The current BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly celebrated his 50th birthday on July 8. His “opening partner”, Sachin Tendulkar opened up with PTI and shared insights on their friendship. 

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Tendulkar started by mentioning that they first met at a junior tournament organized by the BCCI  in Kanpur. He revealed that they have spent a lot of time together at an annual camp in Indore. The camp was organized by the BCCI and conducted by Paranjape. 

Tendulkar shared a prank he played on Ganguly. He mentioned that he remembers how he, a former Indian player, late national selector Jatin Paranjape and Kedar Godbole “flooded” Ganguly’s room. He shared that they would pour buckets of water into his room when he was asleep. Ganguly would get up clueless seeing his suitcase float in the room. 

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He reminisced, smiling, about their first trip to the United Kingdom. And shared that they used to stay in schools that looked like British castles. They would scare each other.

Tendulkar also praised the BCCI president by saying that he gave a lot of freedom to his players. Along with freedom he also provided a sense of responsibility, to strike a balance between the two. He shared how Tendulkar supported Virendra Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra. 

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Before stepping down as the captain, Tendulkar suggested the name of Sourav Ganguly to be the vice-captain of the team, which he shared with PTI. Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar have 26 centuries together out of which 21 came when they opened the batting together. 

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Towards the end, he thanked the people for considering them a good opening pair and for appreciating what they did for the Indian cricket team. “Sourav never looked back and what he has achieved for India is out there for all of us to see,” said Tendulkar