Sachin Tendulkar spoke to co-author Boria Majumdar ahead of the launch of his autobiography 'Playing it My Way' and shared interesting snippets from the book. Excerpts:
On 2011 World Cup
Once we got back to the room, I remember the whole hotel was celebrating. There were champagne flowing everywhere. Anjali (his wife) was with me and both of us went to my room and we started dancing because it was a massive moment in my life, something which I waited for 22 years. On another floor, one room was booked for us and that is where Harbhajan, Yuvraj and Virat Kohli sang “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai” for me and I was embarrassed. I said ‘what are you guys doing’. They said ‘Bhai aaj gaane do, aaj mauka hai gaane ka, hum teeno ko ye gaana hai tumhare liye’ (Brother! let us sing today because it is a joyous moment. We three want to sing for you). They sang and it was a special moment for me. Nobody knows about it. This moment is something that I cannot forget in my life.
On Greg Chappell
Relationship with him hurt because you know I personally felt that Greg wasn't the right person for the job and to put it in a nutshell — he took Indian cricket behind. We were in a very good position when John (Wright) ended his tenure and gradually the downfall started and the atmosphere in dressing room was something that I had never experienced in my career. Cricket was not enjoyable anymore. If you ask my teammates barring maybe one or two, the rest would say the same.
On Multan Test
There are quite a few disagreements in the team, in the dressing room, in the team meetings whatever, but they are always behind the door. But there was one disagreement which happened, the declaration, which happened out in the middle and whatever I felt I spoke to Rahul and I got it off my chest and we both have moved on. He was the captain and I told him at that time 'you will have my 100% commitment on the field, I just need little more time off the field to settle down'. I'm so glad that after that we have had some amazing partnerships, some match winning partnerships together and above all we have continued to be good friends. For us we had closed that chapter there and then. Once the match was over, we forgot about it and we moved on and we ended up winning the series.
On waiting for 40 minutes!
We were not married at that time, no one in my family knew of her and Anjali's family didn't know about me. So we had to sort the time how to meet and those were the days without mobile phones so from Bandra to her house was a good 45 minutes. She wasn't home so I couldn't even go to a phone booth to call her. So I had to drive all the way back to Bandra to make a phone call to tell her that I am going to see you in another 40 minutes and go back again to meet her and spend some time with her.
On loss in barbados
It was the darkest hour in my captaincy. I felt we were in a position to win that game and we had played good cricket and to chase 120 in the last innings was not going to be easy because the wicket was uneven and it was a challenge, I have to accept that. But chasing 120 we should have done that without any trouble. It was darkest day of my life because we had not won in Barbados and it was a fantastic opportunity to close that game and be one up in the series and it would have put lot of pressure on West Indies.
On Ian Chappell
I have normally not spoken that language to anyone but I was really upset when in 2007 somebody who had nothing to do with Indian cricket said 'I need to look at myself in the mirror, my commitment, Endulkar', and those sorts of things. After that, in 2009 or 2010 I ended up becoming ICC cricketer of the year. At that time I bumped into Ian Chappell in Durban in the gym. There Ian says 'this is the secret to your success' and I looked and said 'You conveniently switch sides when you had nothing to do with Indian cricket. You made statements and now you are praising me. Why do you all these things when you are not part of what is actually happening. I am doing same old things for the past 19 years' and from there we moved on to Greg Chappell and I told him 'I am sorry to say those were the worst cricketing days of my life, most unenjoyable cricket of my life and he took Indian cricket good 4-5 years behind'.
On family support
When 11, I had a golf ball with me and it was slightly out of shape and I got this idea of taking a blade and shaving it from one side. I made the ball out of shape and it was almost an oval shape so that it would change directions. I would get my aunt to sit on a chair and I would be on the other side of the living room and tell her to chuck balls at me. Wherever the ball went, I would pick up the ball, give it to her and go back and play the next ball. But the whole idea was that I sort of learned to play with soft hands and go on my toes because being vertically challenged was another challenge to affect me for the rest of my career and that's where I sort of learned a backfoot defence with soft hands because the golf ball would fly off to bat and I didn't want the cupboards to be broken! All she had to was to find the right direction and the ball did rest of it. later I realised this may have helped me technique.