When Tendulkar got emotional!

When on field, it was always difficult to gauge Sachin Tendulkar’s mind. But in an interview to Gaurav Kapur in his show ‘The Breakfast with Champions’, Tendulkar has revealed that he was emotional in his final Test in 2013, when his mother came to watch him play.

Sachin Tendulkar walks down memory lane.

When on field, it was always difficult to gauge Sachin Tendulkar’s mind. But in an interview to Gaurav Kapur in his show ‘ Breakfast with Champions ’, Tendulkar has revealed that he was emotional in his final Test in 2013, when his mother came to watch him play.

“That made me emotional. The rest of the people had seen me before, but my mother was the only one who had never seen me play ever; never ever,” Tendulkar said.

In his illustrious career, which spanned for more than two decades, Tendulkar had asked his family not to come to the stadium to watch him play. “I would tell them that even if you come, hide somewhere. I have to focus on my game. Even, Anjali (his wife) would never come to stadium,” Tendulkar said.

In India’s tour to Australia in 2003-2004, Anjali attended the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, where Tendulkar was out on the first ball. “She just got up and left. She never came to watch me play again. Then she came for my last Test match,” Tendulkar reminisced.

 

Tendulkar’s emotional speech after the final Test in Mumbai in 2013, had left the cricketing fraternity spellbound. And Tendulkar admitted that he decided to carry a bottle of water so that he could have it, if the throat ‘dried up’.

“In middle of the game, Dhoni asked me to stay away from the huddle. I knew they were planning something (for my send-off). That moment it struck me (that I was retiring). It was emotional,” Tendulkar said.

TENDULKAR ON HIS FIRST INTERNATIONAL INNINGS "My first innings in Karachi, I thought it would be my first and last innings. I had no idea. Waqar (Younis) bowling from one end; Wasim (Akram) going full-throttle from the other, they had just started reversing it. To go there and play suddenly, I was completely out of place. My team-mates said this is international cricket. You are facing possibly the best bowling attack in the world. Give them that respect. In the second innings, I scored 59. I got back to the dressing room and looked at myself and said, ‘You’ve done it’."