PTI

New Delhi, Mar 14: Sachin Tendulkar has more bats than any sport goods shop as he has kept all the bats with which he scored 81 Test and one-day centuries so far.

The master batsman, who has scored 39 hundreds in Tests and 42 in one-day internationals, however, said he did not know how many bats he had collected so far.

"I have all the bats with which I have scored hundreds (in Tests and one-dayers). I don't know how many bats I have but I have kept all of them," he said.

Tendulkar, who scored three centuries, two in Tests and one in the tri-series finals, on the recent tour of Australia, singled out two shots against paceman Mitchell Johnson as his 'defining moments' of the tour Down Under.

"Probably, the two shots that I played over the wicketkeeper's head off Mitchell Johnson during the first final in Sydney," he said.

"Similarly, off Brett Lee in the Perth Test. Also, those straight drives off Lee in the Melbourne one-day which we won," he said.

The 34-year-old cricketer, with a career spanning over 18 years, said his obsession with the game had only increased with time.

"Yes, it has. I am enjoying everything and it is fantastic."

Tendulkar said foundation for the Perth Test win was laid in the second Test in Sydney which was the 'turning point' of the series.

"That partnership (with Rahul Dravid at Perth) was extremely important. That sent a strong message to the Australian dressing room. But it was the Sydney Test which changed things and caused the turnaround. We just carried that momentum into the next Test at Perth and in Adelaide. It was from Sydney where things started working differently," he said.

Tendulkar's advice to team-mates for the Test at the WACA, touted to have the fastest pitch in the world, was to spend time in the middle.

"The only thing I told my team-mates was that if you spend some time at the crease in Perth, it is the toughest place for bowlers... There are always opportunities to put the ball away and that's the way I would approach it... is what I told them."

Tendulkar agreed that a 'couple of more' warm-up games in Australia before the start of the Test series would have helped the Indian team.

"Ideally, one would have liked to have a bit more practice. The one warm-up game we played was washed out. That was tough but you don't make excuses," he said.