Although he is known for his excellent batting on the pitch, Sachin Tendulkar is a real practical joker off it. Tendulkar’s teammate for many years, Sourav Ganguly, remembered a time when the Master Blaster tricked him into eating crocodile meat rather than chicken.
Of all opening pairings in ODI history, Ganguly and Tendulkar continue to hold the record for most runs. From 136 innings, they scored 6,609 runs at an incredible average of 49.32. Throughout their storied careers, they shared a room on multiple tours, demonstrating their friendship off the pitch.
Sourav Ganguly lauded Tendulkar’s virtues during a recent interview on a culinary channel run by renowned chef Sanjyot Keer. He mentioned that his father was a teacher who taught the cricket icon tremendous principles. The Prince of Bengal, however, remembered a practical joke Tendulkar played on him while on a trip of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Sourav Ganguly disagreed with the Little Master’s desire to sample crocodile meat.
In any case, the renowned right-handed batter directed the chef to make crocodile flesh and told him to put the dish on the table and say it was chicken.
When Sachin Tendulkar used non-vegetarian food to trick Ganguly in Kenya
The culinary story took a surprising turn when Tendulkar disclosed that the food was actually crocodile flesh rather than chicken after Ganguly had finished. When the host questioned Ganguly about his reaction to the prank, the former captain of India stated he was unable to comment because doing so would have resulted in his dismissal from the squad. In closing, the former president of the BCCI praised Tendulkar as a wonderful person.
“I was his companion in mischief, hobbies, and everything else; I wasn’t only his opening partner. Since the camera would follow him everywhere he went, he was unable to get into too much trouble. He was raised in a respectable family. His life ideals are excessively high because his father was a teacher. Food was his mischief. I’ll tell you the name of the large restaurant we visited in Nairobi, Kenya, but I can’t recall it. There, all meats were available. In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Your Food Lab, Ganguly said to celebrity chef Keer, “He wanted to have crocodile meat, and he knew that I wasn’t going to eat it.”
“He instructed the chef to prepare delicious crocodile flesh and then pretended it was chicken when setting it on the table. We ate it after he placed it on the table. We were completely unaware. Tendulkar finally enquired about the quality of the food. “It’s very good, the chicken here is very good,” I assured him. It was a crocodile, he informed me. [On his reaction] I remained silent. If I had said anything, I would have been kicked off the team. The food was wonderful, I informed him. However, he is a wonderful person,” Ganguly said.
India
