New Delhi: Mohammed Azharuddin, former captain of the Indian Cricket Team took an important decision in 1994 which played an important role in Sachin Tendulkar’s sports career. He allowed Tendulkar to open the inning against New Zealand in Auckland.
This decision helped Tendulkar to become the leading run-scorer of international cricket.
Sachin Tendulkar narrates incident
Narrating the incident that led to him moving up the order, Tendulkar said that he expressed his willingness to open the match as Navjot Sidhu was unable to play due to a stiff neck.
Tendulkar said, “I told Azharuddin that If I fail, I will never come back to him again”.
Azharuddin, Ajit agreed
After seeing the confidence of Tendulkar, Azharuddin and Ajit Wadekar, captain and coach of the team respectively agreed and said, “If you are confident, we’ll back you”.
In the match, Tendulkar scored 82 runs off 49 balls.
After that match, except a couple of times, he went on the ground as the opener of the match.
Azharuddin reveals reason for promoting Tendulkar up the order
Earlier, talking about the reason for promoting Tendulkar up the order, Azharuddin said that at number 5 or 6, Tendulkar was unable to score big despite good batting performance.
Tendulkar scored 49 ODI centuries in 463 matches. As an opener, he played 344 matches and scored 15310 runs.