• He grew his hair and tied a band around it to copy idol John McEnroe. He was even called John McEnroe by his friends.
• He admires Boris Pecker, Pete Sampras and Diego Maradona.
• 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.
• Sachin has scored big runs on Indian festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Holi, Diwali and Gokulashtmi.
• He loved competitions like I-can-eat-more-vada-pavs-than-you with cricket buddies Vinod Kambli and Salil Ankola.
• He is an admirer of sea-food, and even co-owns a restaurant.
• Sydney Cricket Ground is his favorite.
• He loves Kishore Kumar and rock group Dire Straits.
• He is a Ganesh devotee, and visits Siddhi Vinayak temple in early hours of the morning.
• He wears his left pad first and has the tricolor pasted inside his kit bag.
• Remembers every Test dismissal, especially the bowlers who dismissed him.
• He likes to dunk his glucose biscuits into his tea.
• Although he bats with his right hand, he eats and autographs with his left.
• He used to sleep with his cricket gear during his junior days.
• 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.
• He is a fast car fiend who likes to tear down Mumbai’s roads at 4 a.m.
• 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.
• 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.
• He was without a bat contract during the 1996 World Cup where he emerged as the highest run-getter.
• 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.
• Fielded for Pakistan as a substitute during a one-day practice match against India at the Brabourne Stadium in 1988.
• Was a ball boy during the 1987 World Cup semi-final between India and England at Wankhede.
• The first ad he shot was for a sticker plaster.
• In school, he was once mistaken for a girl by a good friend Atul Ranade because of his long curls.
• Amitabh Bachchan became his biggest hero after watching Deewar and Zanjeer.
• He used to play tennis ball cricket and darts during rain breaks.
• 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.
• Teammate Paveen Amre bought him his first pair of international quality cricket shoes.
• 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?’
• 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.
• Made his mother once look for a frog bhaji recipe.
• The nanny who looked after him is now universally called Sachuchi bai.
• 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.
• 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.
• He calls Ganguly ‘Babu Mosai’, and Saurav calls him ‘Chota Babu’.
