Sachin Tendulkar and Ramakant Achrekar are the most famous student-teacher pair in India. On Tuesday, on the occasion of Teacher’s Day, the batting legend went down memory lane to share an episode of his teenage days when he learned the biggest lesson of his life from Achrekar.
Long before his international debut in 1989, Sachin was a prankster in his youth days, recalled one incident which is still etched in his memory after all these years on his social media account. He said, “Back in my school days, I used to play only for the junior team and our senior team was playing the Harris Shield finals at the Wankhede Stadium. And our coach Ramakant Achrekar sir had organised a practice match for me. He had told me to go there after school and bat at number four. He said he had spoken to the captain and you would not need to field. That used to be my training. That was important because you needed to figure out your game there and figure out how to score runs in the middle.”
He further added, “But I left all of that and sat at the Wankhede watching the Harris Shield final, cheering the senior team, clapping. After the match, I saw Achrekar sir and I thought it would be good to wish him. He asked me how many runs I got in the match and I told him I never went on to play it because I wanted to cheer the senior team and clap for them.”
Sachin concluded, “Then he scolded me a lot in front of everybody and said I did not need to clap for others. He said I should take care of my own game and do something so that one day, the world can clap for you. That was the biggest lesson of my life. After that day, I never missed another match.”
Years after that, Sachin went on to fulfill his dream of winning the World Cup at the same Wankhede Stadium and hanged his boots from international cricket at the same venue in Mumbai.
Happy #TeachersDay! The lessons you taught me have always served me well. Sharing an incident with you all that changed my life! pic.twitter.com/J1izUvPG3C
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) September 5, 2017
