While Tendulkar made folks fall in love with the sport, Mithali was the primary famous person of girls’s cricket in India.
However, self doubt can creep even within the minds of greats like Tendulkar and Mithali.
Ahead of Tendulkar’s fiftieth birthday, Mithali spoke to PTI about her first interplay with him, the affect he had on her batting and on how a talk with the grasp blaster sooner than the 2017 girls’s World Cup helped reinvent her recreation.
“I still remember our conversation before the 2017 World Cup in England. After a group conversation, I had a one-on-one chat with him. I wanted to ask him how he was able to have such a long career and how he had to reinvent himself to face new bowlers of the younger generation,” Mithali mentioned.
“When you have such a long career, every generation has stand out bowlers, I wanted to know how he kept up with that. As you age, people start talking about your footwork getting slower, you are picking the line and length late and you are not quick on the ball.
“I sought after to know the way he controlled to triumph over all that and be on most sensible of his recreation. He did give ideas and I attempted to position that into coaching,” said Mithali, who ended up amassing 409 runs in the 2017 World Cup and captained India to the final.
Though India came up short in the final, it was a path breaking result as it revolutionized women’s cricket in the country.
Mithali recollected that she and Tendulkar did not talk a lot about technique as the conversation was mainly about the mental side of the game.
“We didn’t communicate extensive about method as everybody has other tactics. As a senior professional after enjoying for goodbye, all you’ll assist is with the preparation recommendation to some other participant and he helped me with that.
“Around that time, expectations were high for me to deliver with the bat and as captain.
“When you pay attention folks discuss ‘oh she is nearing her retirement’ and you might be prepared to do in point of fact smartly in that level and display age isn’t affecting your ability, this is the place I assumed he used to be the most efficient particular person to succeed in out as he has long gone thru all of that,” she said.
This was 2017 but Mithali’s first meeting with Sachin happened 15 years earlier after she broke the record of the highest individual score in women’s Test cricket.
Women’s cricket did not get the due attention and facilities back then and Mithali and her teammates were star struck in their first interaction with the batting maestro.
“In 2002, I used to be known on the Castrol awards which was for male cricketers. I used to be invited there. He (Tendulkar) got here throughout as any person who used to be very interested in how we skilled, what sort of amenities we had.
“We were under WCAI back then, not BCCI. He wanted to know if I was playing a lot on matting wickets or turf wickets.”
“We were playing mostly on matting wickets. He said playing on matting wickets has its advantages and it is good for your backfoot play. He came across as a very positive person,” recalled Mithali who used to observe a large number of movies of Tendulkar in her early days as a cricketer.
Mithali’s off-side play used to be a murals however speaking about Tendukar, what she discovered superb used to be how constantly he performed with the whole face of the bat.
“I was never able to watch cricket like aa crazy fan as I was busy playing. I would watch the highlights if I had to watch a particular shot of his or how he played Shane Warne as playing a leggie is so tough for a right hand batter.
“Something that in point of fact hit me is how he performs each shot with the whole face of the bat, if it is his duvet power or instantly power. I particularly like the only he performs at the up throughout the level area.”
“On such a lot of cases his teammates spoke extremely about his psychological preparation. Not best talents, he gave psychological preparedness due significance and because of this he used to be in a position to stick on most sensible for goodbye.”
Tendulkar and Mithali spent 24 and 23 years respectively in international cricket and such longevity drew comparisons. Mithali said she stands nowhere close to Tendulkar’s staggering achievements.
“The comparisons had been best on account of the longevity that either one of us had. He used to be any person I idolized rising up, the way in which he has carried himself off and on the sphere.
“To be compared to him is huge. I don’t think anyone would stand anywhere close to Sachin and his achievements and how he transformed a sport in India to be liked by everybody.”
What makes Tendulkar other from different greats of the sport?
“There are two aspects to it. He is still so involved when he talks about the sport. You see a child-like emotion on his face. He loves the sport so much.
“Second is after we retire we have a tendency to take a again seat. We do not make investments such a lot in preparation. I do not believe he ever does that. Once we had been in a camp in Mumbai and he used to be going to play some retired gamers pageant and he got here for coaching.
“That shows that when he gets on to the field, he doesn’t want to take anything for granted. We are similar in that sense,” added Mithali.