Imagine Sachin Tendulkar playing for an Australian team. Weird, right? Honestly, it feels unacceptable. Australia was the one team Sachin loved batting against, the opponents against whom he produced those unforgettable Sharjah innings, and the side against whom he registered his second-highest Test score. The mere idea of Tendulkar playing for any team other than India, let alone an Australian side, feels difficult to process.
Yet, some influential figures in Australia genuinely tried to make it happen.
After Tendulkar retired from international cricket in November 2013, Big Bash League franchise Melbourne Stars attempted to lure the Master Blaster out of retirement for a one-evening exclusive deal that would have seen him partner the late great Shane Warne. Speaking about the early days of the Melbourne Stars franchise, when the team was struggling to retain its biggest names, former chairman Eddie McGuire admitted he could not think of a bigger attraction than seeing Tendulkar and Warne as teammates to bring a packed audience into the ground.
“I was just thinking about the international angle because I was lobbying at times when they started taking all our players. Ridiculously, some were being picked up and not even playing. You’d have to go all the way to Tasmania, sit on the team bus, and then not get a game,” McGuire said in a clip shared by the Melbourne Stars.
“I said, ‘Well, if you’re going to take four of my batsmen or four of my bowlers, at least allow me to bring in one international player’. And I actually said at one stage, ‘If I can go and get Sachin Tendulkar, I’ll fill this ground five times over.’”
{{/usCountry}}“I said, ‘Well, if you’re going to take four of my batsmen or four of my bowlers, at least allow me to bring in one international player’. And I actually said at one stage, ‘If I can go and get Sachin Tendulkar, I’ll fill this ground five times over.’”
{{/usCountry}}Tendulkar and Warne eventually partnered
While the move never materialised, Tendulkar and Warne did eventually come together in 2015 for the Cricket All Stars series, where several retired cricketers played three matches aimed at promoting and spreading the game in the United States. In 2020, Tendulkar also took part in the Bushfire Cricket Bash to raise funds for victims of the Australian wildfires. It was the first time the world saw him bat in a yellow jersey.
Tendulkar never reversed his retirement, but McGuire believes he came very close to getting the Indian great on board.
“I said, ‘Just for one game, if we get him to come and play in the grand final. You’ve taken three or four of my best batsmen, so let me bring in one. Let me get Sachin Tendulkar as our batsman and Warnie as our bowler, and let’s see how many people turn up. We’d have to put screens out in the park. It would be the biggest cricket match in Australian history, all in one night at a Big Bash T20 game,” he recalled.