second one was in Australia during the 1992 Sydney Test. Tendulkar feels that during his early career it was important to score big runs in England and Australia.

The most run-scorer in international cricket history said, “Of course, the first hundred came in England, but in that era, if you scored runs in England and in Australia, you were said to have arrived. So, scoring runs in England and Australia was really important; well, scoring runs everywhere is important, but in particular I would say Australia, given the bowling strength that they had.

“During the phase I played, the bowlers that I encountered, they ruled world cricket in those days. To be able to go there and express yourself and do it the way you want, I was quite pleased about that.”