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“He put me in and zipped it”: How Sachin Tendulkar once decided to put his friend inside his huge kit bag from England tour

Gurpreet Singh
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"He put me in and zipped it": How Sachin Tendulkar once decided to put his friend inside his huge kit bag from England tour

When the legendary Indian allrounder Kapil Dev had skippered team India to their maiden World Cup title in the year 1983, a 10-year-old Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar trudged towards the Shivaji Park in Bombay along with his elder brother Ajit, to learn the basics and nuances of the art of batting from the veteran coach Ramakant Achrekar.

A child prodigy indeed, it took mere two years for Tendulkar to become a batting star who would on a given Sunday play at least half-a-dozen matches for different teams, as a result of being high-in-demand for his batting services.

A story goes that the coach would place a bet at his bowlers, that the ones who would dismantle Tendulkar’s wickets would be awarded with the coin placed at the top of the stumps at the batting end.

However, as far as the academics were considered, the ‘Master Blaster’ was never a brilliant student but was right up there in the list of mischief-mongers.

Along with fellow Indian team player Vinod Kambli, Sachin also had another childhood friend in Ricky Cuoto. All the three of them would study together at Shardashram Vidyamandir in Dadar.

Sachin Tendulkar once decided to put his friend inside his huge kit bag

Backbenchers like most mischievous children in school generally are, the trio would often get punished in school by the teachers, and made to stand on their bench or outside the class.

During the summer of 1988, the 14-year-old Tendulkar was sponsored for a tour to United Kingdom, under the Star Cricket Club banner to get a know-how of the English pitches and conditions.

Tendulkar had returned back from the tour with a huge kit bag along with him, when one of his friends jokingly remarked that the size of his bag was big enough for Ricky to fit inside.

ALSO READ: Sachin Tendulkar’s Bombay teammates were stunned upon seeing him hit Ricky Cuoto at Wankhede Stadium

Always up for some fun, the mischievous Tendulkar took it as a challenge, emptied his bag and only rested after he had placed Ricky fully inside it and zipped in for the friends to see.

“He had just come back from that tour with a big kit bag. It was something new for me to see such a big kit bag. One of our friends told Sachin that the kit bag is so big that you can easily fit Ricky in the bag. Like always he was ready for the challenge. After a period was over, he emptied the bag, he put me in and zipped it and showed that I’ve won this also,” Ricky had remarked.

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh

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Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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