I have interviewed Sachin Tendulkar close to 100 times in my career. As his biographer, I also had the privilege of spending hours with him when we worked on the book. But this interview was different. Refreshing and candid. Funny and heartwarming.
I had written to Sachin last Sunday after seeing him play the half-upper-cut in the IML final. It had taken me back to 2003 and to Centurion. That classic stroke over third man off Shoaib Akhtar. Sachin was still able to do it and with the same passion. To see 60,000 people cheer for him and chant ‘Sachin! Sachin!’ had helped turn the clock back. It said to me that some things don’t change. Maybe that’s why I requested Sachin for this podcast. I wanted to speak to him about his love for the game, his fans, those chants, the upper cut, playing Holi with Yuvraj Singh and the rest, and what cricket still means to him.
We set out saying let’s speak for 10-15 minutes. How and when it turned into a 35-minute conversation, I don’t really know. We kept chatting and I kept enjoying it. The best part of the interview was when I asked him about Irfan Pathan’s comment. Irfan has recently tweeted saying “Sachin Tendulkar is the University of cricket, and we are all his students.”
In response, this was what Sachin had to say. “Irfan said the very same to me on the field. And that’s when I told him that all of us are actually students. The game is the university and we are all students attending that university. No individual can ever be bigger than the game, and every single day, we keep learning. Each one of us are what we are today because of the game. The game is our temple, and we are all its devotees.”
This one answer sums up Sachin Tendulkar.
What made him different and how did he keep on improving for two and a half decades? How could he stay humble and rooted?
All of these answers are hidden in the one mentioned above. He never allowed himself to get bigger than the game. However many hundreds he scored or however many games he won, he was still the devotee who worshipped the sport.
Coming to the presence of 60,000 fans screaming ‘Sachin! Sachin!’, Tendulkar was all smiles. “It is a blessing,” he said. “I consider myself immensely lucky to receive this level of affection from people. Some have asked if I get tired or upset or restless at signing autographs or posing for selfies. I tell them absolutely not. These fans mean the world to me. If I spend a little time with them and it helps bring a smile on their face, there can’t be anything better. To have them come and support me is a blessing.”
In all of this, Sachin the kid is still alive. “My teammates said that only if I accompanied them could they go to Yuvi’s room and spray him with colour,” he told me. “That’s when the plan was made. We got his wife and kids to knock on his door. Yuvi is a brother to me and it is a relationship I cherish. Playing Holi with him and catching him off guard was real fun.”
Holi fun with my @imlt20official teammates, from blue jerseys to colourful moments, this is how we say, “Happy Holi!” 💙 pic.twitter.com/uhYBZvptVT
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) March 14, 2025
So was the interview. If you are a Sachin fan, it is a must watch, at 12 noon on all RevSportz platforms.