Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar said that the youth in the country should emulate Sachin Tendulkar, who played his 200th and final Test in Mumbai today, on how to pursue excellence without taking recourse to short cuts.
A teary-eyed Tendulkar today brought the curtains down on his phenomenal career by giving a heart-warming speech to thank his family, coaches, teammates, friends, media and fans, in which he mentioned that his father's advice him not to take short cuts while pursuing excellence in his field.
"It was a remarkable speech and what had impressed me most was his father's advice to him, 'Don't take short cuts'. It's something the youngsters should learn from him," Gavaskar said.
"We as a country take short cuts in almost every field, not only in sports. Hopefully, Tendulkar had shown them (the youngsters) how one can excel without taking short cuts. He showed the youngsters how the minutest details need to be taken care of to achieve excellence," he told NDTV.
Describing Tendulkar as a perfectionist, former Indian player V V S Laxman said that the iconic batsman will excel in every role he's assigned to even after retirement.
"He (Tendulkar) is a master in taking care of the minutest details (in his cricket). So, give him any assignment whether making him ambassador to some country or representing the country in the United Nations, he will make sure that he is a master in those assignments also," Laxman said.
Laxman said the script of Tendulkar's farewell Test could not have been better written as he bowed out with a dazzling 74 in the second and final Test against the West Indies.
"I think the end of the both Tests (in Kolkata and Mumbai) inside three days did not ruin Tendulkar's farewell. He hit a free-flowing 74. The script could not have been written better," he said.
