“Hope you are not spooked by my sleepwalking anymore” - Sachin Tendulkar wishes Sanjay Manjrekar on 56th birthday
Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar turned 56 on Monday. On the occasion, his former teammate and room partner Sachin Tendulkar wished Manjrekar with a special birthday message.
Taking to his official Twitter account, Tendulkar shared a flashback picture of himself with Manjrekar from their playing days. Uploading the image on his social media account, Tendulkar wrote:
“Many happy returns of the day, my teammate & room partner @sanjaymanjrekar! Hope you are not spooked by my sleepwalking anymore.”
Tendulkar had a habit of sleepwalking during his playing days and scared quite a few teammates, including his long-time ODI opening partner Sourav Ganguly.
As for Tendulkar and Manjrekar, they were teammates in the Ranji Trophy with Mumbai as well, apart from playing quite a bit for India together. Manjrekar had an impressive start to his Test career but could not build on the same and got dropped from the national team at the age of 31.
Manjrekar represented India in 37 Tests and 74 ODIs, scoring 2043 and 1994 runs, respectively. He registered four hundreds in Test cricket, including a best of 218. In one-dayers, he crossed three figures once and had a highest score of 105.
While Manjrekar could not live up to his potential in international cricket, he had impressive numbers in First-Class cricket. The Mumbai batsman featured in 147 First-Class matches and amassed 10252 runs at an average of 55.11 with 31 hundreds and 46 fifties. Manjrekar had a highest score of 377 in domestic cricket.
Sanjay Manjrekar feels Suryakumar Yadav could bat at No. 3 in the T20 World Cup
Post-retirement, Manjrekar has turned into an analyst and commentator and keeps sharing his views on the game. Recently, he opined that Suryakumar Yadav could be a possible option for India at the No. 3 slot in the T20 World Cup, given his aggressive style of play. Manjrekar was quoted as saying by PTI in this regard:
"Yes, I think he (Surya) is one of the front-runners, especially with the news coming out that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are going to be India’s openers. There could be a number three slot open for me."
"I don't know what plan they have with (KL) Rahul, there certainly is a place for someone like Suryakumar Yadav. I have rarely seen somebody bat like that in the IPL for the whole season and even more, the kind of batsmanship we have seen. That makes him an ideal number three; he can hit good balls for fours, certainly one of the options," Manjrekar added.
Yadav made his India debut in the T20I series against England at home. In only his second match, he struck a blazing half-century and was named the Man of the Match.