Sachin Tendulkar with Taj hotel worker Guruprasad.
Sachin Tendulkar's search for the hotel employee whose advice led him to tweaking his elbow guard seems to have reached fruition. S Guruprasad, who lives in Perambur, Chennai, reportedly got a call from his nephew in France on Friday that the cricket legend had been tweeting about him.
"I am not on Twitter. However, my nephew, who saw the tweet, immediately knew it was me as I had shared the incident with him when it happened," Guruprasad is quoted as saying by Sportstar.
Sachin had tweeted a video of him recounting an incident when an employee of the Taj Coromandel hotel in Chennai had given him a suggestion during a Test match when he had come to the former Indian captain's room to serve coffee. "A chance encounter can be memorable! I had met a staffer at Taj Coromandel, Chennai during a Test series with whom I had a discussion about my elbow guard, after which I redesigned it. I wonder where he is now & wish to catch up with him. Hey netizens, can you help me find him?" he had said in the tweet.
Guruprasad however remembers a slightly different sequence of events. He says that in 2001, he was working at the hotel as part of the security detail through a contractor. "I saw Sachin when he was about to take the lift. I wanted his autograph, but I did not have paper. I got it in my security beat notebook," he said.
When he asked Tendulkar if he could talk cricket with him, the latter did not seem to have a problem with it. "I told him that his elbow guard was affecting his wrist movement and swinging of the bat," he said.
Guruprasad, who reportedly assists a stockbroker now, was overwhelmed by Tendulkar's acknowledgement of the suggestion and said that it would be great if he met him in his locality.
"There are a lot of children in our neighbourhood, which is predominantly low income. If Sachin visits us, it will be the best thing to happen to us. We would be honoured if he allows us to show him Tamil Nadu's hospitality with a meal at our home," he said.
