Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 'heart winning' advice to Team India

New Delhi : In 2004, Sourav Ganguly led Team India visited first time Pakistan to play a series in 19 years. Ratnakar Shetty, who was the then Team India manager, recalls how the ice breaking tour was pulled off because of efforts by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“The tour happened just because of Vajpayee ji. He wanted relations to improve and cricket was a mode of doing that. The BCCI decided to send the team after the approval of his government,” Shetty told PTI.

“Before we were to leave for Pakistan, we got a message from the PMO that the prime minister wants to meet the team. He spent an hour with the team and spoke to each and every member,” he said remembering the meeting the team had with Vajpayee prior to their departure.

On one hand everyone was excited to visit Pakistan, but what won hearts was the advice given by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“There was a navy band in the garden which was playing patriotic songs. We presented him an autographed bat and he too gave us a bat with which had a message: ‘Khel hi nahi, dil bhi jeetiye, shubhkaamnaye (win hearts too besides matches, best wishes),” Shetty recalled.

The Men in Blue won the Test series 2-1 and ODIs 3-2. Sehwag earned the nickname ‘Multan ka Sultan’ after scoring 309 in the first Test in Multan.