Piling on truckload of runs and averaging over 1,000 in the year 1987 across the school circuit matches in Bombay, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was becoming the talk of the town with respect to his batting ability.
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A year later, he had the entire county talking about him when he stitched a mammoth 664-run partnership alongside Vinod Kambli, during the semi-final of the Harris Shield tournament against St. Xavier’s.
Impressed by the 14-year-old, former Rajasthan medium-pacer Raj Singh Dungarpur, who later also went on to serve as the BCCI president, got Tendulkar sponsored by the Young Cricketers organisation in Kolkata for the trip to the United Kingdom where he would play under the Star Cricket Club banner for two seasons.
Managing the club was a certain Kailash Gattani, who too had represented the Rajasthan domestic team, and later became a successful administrator.
14-year-old Sachin Tendulkar landed his team in trouble
During the first season with the club, Tendulkar managed to impress Gattani right away, not only pertaining his batting skills, but also with the sheer dedication with which he approached the game overall.
When not playing a particular match, he would coax his fellow teammates to take a break so that he could replace them on the field. Gattani was also impressed with his disciplined way of life for a boy so young. Not only did he diligently perform a scorer’s duty, but made sure that his entire kit bag was neatly arranged each and every time.
However, Tendulkar’s obsession with batting, particularly against a bowling machine once landed Gattani and the team in trouble.
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During the first season at the club, Vinod Kambli had set the bowling machine to a speed of 100 km/h, and Tendulkar would smack the deliveries as hard as he could.
One of such hits went flying across the nearby street, and broke the window pane of a cottage, thereby prompting the locals to threaten and take the matter to the school’s principal. Afraid of the consequences, Gattani had no other option but to shell out 10 pounds to get the window fixed.
If I remember correctly, once Vinod Kambli set the machine to deliver balls at 100 km/h at a school ground and Tendulkar hit a ball across the road, breaking a window pane of a cottage. The sound of glass breaking alerted everyone in the locality and the locals threatened to take the matter up with the principal. Being visitors, we were scared and I had to shell out 10 pounds to fix the broken window,” Gattani recalled during an interaction with mid-day in 2013.
