"He's always been temperamentally bold. He knows the strength of the opposition he's facing. We are the ones who worry." Ramesh Tendulkar, the father of Sachin Tendulkar said when asked about how Sachin faced the Pakistani quicks. Being India's cricketing prodigy is what this 16-year-old has to cope with.
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Sitting on the sidelines watching their son’s baptism by fire is what the Tendulkar family has to go through. They have watched most of Sachin’s matches except his hurricane innings in the Peshawar one-day exhibition match.
“We thought he wouldn’t play, so I heard of his innings only when I returned from college (Tendulkar Sr teaches at Kirti College). I think he has done very nicely in this series.”
‘Very worried’
His father saw him on TV being hit by a bouncer on the nose in the Sialkot Test. “I was very worried, but my greatest solace came from the fact that my son Ajit had gone there to be with him.
Then I rang him up at Sialkot and he told me not to worry as it was nothing. Before the team left, the doctor, Vishwas Raut said that Sachin would be well looked after.”
Ajit, Sachin’s senior by nine years went to meet the wounded soldier with one of Sachin’s friends from the building where they live. “He was very happy to see Avinash and me.
“The injury was because he tried to duck after committing himself. The seam cut his nose. When I went there, it was swollen but that’s all. And Sachin was more worried about India’s position than his own injury.” u00a0
December 21, 1989u00a0