Bipin Dani/Cricketnext

Mumbai, Jul 22: During his childhood, Sachin Tendulkar played a lot of tennis. His big time hero was John McEnroe. He just loved that guy because of his long hair. Everyone used to call him "Mac" because Tendulkar styled himself on him. He also made his father buy the same headbands and sweatbands and even grew his hair long. People won't believe the pictures of Tendulkar from that time.

Tendulkar has stopped growing his hair long now. On Monday, he paid a visit to Colombo's Taj Samudra's in-house Ramani Fernando Salon, owned by cricketer-turned-commentator Ranjit Fernando's wife. For over 30 years, Ramani Fernando's name is synonymous with hair and beauty in the South Asian region.

"I felt proud and honoured to run a comb and scissors on Sachin's head," manager of the salon P Samantha Kumar said from Colombo. "Sachin is truly a gentleman. He was calm and quiet during the 30-minute session and he also wanted to see my cutting technique and therefore I didn't discuss cricket with him," he added.

"Yes, being a famous cricketer, we didn't want to charge him but Sachin insisted," he said. "He was not carrying his wallet (and therefore no tips to the hair-stylist) and hence team-mate Harbhajan Singh paid on his behalf." Harbhajan, who runs a hair salon of his own back home, was highly impressed with the salon manager's moustache, it is learnt.

"This is not the first occasion when Sachin has paid a visit to our salon. I cut his hair some 3-4 years back when he came to play cricket here," Samantha added.

"Anil Kumble also once came to me for a hair cut and dye. Cricketers from England and Bangladesh have also visited this salon.

"From Sri Lanka, Chaminda Vaas and Dilhara Fernando are my regular clients. Captain Mahela Jaywardane and Muthiah Muralitharan also often come to us for hair-styling," he signed off.