Australian cricketers infatuated by Sachin Tendulkar’s bat
Feeling a strong infatuation for the batting maestro, Sachin Tendulkar’s, bat, the Australian cricketers had bought copies of his bats willow, while returning from their visit to India back in 1998.
The motive behind bringing the bat home was to get its copies produced by local bat manufacturers.
Australia’s obsession with Tendulkar’s bat was developed when the batting wizard’s blade had brought nightmares to Shane Warne, revealed Mathew Hayden, the ex-Australian cricketer, who opted for retirement back in 2009.
Unearthing the fact in his autobiography named ‘Standing My Ground’, Hayden further disclosed that Australians love their bats a lot, and primarily this was the reason that encouraged them to get Tendulkar’s bat manufactured in Brisbane factory.
He further added, “In 1998, the Australian team that was crucified in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 by Sachin Tendulkar became so infatuated with the little master's bat that at least eight of them brought back copies of his famous Vampire bat, and Brisbane firm Gabba Sporting
Products even produced a special version of it”.
Talking about Tendulkar’s passion for heavy bats, the former Australian batsman wrote that the batting maestro’s bats were way too heavy for him, and he was of the view that they were even heavy for Tendulkar himself. Referring back to the time when the
batting legend had been through an acute case of tennis elbow, he said, that the use of heavy bats was also partially responsible for that.
Hayden, the former left handed batsman, also disclosed his team-mates’ obsession with their bats in his book. He revealed that Ricky Ponting was a bat “sabotage”, and was always testing willows, while Mike Hussey was obsessed with the weight of the bat as
he used to travel with a set of scales to get the right weight bats.
The former emphatic opener, who hit 8625 runs in his test career, went on to claim that he did not develop a likeness with any particular bat. Perhaps that was the reason that he ended up using the unconventional Mongoose bat when he was invited to be a
part of the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League.
Dwelling upon the topic, he wrote, “I have never seen a brand catch fire like that. Indians are not known for embracing left-field experiments. The Mongoose caused enormous interest among my teammates. Everyone picked it up and played with it and were all
eyes when I trained with it in the nets”.
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