Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (3 page)

It was natural that music should soon become my second love after cricket and it has remained that way ever since. I enjoy listening to all kinds of Indian music, ranging from film songs to the more classical variety, and I always feel relaxed with my headphones on. Later, during tours abroad, I began to pick up on Western music and I now love listening to Pink Floyd, U2, Dire Straits and a host of others. I passed that taste for Western music on to Ajit, and it is now an important feature of the Tendulkar household.

Besides cricket and music, I was also a big fan of tennis as a child. John McEnroe, the legendary American player, was my favourite. As a ten-year-old I would mimic McEnroe’s look and antics, to the extent that I grew my hair into a curly mop and walked around wearing a headband. I was fascinated by the battles between Björn Borg and McEnroe and for a while I even contemplated choosing tennis over cricket.

Ajit knew about my obsession with tennis but had also seen me play cricket with my colony friends. He had observed my natural bat swing and that’s what led him to believe that I might turn out to be a good batsman if groomed properly – though he never imposed anything on me.

What he would do is give me both a tennis racket and a cricket bat and take me up to the terrace to have a hit. He threw tennis balls to me while I took turns at tennis and cricket. We didn’t have too many balls then and if they bounced over the walls of the terrace, I would quickly run down four floors and fetch them (there were no elevators then, something that explains the secret behind my strong legs!). It was clear to Ajit that I enjoyed myself far more while playing cricket. However, the episode that led him to take the next step and bring me along to Ramakant Achrekar’s summer cricket camp in 1984, at the age of eleven, had nothing to do with cricket.

The turn to cricket was prompted by a group of friends – myself, Sunil Harshe and Avinash Gowariker – getting into a spot of trouble. At the time in India Doordarshan, the national broadcaster, would show a classic film every Sunday, and on this fateful day it was
Guide
, starring Dev Anand, one of India’s legendary actors. Most of the residents of our colony were engrossed in the film, allowing us three the opportunity to climb up one of the trees and take some mangoes. Sunil, who was on the heavy side, and I were on a branch together, but it broke and we fell with a crash from quite a height. As we got up and tried to run away, we were caught and brought to book. It was evident that something needed to be done to channel my energies, especially during the school summer holidays. Ramakant Achrekar’s coaching camp, where a lot of Mumbai’s top cricketers had learnt their game, was Ajit’s answer.

From a very early age I played tennis-ball cricket with my colony friends. I loved watching cricket on television and in our games I often tried to emulate the mannerisms of my favourite players, Sunil Gavaskar and the West Indian legend Viv Richards. But it wasn’t just the batsmen that I studied. I also loved bowling and tried my hand at different kinds of deliveries – medium pace, off-spin and leg-spin – all with a tennis ball, of course. I even experimented with tactics like the slower ball and bowling from wide of the stump. Throughout my career I have actually bowled a lot in the nets. As soon as I’d finished with my batting I’d pick up a ball and start bowling to whichever batsmen were around at the time.

The transition from playing with a tennis ball to playing with a cricket ball happened under the watchful eyes of Ramakant Achrekar, then cricket coach at Shardashram Vidyamandir school. Achrekar Sir, as I refer to him, started playing cricket at the age of eleven in 1943, which is the age I was when I went to him for the first time. He played for a number of Mumbai clubs, including the Gul Mohar Mills and Mumbai Port, and played a first-class match for the State Bank of India against Hyderabad in 1963. When I was growing up he was undoubtedly one of the most accomplished coaches in Mumbai.

From his own schooldays at Balmohan Vidyamandir, my brother Ajit knew that compared to other schools in Mumbai, Shardashram was by far the best organized in its approach to cricket, and that’s why he took me along to Achrekar Sir’s nets in Shivaji Park to try my luck at being a part of his summer camp.

Anyone could come for a trial at the camp but then it was up to Sir to decide who to accept. There were nets for players from all age groups, starting with the sub-junior (Under-15) and junior (Under-17) levels. I was eleven years old and trialled at the sub-junior nets to start with. The Mumbai Cricket Association had an Under-15 team and most candidates from the sub-junior section eventually vied for a position in that team.

I had never batted in nets before and felt somewhat overawed with so many people around. When I was asked to bat, I was not at all comfortable. With Sir watching me so closely, I failed to make an impact. After I had finished batting, Sir called Ajit aside and informed him that I was perhaps too young to make the camp and suggested that he should bring me back when I was a little older. I wasn’t party to this conversation and had no idea what was discussed at the time. My induction into the Mumbai cricket circuit could have ended in failure – but for Ajit’s insistence.

Having seen me play in the colony, Ajit knew I was capable of performing far better than I had in front of Achrekar Sir. He explained that I was nervous and asked Sir to give me one more opportunity. However, he suggested that while doing so Sir should pretend to go away and then watch from a distance. Sir agreed. Before long I was asked to bat again and, without Sir’s trained eyes scrutinizing me – or so I thought – I felt more at ease and soon started to hit the ball well. This time, Sir agreed to let me join the camp. I was delighted and I must say it was an opportunity that transformed my life.

Participants in the summer camp had to pay an admission fee of 65 rupees (less than a pound) and a monthly fee of 10 rupees (10 pence). In my case I don’t remember having to pay the monthly fee after the first few months. The camp involved a session every morning and evening at Shivaji Park. I would practise between 7.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. before making my way home for lunch, then I’d come back in the afternoon and train till late evening. The schedule was rigorous and I would be exhausted by the end of the day. Travelling to Shivaji Park took forty minutes from my house in Bandra and I had to catch an early-morning bus to make it on time.

For the first few days Ajit accompanied me, to get me used to the routine, but once I was familiar with the journey, I’d travel to the camp on my own. During the bus journeys he would talk to me about the nuances of batting, and I always enjoyed these conversations a lot. In fact, the one thing that I have kept with me all my career is a note that Ajit gave me containing some thoughts about batting. It served as a very personal coaching manual.

As a child I had only one set of cricket clothes and the routine was to wash them as soon as I’d returned from the morning session. While I had my lunch, the clothes would dry out in the sun and I would wear them again in the afternoon. The pattern was repeated in the evening, so that I could use the same set of clothes the following morning. The system worked well – apart from my pockets. There was never quite enough time for the pockets to dry out completely and for the entire duration of the camp I played with wet pockets.

By the middle of the summer camp, Sir had started taking an active interest in my batting and at the end of the two months informed Ajit that I had the potential to be a good cricketer if I practised all year round. He had made a few changes to the way I batted and the impact was immediate. I was now practising with the older boys from the junior section. However, my school – the New English School in Bandra – did not have cricket facilities and Sir was keen for me to change schools if I wanted to pursue cricket seriously.

One evening Sir called my father and asked if he would speak to me about changing schools. Ajit was in the room with my father at the time and they both accepted that it was necessary, if cricket was to be my priority. However, neither of them ever forced anything on me and when I got home they asked me what I thought of the suggestion. By that time I had started enjoying my batting and was keen to play throughout the year. Without any hesitation I agreed to the move. My father sat me down and explained that while he did not have any objections to me changing schools, I should do so only if I was really serious about playing cricket. I assured him I was, and so it was agreed that I should move to Shardashram Vidyamandir, where Achrekar Sir was a cricket coach.

The move meant I lost contact with a lot of my New English school friends, but I soon made new ones at Shardashram, mostly through cricket. All the cricketers in the school were friends with each other and even though we were in different divisions and sections, such things hardly mattered. We played together during lunch breaks and discussed cricket all the time, and Achrekar Sir would coach us after school. Cricket was fast becoming my first love. All my excess energies were getting channelled into cricket, which acted as a kind of a safety valve. Everyone at home was very supportive, but my father always said that all he wanted me to do was give it my best effort without worrying about the results.

Joining Shardashram undoubtedly helped my cricket a great deal. It allowed me the opportunity to play competitive matches regularly and my game rapidly improved as a result. There’s nothing like playing matches to get better, because only in competitive situations are you forced to out-think the opposition and improvise. Net practice can never be a substitute for matchplay and Achrekar Sir was an ardent believer in this principle.

I did not excel in my first ever match for my club, the Kamath Memorial Club, run by Achrekar Sir, which a host of my colony friends came to watch, I was out for a golden duck. I was the star batsman in the colony and it was natural that my friends would come to see me play. It was embarrassing to be bowled first ball and I had to make a series of excuses, saying the ball had kept low and the pitch wasn’t good enough for batting. In the second match I got out for another duck and it was only in our third game that I managed to score my first run, having survived seven deliveries. I was seriously relieved to get off the mark. I used to keep a diary at the time that contained all the information from these games, but unfortunately I don’t have them any more.

My debut for the school wasn’t quite as bad and I managed to score 24 runs in the match, which we won comfortably. However, I will always remember the game for other reasons, because I learnt a very important personal lesson. It taught me never to resort to unethical ways and to play the sport with honesty and integrity at all times. The incident in question involved my first appearance in a newspaper, which should have been a happy occurrence. The rule in Mumbai at the time was that a player’s name only appeared in print if he had scored 30 runs. I had made 24, but there were a lot of extras in the team’s innings and the scorer decided to credit six extras to me, increasing my score to 30. The scorer’s logic was that it didn’t matter because the overall score did not change. I had consented to this without appreciating what I was getting into. The next morning, when my name duly appeared in a Mumbai paper, Achrekar Sir was seriously unhappy with what I had done and told me off for consenting to have runs added to my personal tally when I hadn’t scored them. I acknowledged my mistake and promised never to allow such a thing to happen again.

The first-match jinx continued in my first season for the Mumbai Under-15 team in Pune in 1985. I was only twelve then and travelled to Pune with just 95 rupees in my pocket. This was to be supplemented with the little allowance we were given during the tour, which lasted more than a week. In my only match for Mumbai I was run out. I was batting with someone from my school who was older than me and because he was a faster runner he completed the runs quicker and pushed for a third run that was not on. As a result I was run out and I returned to the pavilion with tears in my eyes. Thoughtfully, two veteran Mumbai cricketers, Milind Rege and Vasu Paranjpe, consoled me, saying the run just wasn’t there and I shouldn’t have been called to go for it.

It rained a lot in Pune in the next few days and as it turned out this was my only innings. As a result I was not picked for the West Zone Under-15 team and was upset because a few of my team-mates who had not played a single ball had been chosen ahead of me. To add to my distress, I ran out of money because I spent it all on snacks and fast food – and arrived at Dadar station with no fare for the bus home. I had to walk back to Shivaji Park to my uncle’s carrying two big bags and cried all the way. My aunt was very concerned when she saw me and asked what the matter was. I did not tell her that I hadn’t been selected for the West Zone team and all I said was I was not feeling too well.

Playing for my school regularly helped me learn the art of scoring big runs and batting for a long time. During school holidays I played practice matches for my club almost every day. In fact, in my first year at Shardashram I played fifty-five practice matches during the summer break of sixty days. My summer sessions used to start at 7.30 a.m. and I’d bat for two hours, split into five net sessions. All of these sessions were rigorous and required intense concentration. After the morning session, I would go straight into the practice match, which would end at 4.30 p.m., then my evening session would start at 5 p.m., after only a thirty-minute break. During the break Sir would often give me some money to go and have a
vada pav
(a popular Mumbai fast food) or a soft drink as a treat.

Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. I’d have five more net sessions, before a final session of fifteen minutes, when Sir would place a one-rupee coin on top of the stumps and if I managed to avoid getting out, the coin was mine. In this session every bowler in the camp would come and have a go at me, with some sixty to seventy boys fielding. Even if the ball was caught 90 yards away, which was a distance bigger than the boundary length at any school ground in India, I was out. It meant I had to hit every ball along the ground to survive those intense fifteen minutes. It was a serious challenge but with time I started enjoying this session the most. Winning the one-rupee coin used to give me immense satisfaction and taught me how to concentrate even when physically drained.