I will continue to give 100 per cent: Sachin

With a dream fulfilled, a mission accomplished and probably the most elusive milestone achieved, India's 'Milestone Man' Sachin Tendulkar wants to savour the World Cup victory for eternity and terms the moment as the reason why he started playing cricket.

Talking exclusively to CNN-IBN's Sanjeeb Mukherjea, the master sits back and lives through that magical moment on April 2 in Mumbai when India was crowned the World Champion.

Sachin: It hasn't sunk in yet, honestly. I don't know how to react to this. In fact, just when the tournament got over and we actually held the trophy, we had to actually pinch ourselves. Now that the tournament is over, we don't know what to look forward to, what is next in life.

Pre-tournament, the preparation was such that we were so engrossed in planning things and working out certain things, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. All of a sudden, you come to know that the tournament is over and you have won the cup. It's difficult to believe but it's a wonderful dream. 

CNN-IBN: It's very, very difficult obviously to analyse the mind of a champion like you. But tell us when you guys were standing with the trophy in front of 35,000 to 40,000 people inside the stadium and you knew every Indian was watching it on live television, what went through your mind?

Sachin: The proudest moment of my life, by far, because I think the reason for me to start playing cricket with proper seasoned ball was to lift this beautiful trophy one day and do it for the nation. Every cricketer wants to do that and I have waited for long 22 years. It's a rather long period to wait. But the best part was I continued chasing my dream. My dream was to lift the trophy and God was kind enough to allow me to do that on 2nd of April.

CNN-IBN: Wasn't it a bit of stress reliever also when you finally got it?

Sachin: We weren't stressed as such. Yes, there was bit of pressure. But pressure of expectations from our team itself, within the team. We wanted to somehow win this trophy for the nation, for each other in the dressing room. The preparation started long time ago it didn't start just 5 days before the World Cup. We had this on our mind since almost last 12 months or 15 months and that's when we actually started planning little bit. All I can say is whatever we had planned, the execution was equally important. You may have a lot of plans but to go out and execute those plans is extremely important.

And we were able to do that. We took it in turns because all eleven players are never going to have a wonderful day. There would be guys who won't live up to the expectations and there would be guys who would exceed the expectations. There were guys who were playing well on that particular day. We had just decided that those guys are meant to finish the game for us on that day and then it's someone else's turn the next day. 

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