Sachin Tendulkar has recently revealed that he had spoken to the BCCI and urged the board to agree to his ‘only request’ ahead of his farewell series. Tendulkar wanted to play his final game in his hometown Mumbai so that his mother could come to watch him play at the stadium for the first time.
t has been more than eight years since Sachin Tendulkar played his final match for India, but his parting visuals still make his ardent fans emotional. Tendulkar retired after his 24-year-long illustrious career in November 2013 after completing 200 Test matches for India, finishing with over 33,000 runs and 100 hundreds in the international circuit.
In a recent conversation with Graham Bensinger, Tendulkar revealed that he made his ‘only request’ to the Board of Control for Cricket in India ( BCCI) ahead of his final Test match in his hometown of Mumbai against West Indies, where he scored 74 in his final innings.
“When I was about to play my last match, I told the board… the BCCI, that these two games are going to be my last but my only request and my wish is that I play my last game in Mumbai so that my mother could come to the stadium and watch. So they graciously agreed to host the last game in Mumbai and that’s the only time she has seen me play live in 24 years,” Tendulkar told Bensinger.
“It was unbelievable. I was batting. They showed her on that mega-screen and she wasn’t aware of it. And the whole stadium is watching her reaction. I was anyway emotional, and in those emotions, you need to stay focussed. That was an important over, the last six balls but what I saw on the mega-screen was equally important.”
Further, Tendulkar revealed that barring his brother Ajit, no one from his family watched him play live during his entire career.
“It started from my school days. I kind of hated anyone watching me live. So my brother would hide somewhere behind a tree and watch me the whole day. So my brother has seen every match of my life. So he would watch me and prepare his notes and we would be discussing that. Also, my brother kind of told all the family members that nobody is going to go and watch him. He has to perform… he has to score runs and if he is going to be distracted with family members, that is not going to work,” he added.
