Sachin Tendulkar said on Friday that it was important to have heroes in life and he himself wanted to be a combination of his childhood idols Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar.
“Every person likes his own identity and that is important. It is good to have heroes. When I was growing up, I had a couple of heroes. I wanted to be a combination, a mixture of Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar,” said Tendulkar.
“So it is important for this generation to have heroes and try and get closer to anywhere you can to your heroes. Heroes will always be heroes, so that is how it should be.”
As a batsman he has had problems with the sightscreen and he admitted this. “You know I keep complaining about sightscreens. That is what I go through. When I am batting there are more than 50,000 people around and you can’t spot the ball because of the release point sometimes as the sightscreens are not high enough. “But there is not much choice. It makes you focus harder. You get a fraction of a second less to react and those are the things that you can’t change much. You just have to adjust and try and find ways to prepare yourself early when the bowler is delivering,” he said.
“Because you get a fraction second less the adjustment to make up for that loss time is in your hands, to get ready a fraction earlier to that spot. That is what I try to do on various occasions when I find it difficult to spot the ball.”
Asked whether he and Mumbai Indians teammate Ricky Ponting are sharing tips during IPl, Sachin said,”Yes we do. We play for the same team. We want to achieve the same goal. When you become part of the same team, you do share whatever your thoughts are and that is how any team should be.”
Tendulkar said he has been sharing his knowledge about domestic cricketers with Ponting. “Here I have been sharing little more in detail, because I know little bit about our cricketers. Ricky hasn’t had the opportunity to watch them much. Also a lot of things are planned in team meetings.”