New Delhi, March 29 -- Mohammed Azharuddin, former captain of the Indian Cricket Team took an important decision in 1994 which played an important role in Sachin Tendulkar's sports career. He decided to promote Tendulkar up the order.

As Tendulkar used to bat in the middle-order, he did not score a century in his first five years of ODI.

Later, Azharuddin after consulting with team manager Ajit Wadekar asked Tendulkar to open the innings against New Zealand.

In the match, Tendulkar scored 82 runs off 49 balls and proved that Azharuddin's decision was right.

Talking about the reason for promoting Tendulkar up the order, recently, Azharuddin said that at number 5 or 6, Tendulkar was unable to score big despite good batting performance....