Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly and legendary Sachin Tendulkar were great friends on and off the field. Tendulkar made his India debut before Ganguly, and he retired after him. So, Tendulkar was a regular and constant figure during Ganguly’s whole international tenure.
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It was Tendulkar who convinced Ganguly to open the innings in ODIs, and the rest is history. Both of them made the most successful opening pair in the history of ODI cricket. Ganguly was known as ‘Dada’, but Tendulkar used to call him ‘Dadi’. It is interesting that Tendulkar was against Ganguly’s famous shirt wave at the Lord’s.
Ganguly made his Test debut against England in 1996 at the Lord’s. It was certainly a memorable debut for the batter from Bengal as he scored an excellent century in that match. He also shared an interesting incident regarding the same match including Tendulkar in an interview.
How Sachin Tendulkar Helped Sourav Ganguly in Taping Broken bat on Test Debut
While talking to NDTV, Ganguly had narrated an interesting incident about his Test debut. Ganguly’s bat got creaked during his century knock. When he went into the dressing room during the tea break, taping the bat was his first priority as he was batting really well.
The Tea breaks are very short, and that’s when Tendulkar came in to help Ganguly. Ganguly had revealed that Tendulkar was the one who came to help him. Tendulkar asked Ganguly to rest and he started taping Dada’s bat.
“It was in my first Test, I was batting at 100 at tea,” Ganguly had said to NDTV.
“I quickly came in after batting for six hours. My handle had creaked. I was padded up and a cup of tea was given to me. The tea is very short…of 15 minutes. I was tying my bat handle with the tape so he walked up to me and said ‘you just rest and finish your cup of tea because you have to go and bat, I will do the job’.”
Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid made their Test debuts together
Ganguly played a stellar knock of 131 (301) with the help of 20 boundaries. Former India captain Rahul Dravid also made his debut in the same match. He missed his century, but he was also excellent in his knock of 95 (267). In the match, the match ended in a draw.
