Sachin Tendulkar birthday: Sourav Ganguly recalls first interaction with ‘Master Blaster’

There are few cricketers Sachin Tendulkar has had as close a bond with as Sourav Ganguly. The two batting legends and former captains of the Indian team after all, are one of the most successful opening pairs in the history of the game and the chemistry between the two on the field was a sight to behold.

On the occasion of Tendulkar’s 50th birthday on Monday, Ganguly recalled the time spent with the ‘Master Blaster’ both on and off the field. And while wishing him a happy birthday, ‘Dada’ made special mention of the time the two greats of Indian cricket first crossed paths as youngsters.

“The first time I saw him was in the U15 camp in Indore a long time ago. He used to use very heavy bats then. We spent a month in the camp training together and you could see that he was a special player,” Ganguly said in a video posted by Delhi Capitals on Twitter.

Ganguly, who had served as the BCCI president for three years between 2019 and 2022 before returning to DC as Director of Cricket, also made mention of the first time Tendulkar asked him to open the innings, which would have a major impact on his career as well as on Team India’s fortunes.

“He first asked me to open against South Africa in Jaipur as they were not finding an opening batter. He said ‘why don’t you open?’ I said, yeah ‘I would love it’. Then obviously it was a different story for me in my career.”

“It was the same thing with Sachin. He batted at No.6 early on in one-day cricket and then when they made him open, he became a world champion and our partnerships started,” Ganguly added.

And it wasn’t just Sachin’s old teammates who had lovely things to say about him; former Australia captain Ricky Ponting, one of his fiercest rivals back in the day who currently serves as DC head coach, also recalled the first time he heard about Tendulkar.

“I’ve got so many memories of playing against him. I heard about him, must have been ’88 or ’89, I’m not sure when Sachin debuted actually debuted. India were touring Australia. And I said to our head coach Rod Marsh at the time, that I want to be at the ground when India are training because I want to sit at the back of the net and I want to watch Sachin Tendulkar bat,” Ponting said in the video.

‘Punter’, as he was known in the Aussie dressing room, also made special mention of Tendulkar’s epic 241 in Sydney during the 2003-04 tour of Australia in which he showed tremendous discipline to not play a single cover drive — a shot that had got him dismissed multiple times earlier in the four-Test series — during the marathon innings.

“One thing that probably stands out most for me with Sachin was his mental strength. Remember the Test match in Sydney. He had been out caught-behind a few times in the series, we bowled full and wide to him and he nicked a couple through to the keeper and the slips. He came out publicly before the Sydney Test and said he wasn’t going to play the cover drive.

“I said, ‘Well that’s not possible, because we are going to bowl full and wide, and you are going to play a cover drive at some stage’. I think he made about 240. His strength of mind to not play a cover drive for eight or ten hours was something pretty special,” added Ponting.

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