Tendulkar skirts fixing in autobiography

Sachin Tendulkar has not touched upon the match-fixing scandal that rocked Indian cricket in the 1990s in his autobiography because he felt it would be "unwise" to comment on subjects that he was not fully aware of.

"I think whatever things I knew 100% I have revealed because I back up those things. But the things I am not aware of fully, it would be unwise to comment on those," Tendulkar was quoted as saying by PTI on the eve of the launch of his book, Playing It My Way. "I should have some evidence, I should know something in detail to talk about it because then it makes sense and it will be appreciated by people. But if I just start talking then it will not have any value."

The scandal had eventually led to a life ban for former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin and bans of shorter duration for Ajay Sharma, Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar, all of whom were Tendulkar's team-mates in the 1990s.

When asked whether he felt some players had under-performed deliberately during that phase, Tendulkar said: "No, I mean the guys fail, but who doesn't fail in life, everyone fails. It would be unfair to just pinpoint someone and say that he was under-performing, didn't try his best, I can't. I have played the sport for 24 years and failures do happen."

Tendulkar was also questioned about the perception that he rarely took a stand on major issues in cricket. "If you see in my book, issues on which people believed I should have taken a stand, the only things which I was 100% sure of I stood for that in my book," he said. "If you have read some of the articles I have expressed myself whole-heartedly but on things which were not first-hand information, it is unwise to do that, it is a loose statement and I didn't want to fire loose statements."