From flooding Sourav Ganguly's room to recommending him for vice captaincy, Sachin Tendulkar recollects old memories with BCCI President

Sachin Tendulkar has seen Sourav Ganguly in various avatars -- a precocious teenager, a talented India contender, a stylish batter, a leader and a busy administrator. But for India's greatest ever batter, what has stood the test of time is their friendship which is still intact and solid, long after they have both stopped playing international cricket. As the BCCI president turns 50 on Friday, his "opening partner" opened up with PTI, sharing many insights into their friendship and how he looked at Ganguly as a future captain when he himself was leading India. Ask him how much freedom Ganguly gave his players during his near five-year tenure as skipper, Tendulkar was effusive in his praise. "Sourav was a great captain. He knew how to maintain a balance - between giving freedom to the players and giving them certain responsibilities," Tendulkar told PTI in an interview. "When he took over, Indian cricket was in a transition phase. We needed the next bunch of players who could set a platform for propelling India forward." Tendulkar feels that Ganguly gave a lot of world class players wings to fly and carve their own niche.

PTI Photo"At that time, we found top class players - Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra to name a few. They were gifted players, but even gifted players need support at the start of their careers, which Sourav provided. "While their roles were defined in the team, they also got the freedom required to express themselves," he said. The master batter then revealed how before the 1999 tour of Australia, which was his second-last series as captain, Tendulkar in his mind was clear, who was ready to take over in case he decided to step down from captaincy. "Before