INDORE: Sachin Tendulkar has now been a retired cricketer for six years. So what does the Master Blaster miss the most about not being an active player?
"I am probably one player, who has played with five generations. One before me that had Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Krish Srikkanth, Dilip Vengsarkar and Mohammed Azharuddin. It was followed by my generation of players like Sourav (Ganguly) and Rahul (Dravid).
"Then came Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag and Ashish Nehra.
After that was Suresh Raina's generation followed by Virat (Kohli), Rohit (Sharma) and Ajinkya (Rahane) I miss the laughter, the seriousness, the celebrations. The dressing room was like a temple."
When one talks about homework in Test cricket, his epic duel with Shane Warne in the 1998 series is still a part of cricketing folklore, simply because how much he prepared for the battle.
And then the second innings in Chennai happened where he blasted Warne out of the rough to hit 155 in the second innings.
"The series was built up as Tendulkar vs Warne battle. Somehow, I knew Warne would come round the wicket in that series. My homework started by getting Mumbai teammates -- (leg-spinner) Sairaj Bahutule and (left-arm spinner) Nilesh Kulkarni at the nets," recalled Sachin.
He rates his 1991 Test hundred at Perth as "the moment" in his career.
"I have never liked comparisons but if you ask me, that century at Perth on that track made me realise that I was ready to play any attack on any surface. It was like I announced my arrival at the international stage," he said.
"Having said that, the Chennai hundred against Pakistan (1999), when I was battling back-pain or not hitting a cover drive during my double hundred in Sydney (2004) or those couple of spells against Dale Steyn in Cape Town in 2011, had their own beauty and challenges."