Sachin Tendulkar

Interviewer: Let's introduce the batting master of the world, Sachin Tendulkar. Well, let's share a few stories, I reckon. Why don't we start right at the beginning?

Sachin Tendulkar: The school cricket was exciting, and the reason to start playing cricket was, it was a strange one. I mean, I was a notorious child, difficult to manage. And I took a lot of pride in that.

One of the evenings, they were showing a famous Bollywood film on a TV channel. And in those days, there were not many channels back home in India. So we friends thought this is, this is the best time to polish off all the mangoes from the tree

Which we were not meant to, and we fell down. We also brought the tree down with us. And that was a turning point of my career because my brother and my family, the rest of the family members said, "This is enough, and then you're not allowing more of these complaints to come home every evening," because that was supposed to be my summer vacations, beginning of my summer vacations.

And they said that, "We're gonna make you burn all your calories on a cricket field. You do what you want. You love cricket. Go out and play with the season ball."

And that's how my career started. And gradually, I did not know, I mean, I was only 11 years old. I did not know what were the big tournaments, but the dream was there in front of me.

I wanted to play for India because as a 10-year-old, I had seen Kapil Dev lift that beautiful trophy at Wow. 1983 World Cup. So I had also joined the celebrations, not knowing the significance of winning the World Cup. So that's how my cricket started, and I always wanted to win the World Cup.

That was the reason I started. And as the time went by, I started enjoying cricket, and I started realizing the challenges of cricket. And my coach was instrumental, and along with my Ajit.

To my elder brother, Ajit, to make me realize the importance of leading a disciplined life, a focused life. And to to make me push harder, they found reasons. And even towards the end of my career, I followed that formula.

If I scored runs, let the rest of the world talk about it. I think about the next game. And that, right from my school days, became an unwritten formula, a unwritten law at home, that we don't talk about last game, we talk about next game.

And however many runs I scored, I wanted to go out and score more than that. So if I didn't score, I would have a restless night. If I scored runs, I would still have a restless night thinking that, "How am I gonna score more?"