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During the latest podcast episode of The Ranveer Show (TRS), the former throwdown specialist Shayamal Vallabhjee revealed that Sachin Tendulkar never batted in the nets during India’s ODI World Cup 2003 campaign. Shayamal Vallabhjee also spoke about how he threw balls at the former Indian cricketer for three hours, while the other players batted in the nets for 15 minutes each.
In the 11 matches of the ODI World Cup 2003, which was played in South Africa, Sachin Tendulkar scored 673 runs at an average of 61.18 and a strike rate of 89.25, including a century and six fifties. For his herculean campaign with the bat, the Master Blaster was named the player of the tournament, although the Indian cricket team lost the final against Australia in a one-sided contest.
When Ranveer Allahbadia asked Shayamal Vallabhjee about his experiences of working with Sachin Tendulkar during the ODI World Cup 2003, he narrated the story on the podcast show in detail. The former throwdown specialist said, “So John (Wright) calls to me, he says ‘listen, do me a favour, take some balls, I want you to throw to Sachin. Just go, work with him a lot.’ I threw to him for three hours. For the duration of the entire practice, I just threw balls to him. Everyone else was batting for 15 minutes, I threw to him for three hours.”
“John (Wright) comes up to me after that practice, and he says, ‘Listen, for the rest of the World Cup, all I want you to do is just make sure that Sachin is practising well,’” added Shayamal Vallabhjee.
Recently, Harbhajan Singh, a fellow teammate of Sachin Tendulkar from the ODI World Cup 2003, also talked about the unique approach to practise from the Master Blaster. He was quoted as saying by the Indian Express, “The Indian bowling unit performed well but neither Javagal Srinath, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan nor Anil Kumble or myself bowled even once to him at nets during the tournament.”
Here is Shayamal Vallabhjee narrating his experience of working with Sachin Tendulkar in ODI World Cup 2003:
