It is not often one finds Sachin Tendulkar so tongue tied. Call it the post match excitement or the simply fact that he was instrumental in doing something whose joy went beyond the field.
It is not often that Sachin keeps talking. Usually the pause and the “I think…” are often indicative that he is processing words in his mind before he lets them out for the world to hear. But on this days, his emotions were free flowing.
Here’s an excerpt of his post match interview…
On what he feels for Mumbai…
“What happened in Mumbai was extremely unfortunate. Cricket cannot lessen whatever happened... I hope this 100 will give some amount of happiness to the people,” he said.
“I thank those who stood up to the terrorists and who made sure that they were captured or shot dead as the terrorists were many.
“I salute the NSG commandos, Taj hotel staff, police, public and everyone.”
On his own century..
“If the team wins the 100 become very very special, so this is right among my special centuries.
“The gameplan was to get opportunity for scoring more and more runs because the wicket was such and we could not be bogged down by that.
“This become a very very special victory on a track where the ball was jumping awfully.”
But he was not always dishing it out himself. Yuvraj Singh spoke of his own experience batting with Sachin, “It was a dream come true by playing alongside him. As a kid I would always dream to play with him in Tests and it happened today…”
Some dreams do come true.
