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When Bantoo Singh’s nose was fractured by Sachin Tendulkar’s bouncer, the former cricketer shared the story

Sachin Tendulkar intimidated many bowlers with his tremendous batting, but in a Ranji match played between Delhi and Mumbai in 1991, Bantu Singh’s nose suffered multiple fractures and bleeding on the ball of ‘Master Blaster’. Bantu was the pillar of Delhi’s batting in the 1980s and 90s. In conversation a day before Tendulkar’s 50th birthday, he recalled the sentence from 32 years ago. This incident took place on 20 April 1991. He said, “The map of my nose has changed, after that bouncer of Tendulkar, now I have a new nose.” The rivalry between Mumbai and Delhi was at its peak during that period and the two teams used to fight hard.
 

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Bantu said, “We tried to prepare a grassy pitch at the Kotla on which the ball would bounce but later it became a paradise for the batsmen. Our fast bowlers Sanjeev (Sharma) and Atul (Vasan) bowled some bouncers to Dilip Bhai (Vengsarkar), who was playing his last season. had hit Dilipbhai’s chest and the sparring had started. Delhi lost by one run in the quarter-finals as they scored 389 in reply to Mumbai’s 390 in the first innings. In the second innings, Mumbai won the match by scoring 719 runs with the help of centuries from Sanjay Manjrekar, Tendulkar and Chandrakant Pandit. He said, “I got this injury in the second innings. I scored a century in the first innings and just as a formality in the second innings I hit a four against Tendulkar but his next ball bounced off the grass and came towards me, I played a pull shot and the ball took the edge of the bat and went on the nose. Got it. The injury was so severe that I lost my balance, Manjrekar ran to me from the slips and saved me from falling. Both mine and Manjrekar’s shorts were red with blood.
 

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Bantu is taken to Sanjeevan Hospital just behind Kotla and it is found that he has multiple fractures in his nose, which needs surgery. He had to be on a liquid diet for at least two months. Bantu, however, remembered Tendulkar’s humanity. He said, “The Mumbai team left the same evening after the match was over. It was around 11 pm that our landline phone rang and my father picked up. Tendulkar was on the other side. Don’t know how they found my phone number. He asked my father, ‘How is Bantu? What is the doctor saying?'” Bantu said, “Later, whenever we met, he used to ask, ‘Naak thik hai na tera’.

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