Sachin Tendulkar | When Bantu Singh’s nose was bleeding from Sachin Tendulkar’s bouncer

New Delhi: Sachin Tendulkar intimidated many bowlers with his tremendous batting, but in the 1991 Ranji match played between Delhi and Mumbai, Bantoo Singh suffered multiple fractures in the nose of the ‘Master Blaster’. Went and started bleeding. Bantu was the pillar of Delhi’s batting in the 1980s and 90s. He recalled the sentence of 32 years ago in a conversation with ‘PTI-Bhasha’ a day before the 50th birthday of Tendulkar (Sachin Tendulkar 50th Birthday). This incident took place on 20 April 1991. He said, “The map of my nose has changed, now I have a new nose after that bouncer from Tendulkar.” In that period, the rivalry between Mumbai and Delhi was at its peak and there was a close fight between the two teams. Bantu said, “We tried to prepare a grassy pitch at the Kotla on which the ball would bounce but later it became a paradise for the batsmen. Our fast bowlers Sanjeev (Sharma) and Atul (Vasan) bowled a few bouncers to Dilip Bhai (Vengsarkar), who was playing his last season. Also read He said, “I remember that on at least two occasions, Atul’s bouncers hit Dilip bhai on the chest and the sparring started. Delhi lost by one run in the quarter-finals as they scored 389 in reply to Mumbai’s 390 in the first innings. In the second innings, Mumbai won the match by scoring 719 runs with the help of centuries from Sanjay Manjrekar, Tendulkar and Chandrakant Pandit. He said, “I got this injury in the second innings. I scored a century in the first innings and just as a formality in the second innings I hit a boundary against Tendulkar but his next ball bounced off the grass and came towards me, I played a pull shot and the ball took the edge of the bat and hit my nose. Got it The injury was so severe that I lost my balance, Manjrekar ran to me from the slips and saved me from falling. Both mine and Manjrekar’s shorts were red with blood. Bantu is taken to Sanjeevan Hospital just behind Kotla and it is found that he has multiple fractures in his nose, which needs surgery. He had to be on a liquid diet for at least two months. Bantu, however, remembered Tendulkar’s humanity. He said, “The Mumbai team left the same evening after the match was over. It was around 11 pm that our landline phone rang and my father picked up. Tendulkar was on the other side. Don’t know how they found my phone number. He asked my father, ‘How is Bantu? What’s the doctor saying?’.” “Later, whenever we met, he used to ask, ‘Naak theek hai na tera’,” Bantu said. (agency)