Brian Lara gives Sachin Tendulkar a pleasant surprise

Sachin Tendulkar was in for a pleasant surprise as West Indies legend Brian Lara paid a visit to the former's residence here, in what seemed to be an impromptu meeting between two of modern day's greatest batsmen.

Tendulkar uploaded a picture of the two legends on social networking sites -- Twitter and Facebook -- on Sunday morning.

"Guess who dropped in at home...? An amazing player and a wonderful friend :-)," Tendukar wrote on his twitter handle, referring to Lara, who has been the Indian's long-time contemporaries in international cricket.

Lara had recently backed Tendulkar and said that he had a "year or two" cricket left in him, amid calls that the Indian must retire after his failure in the recent Test series against New Zealand.

"I know he has already exited from the Twenty20 version of the game, I am not sure if he is still playing the 50 over game but may be another year or two in the Test cricket is left in him ... may be still define himself at the top of scoring the most runs in both the Test and One Day Internationals," Lara had said.

The former West Indies captain, who started his international career a year after his contemporary, said that Tendulkar has been phenomenal and would be missed by the cricket world whenever he decides to hang his boots.

"I think he (Tendulkar) has done a wonderful job. Somebody who started playing cricket, I am not sure whether he was 15 or 16, and he is still there. So he started may be a year or two before myself and has gone on to play five years after I have done," he said.