It was tough getting over World Cup disppointments: Tendulkar

Chittagong, May 19 (UNI) Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar today said it was tough getting over the disappointments of the World Cup debacle.

India bowed out of the World Cup in the preliminary round after losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, resulting in widespread criticism and demonstrations across the country.

Asked if these criticism affected him, he said, ''Over this entire career I have concentrated on my job only and my job is to go out and bat.'' ''We were disappointed at not having played well at World Cup. It was not because people had demonstrated. The ultimate dream was to go out there and play well,'' Tendulkar bared his heart.

''It did not happen and it was a huge disappointment. Anything else that happened didn't matter much. We lost out on the bigger goal we set for ourselves,'' he said.

Asked how he recovered from the Caribbean blues, ''I think my family was always around. My close friends, brother, mother, wife and kids all helped. The people close to me were disappointed too.'' ''Nobody wants to go out there and not perform, everyone wants to go out there and win. When it does not happen its tough to overcome the disappointment. It was tough,'' he said.

Widespread criticism and protests after the World Cup led Greg Chappell to quit as coach. Besides the BCCI brought in austerity measures, scraping the graded payments in the contract and proposing to change it into a performance-oriented one.

UNI