There was no bad blood between myself and Sachin, asserts Mohammad Azharuddin

A right-handed batsman of god-gifted ability to ooze class, Mohammad Azharuddin was appointed as the skipper of the Indian team in 1990, and he shouldered responsibility and answered the call almost instantaneously, striking a 192 against New Zealand in just his fourth innings as captain, before following it up with two more tons against England in the next three innings. 

However, three to four years into his captaincy stint, the Hyderabad man was well and truly overshadowed in the Indian side by a certain Sachin Tendulkar, who had the world at his feet during the mid-90s. What followed during the latter half of the decade was an intrinsic power struggle between the two men, with them exchanging the captaincy back and forth, with speculations soon arising that there was unhealthy tension between the two stars.

But two decades on, Azharuddin has clarified that there was never any bad blood between him and Sachin, calling it a misconception, and even went on to label the Mumbaikar as ‘his best player’. 

"I don't have any problems with anybody, I didn't have any issues with Sachin. He was my best player...It is a misconception among people that I didn't have a good relationship with Sachin, that things had gone a bit off. Like I said, Sachin was my best player,” Azharuddin told Cricbuzz.

“We won so many matches because of Sachin and the way he batted. Everybody performed, it was not as if no one else performed, but he was obviously the main man. I would like to reiterate, it (the alleged souring of relations) was a misconception; it was probably tempting to write that there were problems when that was not the case."

Azharuddin’s eventual fall from grace - owing to the match-fixing scandal - and Sachin’s inability to produce satisfying results meant that both players ended up seeing the tag of captaincy being taken away from them. Eventually, the management decided to appoint Sourav Ganguly as the skipper of the national side in 2000.