Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar, ever the humble legend, consistently acknowledges those who played a part in his journey, especially during his formative years as a middle-class boy striving to excel in cricket.
During the recent launch of his sportswear and athleisure brand in Mumbai, the retired maestro shared a poignant memory. He recalled how his Mumbai and India teammate, and dear friend, Pravin Amre – who was four years his senior at Shardashram Vidyamandir school – gifted him his very first pair of proper cricket shoes as a teenager. This generous act followed a promise Amre had made to the then-budding batsman: score a century, and the shoes would be his.
The story goes that when Tendulkar first joined his renowned childhood coach Ramakant Achrekar’s nets, he wore simple white canvas shoes with flat green soles, typical of school PE classes. A few days later, Achrekar asked Tendulkar’s brother, Ajit, to find a pair of spiked cricket shoes for the young prodigy.
Tendulkar vividly described how Amre presented him with these coveted, expensive cricket shoes, motivating him with the century challenge in inter-school cricket. Tendulkar recounted, “Pravin, who is also here, had gone to Australia and played for the India Under-19 team. After he returned, Achrekar sir told us, ‘Watch his batting.’ So we would observe him closely, noticing his kit, his bat, his shoes. We spotted some fantastic cricket shoes in his kit bag, and we were naturally fascinated. Pravin then told me: ‘Score a hundred and take them!'”
“When I finally scored that hundred, I didn’t dare remind him of his promise. But Pravin himself approached me, and that’s how I received the first good-quality pair of shoes in my life! I can never forget that moment.”
Reacting to Tendulkar’s public expression of gratitude decades later, Amre, present in the audience alongside chief selector Ajit Agarkar and former India stumper Kiran More, shared with TOI, “I simply didn’t expect Sachin to say that! I was truly overwhelmed that he remembered this gesture after so many years. I had completely forgotten about it! This incident must have occurred in 1987 or 1988. This is what truly defines Tendulkar as a sporting legend; it underscores his greatness. I remember they were imported shoes – something you couldn’t easily find in India back then. They were spiked shoes, perfect for batting. I feel incredibly proud that I gifted them to the right person, who would go on to become arguably the greatest cricketer ever!”
Amre, a former India batsman who famously scored a courageous century on his Test debut against South Africa in Durban in 1992, added, “After the event, I told him it was just a small thing I did. But he replied by saying that at that point in his life, it was a very big thing for him!”