Legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and his wife Anjali have been married for nearly 30 years now. Although many fans know about the bond between the two, and how Anjali has been Sachin’s backbone throughout his playing career, not much has ever been discussed about their private lives. However, Anjali’s mother, Annabelle Mehta, has opened up about the time Sachin asked her daughter’s hand in marriage – when the star batter was only 19 years old – and how news of their impending marriage had been kept a secret.

Anjali’s family had moved from England to India during the 1950s, and Annabelle has opened up about those days in her new memoir ‘My Passage to India’, as published by Times of India. Here, Annabelle writes on the day Sachin came to meet her to propose the idea of marrying Anjali.

“I had clocked by then that Sachin was the brightest star in the Indian cricketing firmament, but I was concerned by the possibility of him becoming a playboy like so many of his fellow cricketers. Sachin in the nineties was like David Beckham in England. I needed to look him in the eye and ask him how he felt about my daughter,” writes Annabelle.

Sachin’s response took Annabelle by surprise.

“‘We want to get married’ were his precise words. I was astounded. I had always imagined Anjali marrying a tall, dark and handsome man. Dark and handsome, Sachin was. But at nineteen, he was still a boy. And so small. Barely taller than Anjali, who is five-foot-five and a half. Sachin’s bouncy hair probably gives him another inch, but not enough for Anjali to wear the high heels she had always loved,” adds Annabelle.

Despite being 19 when Sachin had revealed his intention to marry Anjali, he waited till 1995 – when he was 22 – to tie the knot.