“...should play positive cricket, according to the merits of the ball. They shouldn’t unnecessarily defend and defend. Only defend when you are not in a position to hit. I always say, attack is the best defence.”
Hundreds and thousands of young cricketers in Mumbai would have probably heard a variant of these words at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park over the last three decades or so.
Celebrated cricket coach Ramakant Achrekar, who died in Mumbai on Tuesday at the age of 87, liked to catch them young and mould kids into world-class cricketers by the time they left him. His most famous protege was, of course, Sachin Tendulkar, widely regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time. “Sachin used to dream also about cricket,” Achrekar had once said.
Apart from Tendulkar, Achrekar has mentored several cricketers who went on to play for India, such as Vinod Kambli, Ajit Agarkar, Praveen Amre, Chandrakant Pandit and Ramesh Powar.
Tributes poured in for Achrekar after his death on Wednesday. For those who want to catch a glimpse of what Achrekar’s coaching philosophy was, here is an old interview of him, probably from the early 1990s, also featuring a young Tendulkar and Kambli:
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