“They took it as his failure, so he might have felt very alone,” Ravi Shastri said about the pressure Sachin Tendulkar was under.

But former India cricketer Ravi Shastri said that Tendulkar was under more pressure than anyone else because of how much was expected of him.

When Sachin Tendulkar first started playing, cricket was very different from how it is now. In 1989, Indian cricketers were banned from playing without being held responsible if they lost. There were no “glaring eyes” back then. Before Tendulkar, many people just thought of cricket as a sport, not as a fierce passion. During the first ten years of Tendulkar’s career, it changed in a big way.

As Tendulkar broke batting records, he brought India together as a country and became the best batter of his generation over time. He was one of the main reasons why so many people in India became interested in the sport. But like many other people, Tendulkar’s career had its ups and downs. Injury is part of the game, but Tendulkar also had to deal with the stress of being captain, especially during the World Cups. Tendulkar finally won his sixth World Cup in 2011, when MS Dhoni led the Indian team to victory. In his first five World Cups, he had to leave early.

Ravi Shastri said the following on the ABC Australia documentary “Bradman and Tendulkar: The Untold Story of Two Cricket Giants”:

“You know, every time he went out, the whole country would sit up and watch. When will he have a hundred? If he didn’t, they thought he had failed. I’m sure there were times when he felt very alone. When you reach those heights, you may be the only one there who knows what’s going on, which can make it a very lonely place to be.

I saw greatness from 22 yards away and knew this guy was in a different league. Shastri Tendulkar, who started playing cricket at 16 and was called a “child prodigy,” made a lot of progress in his career, and everyone remembers his first Test century at Manchester in 1990. But it wasn’t until Tendulkar’s tour of Australia in 1992 that everyone realized he was perfect for cricket.

Even though Australia beat India, Tendulkar fought hard and left his mark on the game with two centuries: 148 in Sydney and a thunderous 114 at the WACA in Perth, the world’s most bouncy field, where the ball was flying everywhere. Shastri, who was with Tendulkar on that trip, knew right away that he was seeing something very special.

“That’s the first time I saw something great from 22 yards away. It’s one thing to get runs, but it’s another thing to see an 18-year-old kid dominate an Australian attack like that. You thought this guy had moved up to a higher level. He is moving from Tendulkar to Bradman at this point “he added.