When Sachin helped Sehwag ease into India dressing room
MUMBAI: Sachin Tendulkar had already established himself as one of the all-time greats in cricket when Virender Sehwag broke through the ranks and set himself up as his opening partner.
Sehwag, like many batsmen who grew up watching Tendulkar and took up playing cricket, was described as someone who resembled Tendulkar when he batted and smashed bowlers all around.
In his initial days on the field, he looked as formidable as any other young attacking batsman. But what was he like off it?
In Tendulkar’s words, the Delhi dasher was ‘too shy’ even to speak to the senior cricketer.
Tendulkar revealed that to make Sehwag open up and speak, he had to play a different trick which worked wonders.
“When Viru had just joined, he was a shy guy. He just wouldn’t talk to me. I thought this can’t work. If we need to play together, bat together, I need to make him feel comfortable. So I told him let’s catch up on dinner. Where he told me he was a vegetarian,” Tendulkar recalled on the show ‘What the Duck 3’.
Tendulkar also broke a myth which the young man carried that by eating chicken, one would become fat. He revealed, “He was not eating chicken because he was told he will become fat.
“Only thing I told him was if I looked fat! Ever since, he has been eating chicken.”