Sachin Tendulkar reveals how Dennis Lillee advised him to choose batting over fast bowling

Sachin Tendulkar is a name known by all cricket lovers. The master blaster from India is regarded as the ‘God of cricket’. With 200 Test matches and 100 international centuries, the legendary batsman is compared with Don Bradman. But not many would be knowing that the player, whose straight drive is still charming to the eyes, wanted to become a fast bowler.

But fortunately for the Indian cricket team, Dennis Lillee thought otherwise. On the 68th birthday of Australian pacer, Tendulkar revealed how Lillee changed his life with a career-defining idea. The 44-year old uploaded a video on Twitter. The caption of the video read “Happy birthday to one of the best bowlers to have graced the sport, Dennis Lillee! Here’s a small incident from our first meeting.”

What’s the story?

Tendulkar met the man from Perth at the MRF Pace Foundation 30 years ago. Initially, Tendulkar was inclined towards pace bowling and tried to emulate Lillee. “Dennis, many, many happy returns of the day. I can never forget the day I met you in Chennai in 1987. I was there to become a fast bowler but this is something that most of the guys don’t know,” said Sachin in the video.

It was Sachin’s brother Ajit Tendulkar who suggested him to carry his batting gear with him. Lillee, however, wasn’t particularly impressed with Sachin-the fast bowler. Hence, Tendulkar decided to have a go with the ball and for one week, he batted against the fast bowlers. It was then Lillee suggested that Tendulkar should become a batsman and forget about bowling.

“I was always a batter but while catching the train from Mumbai to Chennai my brother told me: ‘It won’t be a bad idea to carry your batting gear’, because after having bowled for a while you made me just standing there doing nothing, so then I padded up and played against all those fast bowlers. I actually ended up doing that for the rest of the week,” said Sachin.

“You correctly said: ‘I think this young lad should go out and bat, forget about bowling.’ But that desire continued and instead of bowling in matches, I used to fulfil all my desires in the nets bowling from 17 yards, sometimes also pretending to be Dennis Lillee in the nets,” he continued. As fans of the Indian cricket team, we thank you Lillee for your suggestion.

Here’s the video uploaded by Tendulkar

Happy birthday to one of the best bowlers to have graced the sport, Dennis Lillee! Here's a small incident from our first meeting. pic.twitter.com/GZgEN7Zei8

— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 18, 2017