Bipin Dani
India’s Little Master Sachin Tendulkar has thanked an Indian fan Sabu Sastry (now in USA) for sharing an old video of another Little master Sunil Gavaskar asking Sachin Tendulkar to score 40 centuries and 15,000 runs in Tests.
The video was recorded in 1996 when Sachin was 7-year old in international cricket. “If by the end of his career, he (Sachin) does not score a minimum of 15000 runs and 40 Test centuries, I shall personally go and strangle him. 20 years down the line, my hands would not have the same strength and he might still survive, but I think I will get somebody to do that for me. He has got that much talent!” Gavaskar had predicted.
In fact Sachin lived up to Sunil’s expectation and scored 15,9210 runs and 51 tons in Tests. Sachin Tendulkar has reacted to the 24-year-old video and expressed his delight at the fact that he managed to live up to his idol’s astonishing prediction.
He also made it a point to thank the Twitter user Sabu Sastry for sharing the video. “This happened very early in my career. Special words from the great man. I am just glad that I could live up to his (Gavaskar) expectations. Thanks for sharing this wonderful moment Subu!”. Sachin has said.
Sabu Sastry, when approached in USA by this reporter, said, “This was a 10 min interview that Sunil Gavaskar had with Sachin Tendulkar where they reminisce Sachin’s first Test century vs. England at Old Trafford. This particular moment in the chat was very prophetic and powerful and I thought it will be great to share and spread the joy on how prophetic Gavaskar was to set a lofty expectations and how Sachin exceeded all of those and gave happiness to the entire cricketing world”.
“A 10 minute classic interview was trimmed to 30 seconds to capture this powerful engagement between two greats of World cricket”.
“Then the GOD himself replied. I was pleasantly surprised. It took me a while to process. And once I confirmed it was indeed Sachin, it was the perfect fan boy moment. The message from Sachin was very nice, crisp yet detailed and personalized, that a fan can only dream about !”, Sabu Sastry added.
“My twitter handle, exploded. I just couldn’t believe for next 48 to 72 hours, the number likes, retweets and messages went berserk. There is some 33K views on that video”, he signed off.
