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The Indian team have played some of its best matches when Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar have walked out to open the innings. Between 1996 and 2007, Sachin Tendulkar and former India captain Ganguly opened for India 136 times, amassing 6,609 runs at an average of 49.32.
Apart from the massive amount of runs they plundered, another aspect of their partnership that was note-worthy was that Sachin Tendulkar rarely took strike first up.
In a chat with Mayank Agarwal on his latest special episode of ‘Open Nets with Mayank’, Sourav Ganguly revealed why Sachin Tendulkar always wanted him to face the first ball when they opened the innings in ODIs.
Mayank Agarwal asked the current BCCI chief if Sachin Tendulkar forced the former to take strike. To the question, Sourav Ganguly replied that the Master Blaster usually had his answers ready to convince the left-hander to face the first delivery of the innings.
"Always he did. He had an answer to that and I used to tell him 'yaar sometimes you also face the first ball.' One, he believed if his form was good, he should continue and remain at the non-striker’s end. And when his form wasn’t good, he would say ‘I should remain at the non-striker’s end, as it takes the pressure off me’. He had an answer for both good form and bad form,” Sourav Ganguly said.
Ganguly tricked Sachin Tendulkar into playing the first delivery
In the same chat, Sourav Ganguly further revealed a trick that he used a couple of times to 'force' Sachin Tendulkar into taking strike.
“Until and unless some days, you walk past him and stood at the non-striker’s end, and he was already on TV, and he would be forced to be at the striker’s end. That has happened once or twice, I went past him and stood at the non-striker’s end,” Ganguly revealed.
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