Sachin Tendulkar's mass appeal lies not only in him being a once-in-a-generation player
Sachin Tendulkar's mass appeal lies not only in him being a once-in-a-generation player. His popularity has a lot to do with how he has remained unaffected by all the adulation. It is a measure of the man that for his friends, he has remained the same Tendulkar whom they knew as a Shardashram school player. Sachin with Marcus Couto at the CCI. PIC/pradeep dhivar
A shining example of it has been Tendulkar's friendship with the Couto brothers -- Ricky and Marcus. Ricky was Tendulkar's classmate while the elder Coutou00a0- Marcus (49) umpired many of Tendulkar's school matches.
Marcus works at the Cricket Club of India which is Mumbai Indians' homeground during the Indian Premier League. It was great to see Tendulkar greet Marcus with the same affection as he did as a schoolboy cricketer.
"He's the same, there is no change in him at all. He's like ice, always cool," said Marcus, who took the initiative to highlight Tendulkar and Kambli's world record 664-run partnership in schools cricket.
Talking about the Tendulkar-Kambli partnership, Marcus said, the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Scorers of India, of which he is a co-founder, had organised a function at the Shardashram School to felicitate the two young cricketers.
"Sachin was so shy that when called to speak on the stage, he just said: 'Thank you' while Kambli spoke for more than five minutes," recalled Marcus.
He also remembered how a local afternoon newspaper covered every match after Tendulkar started scoring runs at the school level. "In one match he got out for zero and the headline was 'Sachin out for 0'.
Sachin valued that clipping the most and kept it in his collection for a long time. He was amazed that he got a headline even after a duck.
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