He retired from competitive cricket ten years ago, but his popularity hasn’t diminished a bit. On Friday evening with a full house at Shanmukhanand Hall in Mumbai, we witnessed his well wishers chanting his name ‘Sachinnnnn ..Sachinnnn .. repeatedly on his arrival in the auditorium. And, this showed the respect they had for their favourite cricketer.
The occasion was to felicitate the Master Blaster on completing 50 years in his real life, which was combined with release of Book ‘Scintillating Sachin – Story Beyond the stats’ on Sachin. Many renowned personalities from different fields, including some former cricketers were present on this occasion. Those who could not make it, sent their audio visual clippings. The concept of this event was designed by veteran cricket columnist Dwarkanath Sanzgiri.
Top cricket commentator Harsha Bhogale was there to present a talk show involving top cricketers like Dilip Vengsarkar, Zaheer Khan, Kiran More and Praveen Amre. He spoke to each one of them in Marathi and asked them to highlight the best innings played by Sachin and their experience about Sachin. And each one of them besides praising his sincerity and dedication to this game, described him as a wonderful human being. Harsha Bhogale himself narrated how he and Dwarkanath Sanzgiri enjoyed watching Sachin’s debut innings on television screen.
Popular Cricket Mimicry artiste Vikram Sathe also presented a talk show with renowned personalities like Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, Actor Prashant Damle, Singer Shaan and Dr. Anant Joshi, who had treated Sachin for his several sports injuries. All of them spoke about Sachin’s gentle nature and as to how he remained calm after attaining his ultimate goal. Shaan rendered few lines of Sachin’s favourite songs, while Prof. Ratnakar Shetty highlighted on Sachin’s proper upbringing during childhood and thanked his father Late Ramesh Tendulkar for the same.
Former Cricketer and Administrator of Indian Cricket Mr. Anshuman Gaikwad also recalled his interactions with Sachin and was all praise for his passion for cricket. He focussed more on Sachin’s determination to score centuries during Sharjha tour, when he was Coach cum Manager of Indian Cricket team.
Sachin’s book ‘‘Scintillating Sachin…’ was released by his elder brother and his mentor Ajit Tendulkar. This 240 pages book published by Granthali is priced @ Rs. 1000/- With original content in Marathi edition penned by Dwarkanath Sanzgiri. The English adaptation is by Satish Mutatkar.