Dire Straits band leader and lead guitarist
Mark Knopfler online with Sachin Tendulkar.

The transcript of the Sachin Tendulkar interview on Harsha Online, to be aired on STAR Sports on Monday, March 25, 2002 at 2230 IST

Sachin: Music keeps me going and it helps you change your mood, and you can just put on a CD and you are in a different mood all together. I really like Mark Knopfler's guitar-playing and I was really fortunate that a few years ago Mark Knopfler signed a photograph and sent it to me.

Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits): I think it is amazing, absolutely amazing. I am a fan of Sachin too.

Sachin: Hi, Mark, how are you?

Mark Knopfler: I am very well, thank you. Sachin, how are you today?

Sachin: I am very well. It is a pleasant surprise to me.

Mark Knopfler: It is a great pleasure to talk to you sir.

Sachin: Same here.

Mark Knopfler: He is absolutely the best of course and he must get tired of hearing that all the time. That is the only problem of course. How can you live with so much adulation?

Sachin: I am finding it a little hard to answer your questions because I am still finding it hard to believe that you are there on the line. It is a great feeling to know that people like you also follow my career and I have thoroughly enjoyed your music; but adulation ya, I live my own life and in my own style and I live a very low profile life; so it has been pretty okay. Sultans of Swing was the first song that really caught me.

Mark Knopfler: Well, I think Sachin is the perfect Sultan of Swing. Don't you think? That's the subject he has perfected; I am sure that I could ask so many questions and I think that he has practiced his swing a lot longer than I have practiced mine.

Money for Nothing wouldn't really apply to him; I don't think so. It's just one of those songs where you are like a spy and you see a situation and you see the possibilities and report it. It's too early in the morning to sing and although I have been known to sing in the morning, but it would be a little tricky really. It's a fantastic thrill and Sachin is a real example to kids and we forget that the kids are watching the game all the time and Sachin is a great example to them, I think.

Actually, I do get up pretty early in the morning, we have a little daughter and she gets us up pretty early. It was a great pleasure.

Sachin: It was a pleasant surprise and I cannot forget it.