Karachi: Former Pakistan captain Javed Miandad on Thursday lavished praise on batting great Sachin Tendulkar and said the young cricketers in the sub-continent should follow his example if they are serious about carving out a career in cricket.

Miandad was all praise for the Tendulkar, who completed 17,000 ODI runs in the fifth one-day international against Australia at Hyderabad on Thursday.

"I think the way Tendulkar has handled his career and lasted for so long, keeping his passion for runs alive, is a lesson for budding young cricketers in Pakistan and India," Miandad said.

"Youngsters should adopt Tendulkar as their role model if they want to progress in the sport," he added.

Miandad said he admired the way Tendulkar had kept his hunger alive for runs despite having such a long career.

"He made his Test debut against us in 1989 and even today one can see the same hunger and spark to score runs. More importantly, he has been a great ambassador for the sport with the way he has conducted himself," Miandad said.

The Pakistani great had no doubt that Tendulkar could equal his record of having played the most World Cups. "The way he maintains his fitness he should play in the next World Cup in 2011," Miandad said.

According to him, the secret to Tendulkar's awesome success was his single-minded devotion to his craft.

"From what I know and have heard, Tendulkar even today spends one to two hours in the nets by himself and he still has this quality of interacting with all those people who helped build his career.

"To be a top professional performer these days every player needs to show this same devotion," he said. Miandad, who had a long career of 21 years, admitted that the international calendar was now much more hectic.

"We didn't play that many matches in our time but now to be fit for every match is a challenge and to keep on scoring runs so consistently one has to be really devoted and true to his craft," he said.