20 years on, Sachin stays hungry for more

Relaxing in his hotel room in Guwahati not quite 24 hours after he single-handedly held the cricketing world in thrall, Sachin Tendulkar was excited and thoughtful by turn as he chatted about cricket and life.

But if his knock caught his detractors on the wrong foot, the man himself — all of 36 and an incredible 20 years into the international game — said he was not surprised at knocking off 175 runs in 141 balls and running the Australians ragged in the process.

“To be honest, I always knew I could do it,” Tendulkar told HT from Guwahati. And no, racking up 75 runs in singles, twos and threes did not tire him.

On the contrary, he thinks that has been his strength. “Many of the hundreds I scored, there was a lot of running involved,” he said. I still do my regular routine (at the nets)… You do a lot of running. I always focus more on that aspect of the game. I feel if I could run well between the wickets, most of the other things would be taken care of.”

And by his own reckoning, he has many more left in him.



Tendulkar has no plans to retire, not now, not anytime soon. He said the thought of giving up cricket had not even crossed his mind. “Not at this stage. I am enjoying my game and there is cricket left in me. At this stage I’m not thinking of it at all. At some stage one will have to, but I don't need to think about that right now. I’m just saying that when the situation arises, it'll then be appropriate to think about it. Right now, that’s not something I want to do.”

What he is really looking forward to is winning the next World Cup, in 2011, playing under the man he considers a kindred spirit on the field: M.S. Dhoni. “Dhoni and my thought processes are the same. Whatever I would’ve done, he’s pretty close to my thinking.”