Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly in a startling revelation recalls how the then captain Sachin Tendulkar made up his mind to send a wayward Sourav Ganguly home in the middle of the West Indies tour of 1997 for not going on a “morning run” which, after an embarrassing Test defeat, the Tendulkar asked him to do, Ganguly reveals in a new book.
Ganguly’s anecdote is part of a book titled – “Sachin Tendulkar: The man cricket loved back.”
It is compiled by a website, and comprises of as many as 41 memoirs and essays on the greatest batsman of modern generation.
Coming back to the incident now which happened straight away after Indian team’s defeat in the third Test in Barbados by 38 runs chasing 120 to win, the visitors were bundled out for a paltry 81.
Ganguly starts the tale with an honest admission: “My fault, actually.” Then he goes on to add, “Sachin was utterly dejected and very angry with us. To get him to think positive and stop beating himself and us up so much, I asked him to tell me what to do. “Go for a run tomorrow morning.”
“It’s a story to tell now, but when he found out that I had missed the morning run the next day, his face was almost purple with anger. He told me, in language that cannot be printed, that he was going to send me home and I should sort myself out because my career could be ending. The thought of being sent home was enough to light a fire under my shoes. I wouldn’t have broken any records, never have, never will, but from the next morning, I was up and running.”
In India’s cricketing circles Tendulkar’s captaincy is generally considered as a failure. Under his captaincy, India had won four Tests and lost nine. But Ganguly in his memoirs defends his former opening partner’s record and even takes a dig at the present skipper MS Dhoni.
“Sachin was a better captain than his results show and better than people make him out to be. He led on some very tough tours – South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Australia – and it must be said he didn’t lose eight in a row. This is when he didn’t have a very good team around him. The older players were fading and the newcomers were too raw,” he justified.
In this book there is also an anecdote from Allan Donald who was regarded as one of fastest bowlers in Tendulkar’s era. Donald, it is worth reminding, took the wicket of Tendulkar 10 times – five each in both Tests and ODIs.
In an article titled – The man who made you plan for weeks – the white lightning writes, “You didn’t work Tendulkar out in days. You had to plan for him weeks in advance. Otherwise, he could frustrate bowlers. When Hansie Cronje was the captain, our thinking was that the first 20 balls we had to make Tendulkar play every single one, even if we leaked runs. We also decided that we were not going to test him with the short ball early on: it was an easy way for him to get himself into his innings. We wanted to make him sweat as much as we could.”
“When a great batsman is in form, that is when you get really challenged as a fast bowler. Tendulkar turned that bowler’s ego to his advantage. We saw it dozens of times, when he counter punched really well. He had that ability, when the bowler was at his best and in fantastic rhythm and bowling at his optimum pace, to come in and change the state of the game, to hit you off your line, get you out of the attack. He was careful, but if you offered him half a chance he would make you pay. With Tendulkar you were always working with fine, fine margins.”