Sachin Tendulkar: Master of cricket, a failure in chess

He is one of the greatest batsmen in cricketing history having amassed more runs than anybody in Test and one-dayers, but Sachin Tendulkar on Friday confessed that he has been quite unsuccessful at the game of chess.

"Chess was very much played at our house. I played a lot of chess with my brother, but without much good result. I enjoyed playing," Tendulkar said at an event organised by All India Chess Federation for the Blind.

"Chess started in my family with my uncle. He also wrote a book on chess and was part of the Chess Federation," the ace batsman said.

He revealed that his 13-year old son initially preferred chess over cricket and also took classes for it.

"A few years ago, my son also started playing chess. He became quite serious about the game and we enrolled him in a chess class. If any of my friends or visitors came to me for whatever work, Arjun would make them play a game of chess with him first and then allow them to do whatever work they had with me.

"He was in full flow but you know how kids like to keep changing their likes and dislikes. He moved from chess to WWE and later to football and cricket," the proud father said.

Tendulkar lauded the efforts of the All India Chess Federation for the Blind to organise the Chess Olympiad for visually impaired to be held in Chennai from August 9 to 19. He also appealed to the visually challenged youths to take up the sport as they had some great role models.

The Olympiad will feature 25 international masters, 5 international women masters and 120 world chess federation rated players from across 30 countries.

Charudutt Jadhav, general secretary of All India Chess Federation for the Blind, said this would be the first time that the event would be played in a non-European nation but lamented that the players in the country are not given the status of a sportsman and the blind federation is not recognised by the government.

"The government can recognise only one federation. We are already recognised by All India Chess Federation. If the government gives us similar support, we would be happy. We are inviting Sports Minister Ajay Maken for the Olympiad," he said.