India batting legend Sunil Gavaskar celebrates his 72nd birthday on July 10, 2021. Birthday wishes for Indian cricket's original 'Little Master' continue to pour in on social media and the latest to jump on the bandwagon is 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar, who wished his idol, as he has mentioned multiple times in the past, a very happy birthday through a video message and reminisced about an instance from the early days of his career.
Tendulkar shared a video message on his social media handles with the caption: "Happy Birthday Gavaskar Sir. Wishing you a year full of good health and happiness."
In the same clip, 48-year-old Tendulkar also jogged his memory back to an incident when Gavaskar gave him a tip that helped him throughout his career.
Tendulkar recalled: "We have interacted on various occasions but I remember, the first time I started playing for India in 1990 after the Lord's Test match where I was dismissed for 27, trying to nudge a ball which was not in line. I could have left the ball but I got out at second slip. That time he walked up to me and said *in marathi* 'Let go of the ball outside, play close to your body.' And that stayed with me."
{{/usCountry}}Tendulkar recalled: "We have interacted on various occasions but I remember, the first time I started playing for India in 1990 after the Lord's Test match where I was dismissed for 27, trying to nudge a ball which was not in line. I could have left the ball but I got out at second slip. That time he walked up to me and said *in marathi* 'Let go of the ball outside, play close to your body.' And that stayed with me."
{{/usCountry}}Tendulkar continued:
"There were some practice sessions after that, I worked on it and that really helped me. Not just that, but on various occasions we have interacted, he continued helping us."
As history has it, Tendulkar went on to become one of the best batsmen the world has ever seen. Gavaskar, too, is considered one of the finest Test batsmen of all time, right up there with the likes of Sir Don Bradman, Allan Border, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar. The first man to score 10,000 runs on Test cricket, Gavaskar scored 10,122 runs from 125 Tests at an average of 51.12. His tally of 34 centuries was the most, a record that stood tall for almost two decades before being broken by Tendulkar.