LONDON: Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova denied to recognize legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.
Sachin Tendulkar enjoys the most prestigious status in cricketing world, having billions of fans all over the globe but Sharapova is the only sports star who has never heard of this icon’s name.
Tendulkar, who is a good friend of Swiss star Roger Federer, pays regular visits to the Wimbledon Championships. This year too, he made his presence felt in the Royal Box at Wimbledon to watch few matches.
On June 28, Tendulkar was seated in the Royal Box along with former England captain Andrew Strauss, former England footballer David Beckham and several other sports stars.
In the post-match press conference, Sharapova was asked about the stars who watched her match and Tendulkar’s name was mentioned.
She was asked, “Sachin Tendulkar was the other person who came in at the same time as David (Beckham). Do you know who Sachin is?” Sharapova’s replay was “I don’t”. The Russian said she had met Beckham a couple of times at events in Los Angeles.
The outrage was justified how dare anyone not know about the indian god even if she is Russian and had never heard of cricket, but she should have known about Tendulkar. Indian fans and their insecurities.
It's silly to expect her to know Tendulkar or any other cricketer. Why expect her to know about cricket? It's not even a world game. It's only mainly played in subcontinental countries. In other countries where it's played it's just a side game. However, if she is sitting next to the guy in the box seat and watching a match with him and other stars for a couple of hours and she can recognise all others but nor him, then that's weird. If she can't recognise others and doesn't recognise him then that's understandable. Just because someone is a white sportstar dpesn't mean they don't know stars from other countries.
No need for any outrage though. Most people in many countries won't necessarily know who Sharapova is either. Subcontinental fans are passionate..if they can burn a cricketer's effigy for not performing, when getting millions of dollars of endorsements, they can also express outrage when ignored. I don't agree with those actions but some cricket crazy fans do that. They should get over it though. No reason to be outraged or say abusive things. They're just making themselves look bad. I'm sure Tendulkar is not affected by it. Indian cricket commentator Harsha Bogle said it best when he tweeted, "Amused and appalled in equal measure by the reactions from people on the Sharapova-Sachin non-issue. We are not the centre of the earth!!"
At what level would the hug have reached.
Tendulkar’s height is 1.65 m which for Amreekens is 5 feet 5 inches
Maria Sharapova’s height is 1.88 m which is 6 feet 2 inches. So that’s a difference of about 9 inches
With this outrage comes an outage...and all electricity to stadiums go out in protest. I can't imagine Tendulkar getting at all affected by this. He would probably laugh it off. He is also quite introverted and is not one for limelight. He probably will like that she does not know who he is. When the Indian cricket team came in 1999 to Australia the local Indian newspaper organised a dinner for them. All the players were there like Dravid and Ganguly. A family friend went to the event and got me autographs bas Tendulkar nahi tha despite being one of the main guests. I guess he wanted to stay away from limelight and adulation to focus.
the Indian fans are more worried for his feelings than him. lol.
^ So no one talked to you about cricket for a month therefore it must not be popular in England? Ki karday o pay, ustad ji. Grounds are filled with old white men, may be you weren't looking in the right place... :)
You will thank me later.