"It (captaincy) had started affecting me as a person. And every defeat that I faced or experienced, it really hurt me. Off the field also, when I was back with my family, I couldn't switch over as I would be constantly thinking about it," Tendulkar told journalists on the occasion of the release of his autobiography 'Playing It My Way'.
"It started disturbing me and affecting me personally. So I felt that if I could contribute as a player and give all the suggestions to the next captain", he said.
"I have never believed in criticising the players I have played with. It's wrong. If you go back and look at the scoreboard that itself would give a lot of explanations. Basically, we were not able to pick up 20 wickets and neither were we able to put up big totals.
"When we played in India, we beat South Africa, we beat Australia, so we had that success but I thought South Africa, Australia and West Indies and on occasions, there were matches which I thought we should have won. It was a big disappointment that we were not able to turn that in our favour.
"That happened on a few occasions which sort of either builds good momentum or takes the momentum away from you. So that is what had happened.