Brian Lara in Chennai on Monday. (PTI)

Chennai: West Indies batting great Brian Lara on Monday came out in support of a struggling Sachin Tendulkar, saying he was a class act and would bounce back to top form soon.

“Form is temporary but class is permanent. Sachin is a class act and he is too good and my favourite. He will get back to where he belongs,” said Lara, who is in the city as brand ambassador of a tyre company.

Sachin has been under flak for his recent poor run with the bat, especially during the three-Test series against England in which his average was a shade over 20.

On his own form, Lara said a batsman was as good as his last innings, which in his case was 84 runs against New Zealand.

Lara, who holds the record for highest individual Test score of 400, said he was looking forward to the Indian team’s tour of the Caribbean later next month.

“It will be an interesting series,” he said.

Later in a television interview, Lara praised Indian captain Rahul Dravid, who, he said, was doing a good job. “Dravid is a shrewd captain,” he said.

He said records were meant to be broken, and cricketers like Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle and Matthew Hayden were capable of breaking his record. “The faster my record is broken, the better for the game,” he said.

“We are looking forward to the World Cup also. We do hope that such a big event would do a lot of good for the cricket at grassroot level,” he said referring to the downfall of West Indies cricket over the years.

Lara said he would continue playing for his country till the time he felt he was an asset to his team.

“I will continue to play till I feel I am an asset to the team. The day I feel that I am a burden to myself, I will move aside for new and younger talent to take over. But I am still physically fit, and would like to go on.

“The main thing that motivates me at this point of time in my career is to help the West Indies team be competitive, if not the best team in the world,” he said.

Lara said it was sad to be on the losing side even as he was getting big scores and world records.

“I will love to see the West Indies get back to the top or at least among the top teams. It is difficult to be in a losing team, but our country has produced some top cricketers and played the best cricket.” (PTI)