Wary of practice pitch, Sachin prefers knocking ahead of semis

New Delhi: Sachin Tendulkar, on tuesday, cut short his net session ahead of Mumbai`s Ranji Trophy semi-final against Services after facing only four deliveries as the practice pitch provided by the host association was not upto the mark.

Services had allocated two practice pitches for the Mumbai team and Tendulkar was the first one to pad up and enter the first of the two nets. While he negotiated the first three deliveries from young left-arm spinner Vishal Dabholkar with ease, the fourth delivery suddenly kept low and hit in the toe-region of Tendulkar`s boot. There was a wry smile in the face of the batsman as bowler Dabholkar also looked a bit embarrassed. Tendulkar then walked up and inspected the strip and then called team`s trainer Amogh Pandit instructing him to give throwdowns calling off the net session. Tendulkar doing a lot of knocking prior to a match has been regular but one doesn`t find him calling off A net session after only three deliveries. Later Dabholkar confirmed that it was the uneven nature of the practice wicket that prompted the switch. "The practice wicket wasn`t upto the mark and there was a lot of uneven bounce," young Dabholkar said. The crowd, which gathers at the Palam Airforce ground, swelled up by large number due to the presence of Tendulkar. Shaurya Sood, a differently-abled boy, studying in XIth standard had the most memorable day of his life when Tendulkar stopped to give him an autograph and also got a picture clicked with him. "I wanted to say a lot of things but when I saw him, I couldn`t say anything. I have got his autograph and I am very happy," said Shaurya, whose father is an airforce officer and mother, a school teacher. PTI