NEW DELHI: India watches with bated
breath when Sachin Tendulkar comes out to bat but one man prefers to go on a
long drive just to avoid seeing him live in action.

And that man
happens to be the maestro’s own elder brother Ajit with whom he discusses every
aspect of the game.

“He does not watch my matches. I have been told
by friends that he goes on a long drive alone, where there is no radio, there is
nothing, and he comes back only after the match is over,” Tendulkar revealed.

“Later, a recording is pulled out and then he and I discuss where
improvements can be made in my batting and what mistakes I committed. All this
discussion happens then,” he said.

“Because I speak to him every
evening and on a daily basis we discuss what sort of preparation should be made
for a match and what are the mistakes to be avoided, and this is a habit I have
since school cricket and I still use this formula,” he added.

The
veteran right-hander, who completed 20 years in international cricket a few
weeks ago, also thanked his wife Anjali for supporting him at the expense of her
own medical career.

“I think my problem is that I am not expressive
on the face. But she knows my style, what I want to say, what I am feeling, what
I am thinking, she knows and she understands,” Tendulkar
said.

Tendulkar said he misses his late father immensely as he was a
guiding force for him in every aspect of life.

“I will always miss
my father. I don’t think anything in the world can replace him. I feel his
absence acutely, especially during good and bad times in my life. My father
always guided me and was a source of strength to me.

Asked to
compare former captain Sourav Ganguly with incumbent Mahendra Singh Dhoni,
Tendulkar said the two have distinct ways of showing aggression with the former
being a lot more expressive in his body language.

“I think I don’t
like making comparisons. Every individual has his own identity. Every individual
has an imagination. Both have different personalities. Dhoni is very calm and
composed on the field but Sourav had a different body language from Dhoni,” he
said.

“I think they are both aggressive but their style is
different. They react differently to situations. So I don’t like to compare. I
have never compared people,” he added.

Recalling his days of playing
under Ganguly, Tendulkar said the Bengal batsman was spot on with most of the
decisions he took during his tenure but maintained that a captain is only as
good as the team.

“I think a captain is successful when his team
performs well. If a team gets out after 150-200 runs, even a good captain can’t
do anything. But when it comes to decision making I would say that Sourav took
very good decisions,” he said.

The results after his decisions were
also good. So I think he has done a brilliant job for us. A time came in Indian
cricket around the year 2001, when we started winning consistently outside
India. It started a trend which was very good for Indian cricket and Sourav had
played a big role in that,” Tendulkar said.

Though he refused to
divulge any of the dressing room banter, the 36-year-old said the younger lot
keep the atmosphere light with their pranks, which are at times targetted at
him.

“A newcomer may think twice because he may not know me well,
but along with Yuvraj (Singh) and Harbhajan Singh they all join in the fun. It’s
not as if only one or two players make fun of others, all players poke fun at
each other,” he revealed.

Asked how he felt at being referred to as
‘grandfather’ by Yuvraj Singh during a press conference, Tendulkar said even he
has a few nicknames for the left-hander.

“I have many names for him
too, which I cannot reveal in front of the TV camera. I warned him to think
twice before calling me grandpa because I have many names to call him in front
of the camera. But I am not revealing them now as I am giving him a chance after
my warning,” he said.