Steve Waugh and Sachin Tendulkar were chosen as 2014 Bradman Foundation honourees at a gala dinner at Sydney Cricket Ground on Wednesday (October 29).
“To be associated in any way with Sir Donald Bradman’s name is a great honour, and particularly this night – with Sachin, probably the modern-day Bradman – it doesn’t get any better than that,” said Waugh on the occasion.
It was a catch by Tendulkar that brought Waugh’s final Test innings to a close, back in 2004, in the fourth and final Test played, interestingly, at the same venue. “I was just sharing a talk with him (Waugh) about his last Test match played here, and I still remember that I was the one who took his catch at deep square-leg,” recalled Tendulkar. “I ran across to congratulate him for a successful career and also to wish him and Australia the best for the future. I really enjoyed playing against him.
“Steve was a true champion, we knew that we had to get him out because while he was at the wicket we were in trouble. I have high regards for Steve and his ability to play in difficult situations, to be competitive and to play in the right spirit.”
It also happened to be the very same Test where Tendulkar made a masterful 241 not out to return from a lean patch and Waugh recalled that knock even as he wondered what might have happened had Tendulkar famously chosen not to cut off the cover drive.
“To Sachin’s great credit, he promised a few times leading up to that Test he wasn’t going to play a cover drive because he’d been out a few times playing the shot. We felt at some stage he’d have to weaken, he’d have to give in to it. But 241 runs later he hadn’t played a cover drive. Maybe he was just looking after us. If he had played a cover drive he might have been 400 not out,” joked Waugh.
Bradman himself had once said Tendulkar sometimes reminded him of himself, and Tendulkar recalled the time he, along with Shane Warne, went to meet Bradman on his 90th birthday – in 1998: “I remember that Warney was with me in the car and we were discussing who was going to ask the first question and I said ‘you are from Australia, you should start’. And he said ‘no, you are a batsman so you can relate to him much better than I can’. But the whole experience was wonderful.
“One thing was that you got to meet the great man, but you also saw the funnier side of him. I asked him ‘what would you have averaged in today’s cricket’, and he thought about and then said ‘maybe 70’. My natural reaction was ‘why only 70 and not 99’ and he said ‘come on, that’s not bad for a 90-year-old man’.
“To get to see that side of him was really special and I’ll always really cherish those memories.”a
Tendulkar, Waugh named Bradman Foundation honourees
