Cricket
Did you know Google CEO Sundar Pichai dreamt of being a cricketer?
A Lionel Messi and Sachin Tendulkar fan, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had big dreams with the willow once upon a time!
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google (Source: mobilegeeks.com)
When Sundar Pichai is not busy transforming the world of technology by heading Google and Alphabet, the Indian-American keeps a close tab on football and cricket. A devout fan of the diminutive Argentine, Lionel Messi, the CEO of Google had deliberated on taking up sports as a career when he was a young boy growing up in Chennai, with the cricket fever running high all over the country.
Sundar Pichai, on one of his travels to India, had addressed the students of SRCC, New Delhi in 2015 where he confessed about his big dreams to become a cricketer, after he fell passionately in love with the sport. Like most other Indians, Pichai was also torn in between his love for football and cricket and nurtured plans of wielding the willow more seriously, seeing the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and later, Sachin Tendulkar bat up a storm on the pitch for India.
"I did dream of being a cricketer like so many Indians," Pichai admitted. "I used to be a huge fan of (Sunil) Gavaskar when he was playing and later, Sachin (Tendulkar) when he played. I always had a dream," the 49-year-old had mentioned fondly.
But football also had the Google CEO's heart from a young age and he recalled, "I am a huge football fan. I remember when I was young, I would drive my mom crazy. I would wake up in the middle of the night to watch World Cup soccer. I would watch the Brazilian team in those days. Cricket and football are two sports that I follow. I am a big Barcelona and Messi fan," Pichai had gushed in 2015, as reported by India Today.
Kya yeh Sundar pic-hai? 😀 pic.twitter.com/vEuZKJlu6r
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 3, 2019
After wrapping up his undergraduate degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Pichai set sail for Standford in pursuit of a MS and subsequently did his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the shift of continents made his grow closer to soccer, which he still follows religiously and Lionel 'La Pulga' Messi is still someone he majorly fans over!
