Sachin Tendulkar Facts

Sachin Tendulkar Facts

1.    He was named after music director Sachin Dev Burman by his father.

2.    He grew his hair and tied a band around it to copy idol John McEnroe. He was even called John McEnroe by his friends.

3.    He admires Boris Pecker, Pete Sampras and Diego Maradona.

4.    Eventually Sachin wanted to be a fast bowler and he even went to the MRF Pace Academy, but head coach Dennis Lillee asked him to concentrate on batting.

5.    Sachin has scored big runs on Indian festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Holi, Diwali and Gokulashtmi.

6.    He loved competitions like I-can-eat-more-vada-pavs-than-you with cricket buddies Vinod Kambli and Salil Ankola.

7.    He is an admirer of sea-food, and even co-owns a restaurant.

8.    Sydney Cricket Ground is his favorite.

9.    He loves Kishore Kumar and rock group Dire Straits.

10.  He is a Ganesh devotee, and visits Siddhi Vinayak temple in early hours of the morning.

11.  He wears his left pad first and has the tricolor pasted inside his kit bag.

12.  Remembers every Test dismissal, especially the bowlers who dismissed him.

13.  He likes to dunk his glucose biscuits into his tea.

14.  Although he bats with his right hand, he eats and autographs with his left.

15.  He used to sleep with his cricket gear during his junior days.

16.  He refused to shoot for a soft-drink ad of him smashing cricket balls with a fly swatter. He reportedly told the film maker “That would make me greater than the game.” The ad was later modified: He hit the balls with a stump.

17.  He is a fast car fiend who likes to tear down Mumbai’s roads at 4 a.m.

18.  He fell from a tree on a Sunday evening during the summer vacation when Guide was showing on national TV. His brother Ajit packed him off to cricket coaching class as punishment.

19.  He came back from four-month tour of Australia after the 1992 World Cup and turned up to play for his college, Kirti College, in April 1992.

20.  He was without a bat contract during the 1996 World Cup  where he emerged as the highest run-getter.

21.  His coach Shardashram Ramakant Achrekar used to offer him a rupee as a prize to any bowler who dismissed him. If he remained not out, the coin belonged to Sachin. That he still has a large chunk of coins tells us the story.

22.  The nanny who looked after him is now universally called Sachuchi bai.

23.  Colony watchman’s son Ramesh Pardhe, who was his playmate, said Sachin would ask him to dip a rubber ball in water and hurl it at him. He wanted to see the wet marks on his bat to find out whether he had middled the ball correctly.

24.  A prankstar, he once put a hose-pipe into Saurav Ganguly’s room and then turned on the tap. Ganguly about to find his gear floating.

25.  He calls Ganguly ‘Babu Mosai’, and Saurav calls him ‘Chota Babu’.

26.  Amitabh Bachchan became his biggest hero after watching Deewar and Zanjeer.

27.  He used to play tennis ball cricket and darts during rain breaks.

28.  He sang and whistled with Vinod Kambli during their 664-run record stand in the Harris Shield in 1988 to avoid eye contact with the coach’s assistant who wanted to declare while the duo wanted to bat on.

29.  Teammate Paveen Amre bought him his first pair of international quality cricket shoes.

30.  Was a bully at school but was kind to cats and dogs. His first captain, Sunil Harshe, said that he loved to pick a fight. Every time he was introduced to someone, his first reaction was, ‘Will I be able to beat him?’

31.  Used to go fishing for tadpoles and guppy fishes in the stream that ran through the compound of Sahitya Sahwas, his building in Bandra East.

32.  Made his mother once look for a frog bhaji recipe.

33.  Fielded for Pakistan as a substitute during a one-day practice match against India at the Brabourne Stadium in 1988.

34.  Was a ball boy during the 1987 World Cup semi-final between India and England at Wankhede.

35.  The first ad he shot  was for a sticker plaster.

36.  In school, he was once mistaken for a girl by a good friend Atul Ranade because of his long curls.