His Other Passion

“I’ve never spoken about my hobbies before,” says Sachin Tendulkar as we settle down for a conversation in the living room of his Bandra home. It’s easy to see the cricket legend is a car buff, given the set of blue and red 320d Bimmers neatly parked in the front porch. But this meeting is about the other high-performance beasts with wheels and springs that fit on the wrist. (Note that like the master blaster, a number of sportspersons collect watches—a nod to the spirit of skill, timing, and perfection.)

Sachin’s first wristwatch was a gift from his uncle Suresh Tendulkar. He was in Class 4 and wore the black plastic digital watch with great pride. “It was one those cheap Casio knock-offs,” Tendulkar muses. It ran a good 10 months before he took it out into the rain, and to his dismay, it fogged up and stopped working. “I was close to tears. My uncle got me another, with strict instructions to look after it better.”

For watch collectors, there isn’t a fixed true north. You can play the number game, or indulge in a pursuit that demands tonnes of research before buying a bit of history. Another way is to look at it as jewellery, acquiring timepieces encrusted with diamonds, gold, and silver. Then there are collectors who buff up their acquisitions on the premise that this is an asset class. That’s the domain of Patek Philippe or Rolex, which appreciate like blue-chip stocks. Sheer aesthetics form the basis of a collection for others, and there’s another set who will not buy a watch unless it’s packed with intricate complications (horology-speak for functions such as “moonphase” and “stopwatch”).

So how does it work for India’s most famous cricketer? His guiding philosophy is built on three fundamentals. “It’s got to be sporty, and masculine, and has to have a certain weight when you wear it,” says Tendulkar. The love of weight won’t surprise Tendulkar fans, or the many bowlers he bullied across the world in his playing days, using his much talked-about heavy bats.

He looked to make his first serious purchase as a reward to himself for scoring his first Test century against England at Manchester. He got Cartier’s iconic Tank, a gold version of which was popularised by legendary boxer Muhammad Ali in the 1970s. Tendulkar’s watch was an automatic version in steel, with a matching steel bracelet and roman numerals. He bought it in Sharjah in the early 1990s.
Sipping a claret after the day’s work, typical watch collectors sit down to arrange the timepieces in boxes. Donning kid gloves, they would examine the watches with a loupe and find out if any of them needed servicing or polishing. But Tendulkar shakes his head, saying he’s not one of those guys. Instead, he just likes wearing his watches frequently. He does stay updated on the latest, from launches to industry goings-on, through an app called Watchville. On his wrist when I meet him: a rose gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore chronograph, a sporty watch with a rubber strap, which can be easily dressed up or down.

But make no mistake, he’s not casual about his watches. After the incident with the Casio knock-off, Tendulkar says, he has never broken or lost a watch, “ever”. The resolve with which he says it indicates it is unlikely to happen again either. Once, he had to travel to a school in Nagpur to address a bunch of students. As his Maruti Esteem slowed near the entrance of the hall, a mob frenzy ensued. “People rushed towards the car as if they would carry it to the dais,” he says. Tendulkar told the driver to keep the throttle going, so that the crowd would stay off. Almost by reflex, he removed his Cartier Tank and locked it away in the glove compartment. Had he stepped out with it on his wrist, he says, there was no way it would have remained in one piece. “To reach the stage, barely 20 metres away, took quite a bit of time because of the sea of people.”

One may surmise that Tendulkar could afford a dozen Cartiers, but he points out that those were still the days when cricketers were not as highly paid as they are today. Million-dollar endorsements for Indian players were unheard of, and for Tendulkar, who came from a middle-class background, the Tank was a huge deal. “I had actually done calculations before deciding [to spend on it].” He wore that watch for a while.

Years later, when Tendulkar got to know legendary celebrity manager Mark Mascarenhas and signed his first big contract with WorldTel in 1995, he was criticised for chasing money instead of playing cricket. According to industry reports, before Mascarenhas became his agent, Sachin’s biggest ad deal was under Rs 20 lakh. After the WorldTel contract, the rate went up to around Rs 5 crore a year. “In fact, it was the other way round… I was signing ad contracts so that I could focus on cricket,” he says.

As his game got better, Tendulkar bagged more contracts and, on the recommendation of some of his childhood friends, ended up buying what most newcomers to watches go for. Rolex, Omega, Charriol, and Franck Muller are some he mentions. In part it was the aesthetics that drew him and in part the sporty features. He is not into gizmo watches or excessive bling, so rule out the iWatch and diamond- or ruby-encrusted dials. Also, strangely, he never hankered for a Patek Philippe or a Vacheron Constantin—marquee labels that command the attention of the horological world and are legends in their own right. “I never thought I reached that stage,” he says, adding that he always felt there was a time and place for everything and it was the same for him and watches. Other favourites came to him in the form of gifts. Friend and hotelier Sanjay Narang presented him a black, square-dialled Franck Muller with a mirror finish when he equalled Donald Bradman’s record in 2002 against the West Indies in Trinidad.

By the time he got around to buying his first Audemars Piguet (the one he wore when we met), Tendulkar had been through the Cartier-Rolex-Franck Muller phase and settled down to the idea that Audemars Piguet represented all the qualities he admired in a watch. It’s no secret that among the older brands, Audemars Piguet is the sportiest, while the majority of Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe watches fall in the league of dressier formals. Audemars Piguet pieces are also less stuffy and can be gender neutral. Referred to by fans as AP, the brand has had ambassadors such as Michael Schumacher and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who all embody the three characteristics Tendulkar talks about: high performance, masculinity, and heavyweights in their fields.

Tendulkar was attracted at first by the Gerald Genta-inspired octagonal design that has come to be a defining Audemars Piguet feature, and later by the intricacies of the movements, which it builds in-house. What he has come to favour are the limited editions, of which the Millenary Quincy Jones is one. This is a limited edition of 500 pieces with a jet-black centre and piano-key outer markers. The other is the innovative chronograph called the Royal Oak Offshore Alinghi Polaris, which was launched in 2005 as a limited edition of 2,000 pieces, and has a last-minute indicator countdown function (for the countdown to the start of a sailing race). When Tendulkar visited the Audemars Piguet factory in Les Brassus, he recalls assembling a movement for fun. “I realised that there were certain angles at which pieces had to fit in with each other, which was not easy to do even with the right tools. That’s when you start to appreciate what it takes to make these.”

Tendulkar became India’s first brand ambassador for Audemars Piguet in 2005, even launching a limited edition Offshore model with his name on it. This meant he couldn’t wear other brands, but he swears he doesn’t regret it. “Once you’ve been through a few levels of collecting and reach Audemars Piguet, anything else is moving backwards,” he adds, insisting that he is not paying lip service to his sponsors. “It’s the same with BMWs. I drove everything, but even before I tied up with them I already owned a 3 Series, an M5, an X5, and many others.”

To drive home his point, Tendulkar asks me where I live. “Mumbai,” I reply. He says if I or people I know can spot him wearing anything but an AP, even in recent pictures, he will give me “anything I want”. Indeed, there are hardcore collectors who will collect just one brand or two. Alfredo Paramico one of the world’s leading collectors, specialises in vintage Pateks. San Francisco-based collector Jacek Kozubek focusses on vintage Rolexes.

Finally, how many watches does India’s greatest cricketer own? Tendulkar thinks for around 10 seconds, his forehead wrinkles, and his eyes narrow in that trademark look of almost impossible concentration that so many bowlers have had to contend with and failed. With a slow smile, he says, “Only as many as I can appreciate and value,” and then goes on to add what we have heard before. “I don’t believe in numbers. I only do what I really like.”