A 16-year-old boy, who went on to dedicate two-and-a-half decades of this life playing and excelling in the sport of Cricket so much so that he went on to smash 100 international centuries, is nothing short of an awe-inspiring story to say the least.
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When an individual manages to make a mark for oneself the way Tendulkar did, one cannot help but get involved in gaining every possible detail not only pertaining his craft, but also the way he carried and went along leading his life in general.
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For a player who is unarguably right up there in the list of greatest batters of all time, it is only natural for one to get a grip of the fact that right since his childhood, Tendulkar was pretty much obsessed with his Cricket bat.
Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly had once revealed in an interview, how Tendulkar once became anxious when he did not feel that his bat weighed as per his comfort, and even went about looking for a carpenter during one of team India’s tour to West Indies.
Sachin Tendulkar once revealed reason for using a heavy bat
Even during his early teens, one of Tendulkar’s junior Cricket teammate. Wookheri Raman, would go one to state how the former would sleepwalk and knock on different doors wondering whether his bats had been delivered to a different address, after their delivery was delayed by a couple of days.
But, there was one unique aspect regarding his bat – its weight. For a man whose height is not worth envying, Tendulkar played with a really heavy bat throughout his career.
Despite battling through the worst of knee injuries and his much-talked about Tennis elbow injury, the ‘Master Blaster’ would continue playing with a bat weighing approximately three pounds two ounces.
During his career period, only the South African allrounder Lance Klusener was believed to have played with a bat heavier than Tendulkar’s.
In his autobiography ‘Playing It My Way‘, Tendulkar had revealed he had always believed that a bat should be an extension of one’s arms, and playing with a heavy bat made him feel that way. He also stated that while people had encouraged him to play with a lighter bat, he never really felt comfortable doing so.
“If you make technical adjustments, such as moving to a lighter bat, to cope with different conditions, there’s a risk of making yourself feel uncomfortable and of thinking too much about your technique. To me the bat should be an extension of your arm, and if you’ve reached the stage where it’s become an extension of your arm, why do you need to change?”, Tendulkar had stated.
