Iconic cricketer Sachin Tendulkar today echoed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s praise for the Indian women’s cricket team, in which he had asked Mithali Raj and co. not to get bogged down by expectations.
The Prime Minister, in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ show yesterday, had said that the Indian women’s team, which finished runner-up in the ICC Women’s World Cup in England, should banish any thought of not having been successful.
Modi advised the players not to feel burdened by their World Cup final loss to England as they have the backing of the entire nation.
“I felt happy talking to them, but I had a feeling that they felt burdened by the fact that they could not win the World Cup. This stress, this tension was evident on their faces also,” Modi recalled during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address.
“I said, ‘Look, this is the age of the media. So expectations get hyped up to such an extent that if corresponding success is not achieved, these turn into despair and even resentment.”
Modi observed that the country chose to praise the cricketers instead of criticising.
“But it happened for the first time that when our daughters did not succeed in winning the World Cup, the hundred and twenty-five million people took this defeat on their own shoulders, never letting the burden weigh down these daughters of ours.
“Not only this, they lauded them and showered them with high praise for their brilliant performance. I view this as a healthy and pleasant change and I told these daughters that only they were blessed with such good fortune, and hence they should banish any thought of not having been successful. You may not have won the final match but you have won the hearts of 1.25 billion Indians,” he had said.
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