Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (59 page)

That’s when the thought came to me that there might not be another innings. It dawned on me that this could well be the last time I walked off the field as an India batsman. The way the match was going, there was a good chance we wouldn’t have to bat again. It was this thought that prompted me to stop for a moment and take in the crowd and raise my bat to them for all their support and encouragement. But the disappointment was still very much with me as I walked up the steps to the dressing room. I knew I had missed out on a big one.

As he had in Kolkata, Rohit Sharma batted exceptionally well and his second consecutive ton, as well as 113 from Pujara, helped us to a total of 495 and a lead of 313. In their second innings, the West Indies top order fell without offering much resistance. At one point the crowd was actually cheering for Chris Gayle. They wanted the game to go on so that I could bat one more time! It was funny and unreal at the same time.

By the end of the second day it was fairly clear that we would win by an innings and that 16 November 2013 would be my last day as an Indian cricketer.

The West Indies started the day at 43–3 and were soon 89–6. It was at the fall of the seventh wicket that I started to feel that there wasn’t long to go. Each wicket was bringing the final moment nearer. A quest of twenty-four years was about to come to an end.

When the ninth wicket fell and I ran in to congratulate the bowler, Dhoni asked me to stay away because the team was planning something. I went and stood next to the square-leg umpire while the rest were all huddling in the middle. I could not stop myself from getting emotional. It was all ending so quickly.

Within a few overs the final moment came. Mohammed Shami took the final wicket with a full delivery that knocked out Shannon Gabriel’s middle stump. I rushed in again from my fielding position and picked up a stump, saying to one of my team-mates ‘
Yeh stump to mujhe chahiye hi chahiye.
’ (I want this stump at any cost.) But again Dhoni asked if I could stand apart for a while because they had planned something special.

I stood at the other end of the pitch while the rest of the team finalized the plan. Then Ravi Shastri walked across the ground to do his television broadcast. He congratulated me on my career and said some very kind things about my contribution to the game. I was still just about holding myself together. Then the team started another guard of honour, only this time it was different. They stood in two lines on both sides of the wicket with me in the middle, but as I started walking, players from the end of the lines kept running to the front in order to extend the guard of honour all the way to the boundary.

I could no longer hold back my tears. It was just too much. Such respect and affection was overwhelming and I will always remember the way my team-mates gave me my final send-off. By the time I walked off the ground I was openly crying. I could not look people in the eye and had to shake hands with the opposition players with my face turned to the ground. I did not want them to see me cry like a child. I did the same with our support staff and then just ran up the stairs to the dressing room and went straight to the bathroom.

That’s where I broke down completely. I cried for about ten minutes until I finally told myself that enough was enough. I washed my face and came back to the dressing room with a towel over my head and sat in my seat completely alone. My team-mates had given me space and there was no one in the dressing room to disturb me. I looked at my kitbag and thanked my gear for being with me all my life.

I was gradually starting to come to terms with the moment when someone came in to say that Brian Lara and the West Indian team were waiting for me and that Brian had planned something special. It was rather unusual for an opposition team to do anything like that and it was very touching. My 200th Test was also Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s 150th and Brian congratulated us on our achievements. Brian and I have been great friends and his words meant a lot to me. I then spoke briefly about Chanderpaul and the West Indian way of cricket before all the players took pictures with me.

I went back to the dressing room to get ready to walk out with the team for the presentations. Someone from Star Sports, the host broadcasters, came up to me and said that Ravi Shastri would ask me a few questions at the presentation, but I said I would rather speak by myself. I also said I would like to go on for a bit longer than usual, if they were agreeable, and suggested that it might be better if I was given the microphone after the players had collected their awards. They readily agreed and said I could go on for as long as I wanted, as they had all the time in the world for me!

I was finally given the microphone at the end of the presentation, but before I could speak the crowd started chanting ‘Sachinnn Sachinnn’ and they just would not stop. As I have said many times before, these chants will reverberate in my ears for as long as I live. I asked the crowd to calm down and not make me more emotional than I already was. I had also brought a bottle of water in case I was choked with emotion in the middle of it all.

I took from my pocket the list of people I wanted to thank that I had written on the plane back from Kolkata after the first Test match. The challenge now was to say different things about each one. They all meant the world to me and I wanted to thank them individually for their contribution. Somehow, the words just came to me. I spoke my heart out.

When they showed my team-mates Sourav, Rahul and Laxman on the big screen I spoke about them. When I was speaking about my wife I could see her break down in front of me and Sara trying to console her. Arjun also comforted his mother as I went on to thank the best partner I have ever had. I can never say enough about her.

I thanked my fans and the supporters of Indian cricket, who have always stood by me. It did not matter to them if I scored a zero or a hundred. They were always there with me and their support has been my biggest source of strength.

It is pertinent to recount here an incident I will remember forever, one that demonstrates what my fans mean to me. I was once in Chennai when I had the opportunity to meet a number of special children. Their teacher pointed to one child in a wheelchair and said that he was my biggest fan and his ultimate ambition was to hold my bat. I put my arm around him and told him, ‘Okay, done. Let’s play cricket together.’ Immediately, I sent someone to fetch my bat and a couple of tennis balls from the dressing room. To my complete amazement and absolute utter delight, the boy stood up and played three balls on his own. For him to be able to do so was incredible. We all gave him an ovation and I have often spoken about this child, who left a lasting impression.

After a while I told the crowd I’d finish soon, only for them to scream ‘Nooooooooo!’ It seemed they wanted me to carry on. In the end I spoke for twenty minutes, the longest I have ever spoken at a stretch in my life. I genuinely do not know how I did so at such a difficult time; it was as if someone from above had blessed me. Other than that, I can’t explain how I managed to navigate the speech without a hiccup.

Once it was over, we went for a victory lap and my team-mates decided to carry me around the Wankhede. No one had left the stadium and I waved to the crowd from the shoulders of my team-mates and thanked them for being with me all through my career. I had always hoped that this final lap of honour would be one in victory, because that would mean so much to me as a cricketer. In defeat it would not have had even 10 per cent of the significance it had in victory. We had won the match and the series in style and it meant I had won all of my final matches in all formats of the game.

That was when Virat Kohli reminded me about going out to pay my respect to the pitch and I walked out to the middle by myself. It was a very personal moment and something I had always meant to do at the end of my innings in cricket. I would be no one without the 22-yard strip and it had taken care of me all my life. It was only right to thank the pitch for everything and do
namaskar
(offer my respects).

As I was sitting by myself back in the dressing room, Virat walked up to me again. I could see tears in his eyes. He held out his hands and said his dad had given him these threads, the kind that Indians wear around their wrists for good luck, and he had always wondered who he would give them to. It had to be someone very special. Then he handed them to me before touching my feet as my younger brother. I was speechless. I held him tight and said, ‘
Arre tu yeh kya kar raha hain? Tujhe yahan nahi, yahan hona chahiye
.’ (What are you doing touching my feet? You should be giving me a hug.) I couldn’t say another word because I felt choked with emotion. A lump had formed in my throat and finally I had to ask Virat to leave, knowing I would burst into tears if I tried to say anything else. It was a gesture I can never forget and I wished Virat all the success in his career.

A little later, I called Ajinkya Rahane, my Mumbai team-mate who was our twelfth man in this match, to a room adjoining our dressing room. I had known Rahane for years and had seen how much he loves the game. He had served cricket with complete dedication and commitment over the last few years. I said to him that he might feel hard done by what had happened in his career so far, but he should continue to be the way he is, for I was sure Ajinkya would get another chance. For the moment he might feel it is a cruel game, but I was certain the game would take care of him in the future if he continued to serve it the way he had always done.

Finally it was time to leave the stadium. It had been hours since the match had ended and I had not eaten a morsel since breakfast. The Taj management had sent me some haleem (a kind of stew with lentils and meat) and I handed it to Anjali so that we could take it back to the hotel to eat there. As we boarded the bus, Sourav Ganguly, one of my good friends over the years, came to congratulate me one final time. I got off the bus to give him a hug. Dada and I have shared some great moments over the years and have known each other since we were thirteen years old.

Once the bus was on its way to the hotel, Anjali asked me to go and stand next to the driver to wave one final goodbye to the supporters. They were waiting on both sides of Marine Drive and were celebrating and shouting ‘Sachinnn Sachinnn’. We had to pinch ourselves to believe what we were seeing. This was my final send-off and these people, each and every one of them, were making it a fairy tale. I don’t really know what I had done to deserve all this, but it made me feel really blessed to witness these scenes. I was leaving the cricket field with no regrets whatsoever.

There was a special reception in the hotel lobby and it was not until 3 p.m. that Anjali and I finally managed some privacy in my room. I took out the haleem that we had brought back and we were both enjoying it and sipping champagne when I received a phone call from the prime minister’s office. I was told that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to speak to me and after a couple of moments the PM came on the line. He congratulated me on my career and thanked me for serving Indian cricket for twenty-four years. Then he told me that in recognition of my contribution to Indian sport I had been awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.

After I put down the phone, I asked Anjali to stop eating and took her to the table where I had put all my gods and goddesses. We both placed our hands on the table and I told her that she was now looking at a Bharat Ratna. Anjali screamed in delight and gave me a hug. We did not say a thing to each other for a while as the news sank in. Every dream of mine was being fulfilled and I thanked God for all the blessings and kindness. Then we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate and, to be honest, the champagne just flowed from then on.

We watched television for a while as we tried to come to terms with the enormity of the award. Every channel was showing it as Breaking News. I was the first sportsperson in the history of India to be awarded the Bharat Ratna. It was certainly the biggest honour of my life and coming on the day I had bid my final goodbye to cricket made it all the more special. I had already been appointed to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, in 2012, and now to be given the highest civilian honour by the Government of India meant a lot to me. As a Member of Parliament, my plan is to work towards making sports that much more viable in India (Sport for All) and also to integrate sports within the educational framework in the country.

The honour was formally conferred on me at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi on 4 February 2014 in an extraordinary ceremony at the Ashok Hall. As we entered the hall, a military band started playing and when my name was called, it was one of the most unbelievable moments of my life. To receive the Bharat Ratna in front of my wife and daughter (Arjun could not make it because he had a game in Mumbai), and to be told by the President that the whole country was proud of me, gave me an incredible sense of fulfilment. It was a day when I felt well and truly overwhelmed.

When I started out as a sixteen-year-old against Pakistan in 1989, I could never have imagined how it would all end. I always tried to work as hard as I could and give my best for the team. While I may have failed on occasions, I never gave up. It was my country I was playing for and that was all I had wanted to do when I had started to play under the strict vigil of Achrekar Sir in Shivaji Park.

In all those years, I never compromised on hard work and discipline and always tried to push the bar higher. To achieve something worthwhile for India was a dream I chased all my life.

In my farewell speech at the Wankhede Stadium, I mentioned that during my career Achrekar Sir had never said ‘well done’, but the truth is that that was never something I expected from him. The smile on his face was enough to understand he was pleased with my performance. The day after my speech, however, I went to visit Achrekar Sir, to thank him for all he had done for me, to mark the fact that we had come full circle. It was very important for me to pay my respects in this way.