Sachin Tendulkar's 50th birthday: Mithali Raj recalls how Master Blaster's advice helped her prolong career
Sachin Tendulkar will be celebrating his 50th birthday on Monday. Meanwhile, Mithali Raj has recalled that she received paramount advice from him in 2017, which allowed her to reinvent her game, besides prolonging her career.
FollowHaving stayed at the top of their game for over two decades, Sachin Tendulkar and Mithali Raj are the epitomai of excellence and longevity in world cricket. While Tendulkar made people fall in love with the game, Mithali became India's first superstar of women's cricket. However, self-doubt can creep even into the minds of greats like Tendulkar and Mithali.
Ahead of Tendulkar's 50th birthday, Mithali spoke to PTI about her first interaction with him, the influence he had on her batting and on how a chat with the master blaster before the 2017 ICC Women's World Cup helped reinvent her game. "I still remember our conversation before the 2017 World Cup in England. After a group conversation, I had a one-on-one chat with him. I wanted to ask him how he had such a long career and how he had to reinvent himself to face new bowlers of the younger generation," Mithali said.
"When you have such a long career, every generation has stand-out bowlers. I wanted to know how he kept up with that. As you age, people start talking about your footwork getting slower, you picking the line and length late, and you need to be quicker on the ball. I wanted to know how he overcame all that and be on top of his game. He did give suggestions, and I tried to put that into training," said Mithali, who ended up amassing 409 runs in the 2017 World Cup and captained India to the final.
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Though India came up short in the final, it was a path-breaking result, revolutionising women's cricket in the country. Mithali recollected that she and Tendulkar did not talk much about technique, as the conversation was mainly about the mental side of the game. "We should have spoken more about the approach as everyone has different plans. As a senior pro, after playing for so long, all you can help with is the preparation advice to another player, and he helped me with that," she said.
"Around that time, expectations were high for me to deliver with the bat and as captain. When you hear people talk about, 'Oh, she is nearing her retirement', and you are keen to do well in that stage and show age is not affecting your skill, that is where I thought he was the best person to reach out as he has gone through all of that," she added.
It was 2017, but Mithali's first meeting with Sachin happened 15 years earlier after she broke the record of the highest individual score in women's Test cricket. Women's cricket did not get the due attention and facilities back then, and Mithali and her teammates were star-struck in their first interaction with the batting maestro.
"In 2002, I was recognised at the Castrol awards, which used to be for male cricketers. I was invited there. He [Tendulkar] came across as someone curious about how we trained and what facilities we had. We were under WCAI back then, not BCCI. He wanted to know if I played a lot on matting or turf wickets," she continued.
"We were playing mostly on matting wickets. He said playing on matting wickets has advantages and is good for your backfoot play. He came across as a very positive person," recalled Mithali, who watched many videos of Tendulkar in her early days as a cricketer. Mithali's off-side play was a work of art, but talking about Tendulkar, what she found terrific was how consistently he played with the whole face of the bat.
"I could never watch cricket like a crazy fan as I was busy playing. I would watch the highlights if I had to watch a particular shot of his or how he played Shane Warne, as playing a leggie is challenging for a right-hand batter. It hit me that he plays every shot with the entire face of the bat, whether his cover drive or straight drive. I especially like the one he plays on the up-through-the-point region," she guessed.
"Many times, his teammates spoke highly about his mental preparation. Not only skills, but he also gave mental preparedness due importance, which is why he could stay on top for so long," she added. Tendulkar and Mithali spent 24 and 23 years, respectively, in international cricket, and such longevity drew comparisons. Mithali said she nowhere stands close to Tendulkar's staggering achievements.
"The comparisons were only because of the longevity that both of us had. I idolised him growing up, the way he has carried himself on and off the field. To be compared to him is huge. I don't think anyone would stand anywhere close to Sachin and his accomplishments and how he transformed a sport in India to be liked by everybody," she thought.
What makes Tendulkar different from other greats of the game? "There are two aspects to it. He is still so involved when he talks about the sport. You see a child-like emotion on his face. He loves the sport so much. Secondly, when we retire, we take a back seat. We invest less in preparation. I don't think he ever does that. Once, we were in a camp in Mumbai, and he was going to play some retired players competition and came for training. That shows he doesn't want to take anything for granted when he gets on the field. We are similar in that sense," concluded Mithali.
