Sachin Tendulkar tells how he opened up a 'shy' Virender Sehwag, made him eat chicken
Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag formed one of the most lethal opening partnerships for Team India at the top. The duo sparked endless fears in the minds of the bowlers at the other end and went on to be hailed as one of the best in the history of Indian cricket.
However, Tendulkar was highly unsure whether things would work out with Sehwag when the Delhi batsman initially joined the team. The Master Blaster revealed that Sehwag would not talk at all because of his shy nature.
"I remember when Viru first joined the team, he would not talk to me. Then I thought this can't work, we need to talk to each other and if we are batting together I need to make him comfortable. So I told him let's go get have some food. Before going, I asked him what he liked. He said 'Paaji, I am a vegetarian'. When I asked why, he revealed that he had been told at home that eating chicken makes you fat," Tendulkar said on Vikram Sathaye’s What the Duck 3 show.
“He was not eating chicken because he was told he will become fat. Only thing I told him was if I looked fat! Ever since, he has been eating chicken,” he added.
Like many of his peers, Sehwag also used to idolise Tendulkar and he was deeply overwhelmed on their first encounter.
"When I first met him, he just shook my hand and moved on. I thought to myself that I idolise this person and he just shook my hand and walked away. But later when I was a senior and met new players, I did the same, then I realised you cannot get close to a person before knowing him. I was very shy when I first joined the team," Sehwag recalled.
The Nawab of Najafgarh also revealed how Tendulkar would help the captain on-field with his valuable inputs.
"I don't have to tell him because whoever the captain of the team is, his (Sachin's) aim is how he can contribute to help the captain. That was the biggest, would say, a benefit of having Sachin in our team that whoever becomes the captain, be it Dada, Rahul Gandhi, MS Dhoni. I mean, one time during MS Dhoni's captaincy, most decisions he wouldn't go and say directly. 'Lala, go tell him this.' So Lala used to get stuck between them. So I used to say, 'MS don't kill the messenger, I am just passing the message'. Even when I was the captain for one match, he was saying, 'put him here and put him there'," he recalled.
