Mumbai, Apr 26: Sachin Tendulkar, one of the greatest batsmen the game has ever seen, today said it was important to have heroes in life and he himself wanted to be a combination of his childhood idols Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar.
“Every person likes his own identity and that is important. It is good to have heroes. When I was growing up, I had a couple of heroes. I wanted to be a combination, a mixture of Vivian Richards and Sunil Gavaskar,” said Tendulkar during an interaction with his fans at gaming and experience centre ‘Smaaash’ here today.
“So it is important for this generation to have heroes and try and get closer to anywhere you can to your heroes. Heroes will always be heroes, so that is how it should be.”
The senior cricketer, who celebrated his 40th birthday a couple of days ago, also cut a cake to mark the occasion and said, “This was the 40th cake that I have cut, so we should stop now.”
As a batsman he has had problems with the sightscreen and the scorer of 100 international hundreds admitted this.
“You know I keep complaining about sightscreens. That is what I go through. When I am batting there are more than 50,000 people around and you can’t spot the ball because of the release point sometimes as the sightscreens are not high enough.
“But there is not much choice. It makes you focus harder. You get a fraction of a second less to react and those are the things that you can’t change much. You just have to adjust and try and find ways to prepare yourself early when the bowler is delivering,” the master blaster said.
“Because you get a fraction second less the adjustment to make up for that loss time is in your hands, to get ready a fraction earlier to that spot. That is what I try to do on various occasions when I find it difficult to spot the ball.”
Asked whether he and Mumbai Indians teammate and skipper Ricky Ponting, a former captain of Australia, are sharing tips during the ongoing Indian Premier League, Tendulkar replied in the affirmative.
“Yes we do. We play for the same team. We want to achieve the same goal. When you become part of the same team, you do share whatever your thoughts are and that is how any team should be,” he said. (PTI)
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