Sachin Tendulkar and Pravin Amre

Mumbai: The beauty of Sachin Tendulkar is that the legend never forgets to acknowledge those who contributed in any way to his success, especially in the early part of his life, when he was a middle-class boy trying to make a mark in the game.On Friday, while launching his sportswear and athleisure brand in Mumbai, the retired maestro remembered how his Mumbai and India teammate—and, most importantly, close friend—Pravin Amre, who was also his senior by four years at Shardashram Vidyamandir school, gifted him a pair of shoes when he was a teenager. This came after Amre returned from the India Under-19 tour of Australia, keeping a promise he had made to the then-prodigious batsman: he would give Tendulkar a pair of shoes once he scored a century.It so happened that when Tendulkar first went to his famous childhood coach Ramakant Achrekar’s nets, he was wearing a pair of white canvas shoes with flat green soles—something that was the norm for PE classes in school back then. After a few days, Achrekar asked Tendulkar’s brother, Ajit, to arrange a pair of cricket shoes with spikes for the boy.Narrating the tale of how Amre gifted him his first pair of classy, expensive cricket shoes by offering him an incentive to score a century in inter-school cricket, Tendulkar said, “Pravin, who is also here, had gone to Australia and played for the India Under-19 team. After he returned from there, Achrekar sir told us: ‘Watch his batting.’ So we would watch him very closely, and while observing his batting, we would notice what kit he was using, which bat, which shoes. We saw some fancy cricket shoes in his kit bag, and we were naturally fascinated by those shoes. Pravin told me: ‘Score a hundred and take them!’“So, when I scored a hundred, I didn’t have the guts to tell him that he had promised me a pair if I scored a hundred. But Pravin himself came to me, and the first good-quality pair of shoes of my life was given to me! I cannot forget that.”

Reacting to Tendulkar expressing gratitude for his generous act even after so many years, Amre, who was part of the audience that included chief selector and ex-India pacer Ajit Agarkar and former India stumper Kiran More, told TOI on Sunday: “I just didn’t expect Sachin to say that! I was really overwhelmed that he still remembered this gesture even after so many years. I had totally forgotten about it! This incident must’ve happened in 1987 or 1988. This is what makes Tendulkar truly a legend of sport. It marks his greatness. I remember they were imported shoes—you didn’t get such shoes in India back then. They were spike shoes for batting. I feel so proud that I gifted them to the right person, who went on to become perhaps the greatest cricketer ever!”“After the programme, I told him it was just a small thing I did for him. But he replied by saying that at that point in his life, it was a big thing for him!” Amre, a former India batsman who scored a courageous century on his Test debut against South Africa at Durban in 1992, added.