On Tuesday, 10 July, fans of both cricket and tennis were in for a surprise.
Roger Federer was ranked as the world’s best batsman by the International Cricket Council (ICC), reported Hindustan Times.
In what appeared to be some light-hearted banter between Wimbledon and ICC about the tennis player’s forward defence, Federer ended up replacing the Australian batsman Steve Smith in the ‘batting rankings’.
It all began when the official Twitter account of Wimbledon posted a video of Roger Federer during one of his matches where his playing appeared to look like he hit a forward defensive stroke. The Wimbledon defending champion had overhit a backhand during his match with Adrian Mannarino and when his opponent returned the ball, Federer diverted it with a forward defence.
Federer Ranked ‘No. 1 Batsman’ By ICC
Wimbledon asked ICC how good was Federer’s playing style, to which the global governing body of cricket replied by putting him in the no.1 position in the rankings.
‘Greatness Recognises Greatness’
The fun-and-games didn’t stop there. The ICC drew parallels to crickets own greatest - Sachin Tendulkar and even superimposed pictures of Federer and Tendulkar onto a Spider-Man meme. They captioned the picture “ When greatness recognises greatness” which one can say that it perfectly fits the bill.
‘Sachin Wants To Exchange Notes With Federer’
Sachin Tendulkar too got on-board and took to Twitter to comment on Federer’s playing style. Tendulkar complimented the tennis player on his hand-eye co-ordination and even wanted to exchange notes on cricket and tennis after Federer wins his ninth Wimbledon title.
Federer replied to Sachin’s tweet saying that he doesn’t want to wait till the end of the Wimbledon tournament and he is ready to exchange notes right now.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times.)
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