Sachin talks cricket, we listen!
It was the inaugural Sportstar Trophy, in 19■7. Playing for the Dattu Phadkar XI, Sachin Tendulkar, a 15yearold schoolboy from Shradashram Vidya Mandir, scored 330 runs in three matches. His reward was a cricket kit. Sachin went on to score 34,347 runs in Tests and ODIS put together, winning every possible award and accolade in the world of cricket. Thirtyone years later, as Sportstar meets Sachin — on the day he made his Test debut in Pakistan in 19■9 — to pick his brains again, Sachin fondly talks about that “grey kit bag.”
Sachin, from a very young age, for very long, held the Indian batting together, conjuring knocks of epic proportions. He kept his whites white, staying far away from the politics and muck that vitiated the game in the late 90s. He just scored his runs, said the right words and ensured the faithful stayed loyal to Indian cricket when all else conspired to eradicate the public’s faith in the game. His stature, even post his tearyeyed retirement on November 16, 2013, is intact and he shows the same childlike enthusi
asm when talking about cricket.
You have toured Australia on five occasions and have scored more than 1800 runs there. You must have sweet memories of Down Under.
Absolutely! The (first) Australian trip was one of the defining tours of my life. Of course, the first hundred came in England, but in that era, if you scored runs in England and in Australia, you were said to have arrived. So, scoring runs in England and Australia was really important; well, scoring runs everywhere is important, but in particular I would say Australia, given the bowling strength that they had. During the phase I played, the bowlers that I encountered, they ruled world cricket in those days. To be able to go there and express yourself and do it the way you want, I was quite pleased about that.
Your have scored centuries at Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide…the missing one is