Ganguly Reveals Why His Opening Partner Sachin Generally Took To Non Striker's End While Facing First Ball Of An ODI

Nearly a decade after the two Indian batting greats retiring form the game, former India skipper and current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly revealed as to why his opening partner Sachin Tendulkar never took strike on the first ball of a cricket match.

Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly (Getty Images)

Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar formed one of the most successful opening pairs in one day international cricket in the late 90s and the early part of the new millennium. The deadly opening duo became the backbone of Indian cricket's batting courtesy their record breaking feats while opening the innings for the 'Men In Blue' One very interesting dimension of the opening pair was that Sachin Tendulkar generally took the non striker's end, leaving Sourav Ganguly to face the first delivery of an innings. While this status quo generally prevailed and became the usual norm when the two batting greats came to open the innings. Nearly a decade after the two Indian batting greats retiring form the game, former India skipper and current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly revealed as to why Sachin Tendulkar never took strike on the first ball of a cricket match. Ganguly recalled that it was he who always took strike and faced the opening delivery when the duo came out to open the batting for India. "Yes, he always asked me to take the strike. He always had an answer to that, I used to tell him that sometimes you also face the first ball, always I take the strike," Ganguly told opening batsman Mayank Agarwal in a video posted by the official Twitter handle of BCCI. "He had two answers to that, one if his form was good, he believed that it should continue and he should be at the non-striker's end, and if he was out of form, then he used to say that I should stay at the non-striker's end because it takes the pressure," he added. Ganguly, however, said that Tendulkar did end up taking strike once or twice and it was only because Ganguly himself stood at the non-striker's end. "He had an answer to both good and bad form, until and unless you went past him and stood at the non-striker's end, and the match was already on TV and then he would be forced to take the strike, it did happen once or twice," Ganguly said. Ganguly and Tendulkar notched up a staggering 8,227 runs in 176 innings for 'Men in Blue' in ODIs with an average of 47.55. No other limited overs pair has crossed even 6,000 runs together in ODIs.