"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 belonged," said Lara, who is in the city as Brand Ambassador of MRF.

Tendulkar has been under flak for his continued poor run with the bat, especially in the wake of 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 would 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 Mathew 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.