But the West Indies series made Sachin Tendulkar rethink his retirement plans, as Nalin Mehta found out in this exclusive interview.
When did you first entertain thoughts of retirement?
I was looking forward to the tours to South Africa in Dec 2013 and New Zealand in early 2014. But when the BCCI announced a two-Test series with the West Indies in Nov 2013, I had to rethink my plans. It was then – and I don’t know exactly how and when – that the thought of retirement came to me. I started to wonder whether those two Tests against the West Indies should be my last. I remember discussing it with (wife) Anjali and (brother) Ajit. We were sitting on the first floor lounge of my house when I told them that I was thinking about retiring after the West Indies series. The second Test would be my 200th and I would not have another opportunity to retire on home soil till the end of 2014, and I wasn’t sure if I could battle with injuries for that long. There was no point in dragging things out if my heart wasn’t in it.
You talk in the book about the immense pressures of being Tendulkar. How did you deal with it?
I have always liked the fact that people expected something from me, because it meant I was capable of delivering something. When I played cricket it was also about living up to my own expectations and play the way I wanted to play the game – with the right values, in the right spirit and without taking things for granted. I never changed my priorities. Everything happened around cricket and cricket was always the centre. The rest of the things continued happening around my game and my family kept it that way .
My manager, Mark Mascarenhas from WorldTel, understood me well. Being a huge fan of cricket, he did not want me to make compromises. If we were shooting an ad, he never said, “C’mon, let’s skip a practice session because they are giving us money .” The understanding was clear that during my cricket period nothing comes between me and my game. My family was extremely particular about this. This was a protective shell around me and it allowed me to forget about the outside world. Outside pressures were kept outside my territory and my territory was cricket..
How did you keep this bubble going?
In the 1996 World Cup, I was the only batsman in the team who didn’t have a sticker on his bat. Most others had ‘Four Square’ or ‘Wills’ but I didn’t want to endorse a tobacco brand. Then in the middle of a game, the manager of an MNC came to me and suggested that if I put his company’s sticker they would pay any amount I wanted. I turned it down because I didn’t want any distractions in the middle of the tournament. I did not want any alien element on my bat which could catch my eye on the pitch. I had done well without a sticker till then and didn’t want to risk my rhythm. We decided to wait till the tournament ended to fix the sticker.
You had your shell to protect you. But what happens when the fame and pressures start affecting your wife and children?
Arjun is 15 years old now and has faced this for a long time. So has Sara. In 2007, we had told Arjun, who was seven years old then, that if someone makes bad comments at school about our first-round exit from the World Cup, he should ignore it. But when a friend told him that India lost because his dad got out for zero, our advice went to his head. He punched his friend and told him never to say anything about his dad! At that time, reporters also asked him questions. It’s unfair on Arjun and he should be treated like any other 15-year-old now that he is playing his own cricket. People should judge him as an individual and not compare.
You write about how you changed your game for that wonderful Perth century in 1992…
Before that Perth hundred we had already spent two months in Australia, played four Tests and a triangular series. I count that innings as among my best because I made certain adjustments. I was making my debut at No. 4 and by that stage had mastered the backfoot punch. People talk about Perth being helpful for fast bowlers but I feel that once you get your eye in, Perth can also make a fast bowler’s life difficult. If a batsman knows how to use the length, then the bowler has a very small area as far as the good length spot is concerned. Because of bounce, if he falters on the shorter side you can cut or pull and if he is marginally fuller, then naturally you have to read the length and hit him on the rise. Perth is the kind of wicket where if you are in a positive frame of mind, it’s a beautiful track to bat on. If you are not very positive then it’s tough.
The most challenging bowler you ever faced?
There have been so many top players I have played since 1989. I can say there were at least 30 great bowlers that I have played against and it’s difficult to pinpoint one guy as the best.
How can you differentiate between a Glenn McGrath or a Curtley Ambrose or a Shaun Pollock? They were all accurate and consistently bowled in that corridor, with a nagging length, where you couldn’t attack them on the front foot. Neither could you pull or cut on the back foot. They had mastered that length. For that matter, how do you differentiate between Malcolm Marshall and Richard Hadlee or Imran Khan? All these are great bowlers so I just consider myself fortunate that I was able to play against the top all-rounders and bowlers of the ’70s and ’80s: Malcolm Marshall, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee and Imran Khan. In the next generation you had Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Courtney Walsh and others.
But who made you the most uncomfortable?
The one bowler I didn’t feel comfortable batting against was Hansie Cronje.
Why him?
I don’t know. There was something. Early on, when someone like Allan Donald is bowling with strike bowlers such as Brett Shultz, Craig Matthews and Brian McMillan, you had to stay focused and respect how they were bowling. Then when you get someone who is just going to bowl 2-3 overs to give the strike bowlers a rest, then you want to put pressure on him. Later, I tried to play him differently. I tried to block, to leave, to slog and to play my normal game but somehow kept getting out to him.
The one thing that didn’t work very well was your captaincy. You say you didn’t get a free hand…
Captaincy left me bruised. I always wanted the best team but many times the selectors wanted to promote zonal quotas. In South Africa in 1996, I wanted Abey Kuruvilla to play with Venkatesh Prasad and Srinath but I didn’t get him. He did very well later in West Indies and not taking him to SA was a mistake.
Who is the best captain you have played against?
Nasser Hussain was the best. He was very proactive, even though he used Ashley Giles against me negatively. He had the ability to think out batsmen and would do very good field placements. I also have a lot of regard for Graeme Smith.
And among the Australians?
Michael Clarke was the best. In 1992, I was about to pick up a ball to toss back to the bowler when Allan Border told me, “Don’t you dare touch the ball.” It was an early lesson in how competitive Australians are. But I was too young to judge him as a captain. Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting had great teams. Clarke had to rebuild his team from scratch.
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