Ace batsman Sachin Tendulkar released a book titled Cricket at Fever Pitch, a compilation of articles written by veteran sports writer and chairman of Mid-Day Multimedia Group, Khalid Ansari, in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Recalling one of his earlier meetings with Ansari, who has covered several Olympic Games apart from cricket events for Mid-Day and now-defunct sports magazine Sportsweek, Tendulkar said he used to look forward to reading the sports magazine in his childhood.
"Sportsweek was a magazine we all used to read in the 1980s when I was a boy," said Tendulkar after releasing the book, published by Popular Prakashan.
"I remember having supper once with Mr Ansari in Antigua as early as 7 pm. I was dead tired that day after having to bowl Anil Kumble's quota of overs following the broken jaw suffered by Anil," Tendulkar, recuperating from a shoulder operation, recalled at the Cricket Club of India.
The incident he was referring to happened on India's last visit to the Caribbean in 2002.
Cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, who has written the book's foreword, said it was a sign of times that the book has Indian cricket's new pin-up boy wicketkeeper-batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni on its cover and not Tendulkar.
{{/usCountry}}Cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, who has written the book's foreword, said it was a sign of times that the book has Indian cricket's new pin-up boy wicketkeeper-batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni on its cover and not Tendulkar.
{{/usCountry}}"I just mentioned it to Tendulkar that till a few months ago it would have been him on the cover. Now it's M S Dhoni whose photo adorns that cover of the book. I told him how times change", the former India skipper said.