Cricket and straight drives in particular still remain the first love of Sachin Tendulkar. If there were any doubts then Tendulkar erased them himself. On Valantine’s Day, Sachin Tendulkar took to Twitter to share a video of batting practice with the caption, “My first love”.
Tendulkar’s batting session, in which he was seen playing a couple of straight drives, was from Sydney, where he was invited to be the coach of Ricky Ponting XI team in the Bushfire Cricket Bash match to raise funds for the bushfire victims in Australia.
Sachin, who was initially not supposed to play any part in the match, was challenged by Australia women cricketer Ellyse Perry to pad up against her for an over during the innings break. Tendulkar accepted the challenge and batted against Perry during the innings break, in which he hit a boundary off the first ball.
{{/usCountry}}Sachin, who was initially not supposed to play any part in the match, was challenged by Australia women cricketer Ellyse Perry to pad up against her for an over during the innings break. Tendulkar accepted the challenge and batted against Perry during the innings break, in which he hit a boundary off the first ball.
{{/usCountry}}46-year-old Tendulkar had made his debut for India at the age of 16 in 1989.
He aggregated 34,357 runs across formats, which is 6,000 runs more than the second-placed former Sri Lanka cricketer Kumar Sangakkara.
Regarded as one of the greatest batsmen ever, Tendulkar holds the record of being the highest run-scorer of all time in international cricket, having notched up 18,426 runs in ODIs and 15,921 runs in Test matches.
He is now a mentor of the Mumbai Indians franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL).