Never felt comfortable with lighter bats: Tendulkar

In his autobiography, the all-time leading scorer in cricket also offers an interesting take on how to hold the bat

His heavy bat was a major talking point whenever Sachin Tendulkar battled injuries in his over-two-decade-long career but the iconic cricketer said he was never convinced about giving it up for a lighter one as his timing got affected everytime he tried the change.

In his autobiography 'Playing It My way', Tendulkar wrote he was asked several times to try a lighter bat but it never worked for him.

"I used a pretty heavy bat and I was sometimes encouraged to move to a lighter one. Again, I did try but I never felt comfortable, as my whole bat swing depended on that weight. When I was hitting a drive, I needed the weight to generate the power. It was all to do with the timing," he explains.

The all-time leading scorer in the game also offered an interesting take on how to hold the bat.

"To me the bat should be an extension of your arm, and if you've reached the stage where it's become an extension of your arm, why do you need to change? What mattered to me most when I was batting was feeling comfortable.

"As long as I felt comfortable, it didn't matter where I was playing or who I was playing against. If you make technical adjustments, such as moving to a lighter bat, to cope with different conditions, there's a risk of making yourself feel uncomfortable and of thinking too much about your technique," he says.

Tendulkar has advised budding batsmen against too much experimentation, saying the "bat should be an extension of your arm" and there is no need for a change in technique if "you have reached that stage".

The master blaster also talks about the intricacies of his batting.