Sachin Tendulkar reveals worst moment of his career and who convinced him not to retire after 2007 World Cup debacle

New Delhi: Batting great Sachin Tendulkar finally revealed the worst moment of his ultra successful career, and also the person who convinced him not to retire after the failure of 2007 World Cup.

Speaking to Mid-Day, Tendulkatr said that the loss to Bangladesh in the 2007 World Cup, then the unceremonious exit from the tournament was one of the worst moments in his career.

“I was so disheartened! You feel terrible that the game which has shown you the best days of your life was now showing you the worst day of your life. I couldn’t imagine cricket could do this to you. I felt really, really terrible. I felt low and I didn’t leave home for quite sometime,” he told.

India lost to Bangladesh by five wickets at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain. in their first game of the tournament. India made only 191. And they never recovered from that shock.

In their penultimate game, against Sri Lanka, celebrated Indian batsmen failed to perform. Lankans defended their total of 254/6, winning by 69 runs.

India, perennial favourites, bowed out of the tournament finishing third in Group B which also had minnows Bermuda.

“The 2007 World Cup was obviously not good for us. The first blow was the loss to Bangladesh and then we lost to Sri Lanka. I never thought we would lose to Bangladesh. We were not over-confident, but you do feel confident about India beating Bangladesh. It was one of those uncertainties of the game,” said Tendulkar.

But the 43-year-old admitted that a call from West Indies great Vivian Richards convinced him to get back into the game.

“He stressed that I have plenty of cricket left in me and said, ‘You are not going to retire now.’ He had heard from a friend of ours that I was really depressed to a point that I was literally thinking of retiring. He told me that it’s only a matter of time that I get back so don’t take any decision now," he added.

Tendulkar went on, and won the elusive title for himself in his home ground in Mumbai when MS Dhoni led India to their second World Cup title in 2011.

Interestingly enough, the debacle of 2007 under Rahul Dravid helped India look into the future, and appoint Dhoni as the captain of India's limited-overs team.