cricket

Updated: May 27, 2017 11:43 IST

Legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar has admitted that he had warned a BCCI official before the 2007 World Cup that the team wasn’t in great shape and that they wouldn’t go too far in the tournament. India had suffered a horrifying exit from the group stages after losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka after being the finalist in the previous edition.

In his recently released biopic ‘Sachin: A Billion Dreams’, Tendulkar states that he wasn’t quite happy with the appointment of Greg Chappell in the side with the latter behaving more like a schoolmaster than a national team coach.

READ | Sachin: A Billion Dreams - Will it inspire Indian cricket team at Champions Trophy?

“A number of senior players disagreed with the manner in which Chappel was handling our side. Just before a month from the World Cup, he made drastic changes in the batting order that affected everyone in the side. And, they were not needed. Other teams had been practicing according to their plans and strategies for the past one year then. But we were still experimenting with our side,” Tendulkar is seen narrating in the movie.

Besides Tendulkar, a number of players have termed the exit from the 2007 as the worst phase of their career. The general mob had gone unruly and Tendulkar admits that he had even thought of retirement a couple of times.

READ | Why Virender Sehwag missed Sachin Tendulkar’s biopic, ‘Sachin: A Billion Dreams’

He thanks West Indies great Vivian Richards for calling him up and explaining it to him why it wasn’t going to be a right choice for the batsman to hang up his boots and urged him to cling on. The 2007 World Cup was held in the West Indies.

“We were there as a team, but weren’t a team. I had even told a Board official that the team wasn’t in great shape. I had never thought that we could lose a match against Bangladesh,” Tendulkar says.

READ |ICC Champions Trophy: Sarfraz Ahmed says Pakistan will give their all vs India

His wife, Anjali Tendulkar, too, reiterated that it was indeed a tough time for the family, including their children.

“Everywhere people were demonstrating and protesting against the manner in which the team had suffered the exit. I had to relentlessly explain to Arjun and Sara that they might have to hear a number of things in school from their fellow batchmates but they shouldn’t pay heed to it” she said.