Mumbai's 500th Ranji Trophy match: Sachin Tendulkar shares memorable moment

The world batting icon from the city shares the moment from 18 years ago, which he remembers the most while he played the Ranji Trophy for Mumbai.

Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar singled out the Ranji Trophy semifinal between Mumbai and Tamil Nadu played at the Wankhede Stadium in the 1999-2000 season as his most memorable game in the championship.

"I will say it was the 1999-2000 semifinal against Tamil Nadu," said Tendulkar to a query to him at the function to celebrate Mumbai's 500th Ranji game against Baroda commencing on Thursday.

He also described how Mumbai overtook Tamil Nadu's first innings score of 485 successfully with him at the crease with last man Santosh Saxena.

Tendulkar, who struck a double century, said that after the ball got changed by the umpires, it suddenly started to reverse.

"I started to stand outside the crease and Hemang Badani will tell the bowler from point in Tamil that I was standing outside. I then went back into the crease when the bowler started his run-up. After the match, I told Badani that I understand Tamil", he told the gathering at the Mumbai CA's Sharad Pawar academy at the Bandra-Kurla complex.

Mumbai went on to win the game by eight wickets. Tendulkar also pointed out that Mumbai's success percentage in the Ranji matches was 47 per cent.

"If I say it's unbelievable, it's an understatement," said the champion batsman and scorer of 100 international hundreds.

Other former cricketers, who spoke about their time in the championship and Mumbai's domination were Madhav Apte, Ajit Wadekar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sudhir Naik, Sanjay Manjrekar and Amol Muzumdar.