Sachin Tendulkar has often spoken about his late father Ramesh Tendulkar’s positive influence on his cricketing career and life in general.

The Indian batting legend on Wednesday (May 31) once again remembered his father’s words of wisdom, who wanted him to be a role model and never endorse alcohol or tobacco products.

May 31 marks the World No Tobacco Day. While speaking at an event in Mumbai, Tendulkar revealed that he had refused multiple offers to endorse tobacco products in the past because of his father’s advice.

"When I started playing for India, I had just come out of school. I started getting many advertisement offers but my father told me never to promote tobacco products. I got many such offers but never accepted any of them," Tendulkar was quoted by The Statesman.

Speaking to a news channel at the event, Sachin stated that his bat had no advertisement stickers in the first two years of his career when his colleagues were promoting multiple cigarette brands.

“This was a promise I made to my father. He told me I am a role model and a lot of people will follow what I do. That is why I have never endorsed tobacco products or alcohol. In the 1990s my bat didn’t have a sticker on it, I didn’t have a contract. But everybody else in the team was endorsing two brands in particular – Wills and Four Square," Tendulkar said.

"I didn’t break the promise that I gave to my father by not endorsing these brands. I got many offers from them to endorse their brand by having their sticker on my bat but I didn’t want to promote all that. I have stayed away from these two things and have never broken the promise to my father,” he added.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest batters of all time, Sachin Tendulkar is idolized by a generation of cricketers across the globe.

In a career spanning 24 years, Tendulkar played 200 Tests and 463 ODIs for India, scoring the world record number of runs (15921 in Tests and 18426 in ODIs) and centuries (51 in Tests and 49 in ODIs).