When Sachin Tendulkar and Shilpa Shirodkar addressed their long-standing relationship rumours

Sachin Tendulkar and Shilpa Shirodkar relationship rumours

Over the years, Bollywood's long-standing fascination with cricket has generated numerous headlines, including cricket players getting married to Bollywood actresses and highly publicised romances that ended in divorce.

The frequently cited rumour that cricket great Sachin Tendulkar was once romantically involved with actress Shilpa Shirodkar from the 1990s is one of the more bizarre stories.

Although the story has occasionally come up again, both sides have been explicit in their responses to the rumours. Now, Shilpa married UK-based banker Aparesh Ranjit in 2000, while Sachin later married Anjali Tendulkar, with whom he has two children.

In a past interview with Red FM, Shilpa Shirodkar shed light on how her name came to be associated with Sachin Tendulkar. The actress recalled first meeting the cricket icon during the making of her 1991 film Hum. Their introduction came through a family connection — her cousin and Sachin played cricket together in Bandra East. She revealed that Sachin was already in a relationship with Anjali at the time, something their circle of friends was aware of, though it was not public knowledge.

In Shilpa’s own words, "When I was doing Hum, I met Sachin for the first time, because Sachin jaha pe rehte the mere cousin brother waha par rehte the. Sachin and my cousin brother used to play cricket together in Bandra East. So, that’s how I met Sachin. And Sachin was already seeing Anjali at that time, which was not told to anybody. We all knew because we were friends. Because an actor is meeting a cricketer and he was Sachin Tendulkar, it became easy for people to say, aree and I met him once."

Sachin, for his part, has also publicly dismissed the rumours. In an old interview with India Today, when asked about the “stupidest” thing he had ever heard about himself, he pointed directly to the supposed affair with Shilpa Shirodkar. He firmly denied knowing her personally, let alone being in a relationship.

He said,  "That Shilpa Shirodkar and I were having an affair. Because we don't even know each other at all."

Sachin Tendulkar married Anjali Tendulkar on 24 May 1995. Despite a six-year age gap, their bond has remained rock-solid. The couple first met at Mumbai airport, and it was Anjali who managed to get Sachin’s number afterwards.

They soon began dating, with both describing their meeting as love at first sight. Anjali, who initially knew little about cricket, later made the effort to learn about the game to better understand her husband’s world. The couple share two children — daughter Sara and son Arjun Tendulkar.

Shilpa Shirodkar’s love story took its own swift turn. She married Aparesh Ranjit in 2000, and the couple welcomed their daughter, Anoushka Ranjit, soon after. In a candid conversation with Pinkvilla, Shilpa revealed that she agreed to marry Aparesh just one and a half days after meeting him, captivated by his honesty despite knowing his career would take him abroad.

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As she explained:

"I never wanted to leave Mumbai as I was very close to my parents, but then I met my husband and within one and a half day, I said yes to him knowing that he is not going to be in India, he is going to go abroad to study. So the bottom line was that I would also be leaving India. I just liked his honesty so much that I didn’t even think what am I doing."

Ultimately, what began as idle gossip between the worlds of cricket and cinema turned out to be nothing more than a misunderstood encounter — with both Sachin Tendulkar and Shilpa Shirodkar finding their own happy endings elsewhere.