Sachin hails media

Sachin Tendulkar, pilloried in the media on a few occasions when he failed during his 24-year-old glittering international career, praised it for supporting him from his fledgling days as a schoolboy cricketer in Mumbai. ‘I thought from media the support I have received not only after I was playing for India but right from the school days. I remember when I scored my first hundred that was an article,’ said Tendulkar in an interaction with select sports journalists on Wednesday. He also said early on he was scolded by his childhood coach Ramakant Achrekar not to cheat his way into the newspaper pages after he had naively agreed to a suggestion. ‘I also remember the first time my name appeared in a newspaper my score was 24.

One of the guys, who brought up the score sheet and gave it to all the newspapers told me that ‘if you add six more runs and take your score to 30 your name will appear in the newspapers. It was the first game in my life and I didn’t know what I was. So I told him ‘if you think that is fine then do it’ and he did that. But my Sir (Achrekar) caught me and which was a big lesson in life. Sir told me ‘if you wish to see your name in the newspaper then you better ore runs,’ Sachin said.