WisdenIndia Extra Issue 4

SACHIN
SUNSET
ISSUE 4, NOVEMBER 2013
THE

A TRIBUTE TO A GLORIOUS 24
YEARS. THANK YOU, SACHIN TENDULKAR
contents
THEMES
06 THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK OF SANITY
By Dileep Premachandran | You could make out what Tendulkar was proud
of, and what he would regret. But you would have to fll in the blanks for yourself
11 MY INITIATION INTO SUPERSTITION
By R Kaushik | Anil Kumble on the tense lead-up to Tendulkars frst hundred
when the dressing room was more nervous than the 17-year-old
14 THE PROPHET WHO TAUGHT INDIA HOW TO WIN
By Shashi Tharoor | Tendulkar embodies the best of what India can be a
world leader whose achievements elicit universal admiration
18 THE PROSPECT OF HIS ABSENCE
By Supriya Nair | He will no longer be there to enchant us
back into childhood
24 A PIECE OF OUR HURT
By Saurabh Somani | When their favourite son was not well, the nation truly
wanted to know what was wrong with him
30 THE MATCH IN WHICH WAQAR SMASHED HIS NOSE
By Salil Ankola | Even Sachin didnt know then that he would score 100
centuries. But we knew he would play 100 Tests at least
33 I PRAYED FOR SACHIN
By Mushtaq Mohammad | He was very likeable and asked me to help him fx
his bat that had become too whippy
36 INDIA WERE MEEK, BUT SACHIN JUST HAD THAT LOOK
By Kritika Nadu | Matthew Hayden, John Wright, Sourav Ganguly,
Muttiah Muralitharan and Alan Wilkins on Tendulkars greatness

40 HE MEANT SO MUCH TO THE COMMON MAN
By Sidhanta Patnaik and Disha Shetty | Tendulkar has infuenced countless
lives and even shaped the careers of many
44 NO TANTRUMS, SOFT SPOKEN, NEVER TOUGH ON PEOPLE
By Sidhanta Patnaik | Former teammate and friend Subroto Banerjee on
how and why Tendulkar is who he is
28 TIMELINE | By Nisha Shetty
Sachin Tendulkar: From start to fnish
60 NOSTALGIA
Writers on their favourite SRT moment
52 PICTURES
Tendulkar through a kaleidoscope
From the Wisden India archives
62 FOR LOVE OF THE GAME
By Dileep Premachandran
Tendulkars blade may no longer be as
sharp as a 16-year-old prodigys but he
remains singular in the limits he continues
to push 23 years later
66 A LITTLE BUGGER WHO CAN PLAY
By Suresh Menon
There was no plan to play the 16-year-
old in a One-Day International then; you
didnt throw teenagers into the deep end
68 WAITING FOR SACHIN
By Lawrence Booth
Throughout the summer of 2011, England
waited for Tendulkars 100th international
century, but there was a sadness that
went beyond the landmark when he failed
71 A HUNDRED REASONS TO SMILE
By Mike Selvey
Twenty-one fruitless Test match innings
and a dozen in ODIs before the 100th
hundred. Sometimes even the gods
manifest themselves as mortal for a while
76 SACHIN, ANDTHE AGE OF INNOCENCE
By Anjali Doshi
Tendulkars frst interview is a reminder of
a time when players actually spoke their
mind without fear of the consequences
BEYOND THE HUNDREDS
A profle of Tendulkars best below-100
scores in Tests and ODIs
By Saurabh Somani | 46
SHAPING LEGENDARY STROKES
The man who carves bats for Tendulkar
on the batsmans preferences
By Kritika Naidu | 49
80 THE WALL OF MEMORY
By Tarika Khattar | In an age when the image, moving or still, is so essential to
projecting memory, how will you remember Tendulkar?
83 THE NUMBERS PROVE HIS GREATNESS
By Saurabh Somani | When Tendulkar was in the zone, it was all about his
batting being in a rarefed air; everything else was merely incidental
74
A TO Z
By Dileep V | A colourful look at
Tendulkars 24-year-long career
Compiled by Manish Adhikary |
Designed by Ashish Mohanty |
All pictures published as part of
The Sachin Sunset are courtesy of Getty
Images, AFP and Wisden India Archive
The qoute-headers are from Sachin:
Cricketer of the Century by Vimal Kumar
7 6 THE SACHIN SUNSET
The face behind the
mask of sanity
YOU COULD MAKE OUT WHAT TENDULKAR WAS PROUD OF, AND WHAT HE WOULD REGRET. BUT YOU
WOULD HAVE TO FILL IN THE BLANKS FOR YOURSELF. HE WOULDNT DO IT FOR YOU
DILEEP PREMACHANDRAN
S
omeone once asked if I considered what
I did for a living to be proper work.
After all, I was being paid to watch
sport. My answer was both yes and no.
Most days, you were living a dream,
yours and thousands of others. But at other times,
it was the hardest job in journalism. Unlike political
journalists and those that chronicled Bollywood, my
beat, in those years, didnt include a surfeit of sleaze
and mediocrity. It was my job, as an ordinary Joe
with no pretensions to greatness, to try and make
sense of brilliance. For more than a decade, I was
in close proximity to those that excelled. Trying to
get inside their heads, especially when you spoke
to them, was incredibly difficult, because there was
nothing in your own life that you could use as a
guideline. Id never know what it was to be in the
zone, to accomplish such staggering feats, or to
handle constant attention with such equanimity.
Indias politicians drive most of its citizens to
despair. In most cases, an election is a matter of
choosing the lesser evil. Our most talented actors
and actresses think Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri
and Tabu, without even venturing into non-Hindi
cinema are usually consigned to supporting
roles or offbeat movies that few watch. Those the
MORE THAN A PLAYER
Its unlikely that any
other sporting great has
shouldered the burden
of expectation the way
Sachin did, and that too
for a quarter of a century.
media obsesses over are usually cardboard cutouts,
without a smidgen of the talent that a Javier Bardem
or a Meryl Streep possesses. In a culture intent on
celebrating those with such modest achievements,
the likes of Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman,
Kumble and Sehwag truly were men apart.
Among them, Tendulkar was undoubtedly first
among equals. You could fathom that easily from the
way the others spoke of him. For Sehwag, he was an
idol, the batsman he had always wanted to be. When
Laxman, who batted so beautifully in tandem with
him, talked of Tendulkar, it wasnt just as a teammate.
Time and again, the fan in him would come out, and
his eyes would sparkle as he talked of how quickly
Tendulkar picked length or how he could predict just
what the bowler was going to send down.
In another man, such demigod status might have
caused barriers to be raised. But whether it was with
the other golden boys, or those that came along years
later, Tendulkar never seemed to be anything other
than one of the lads. It didnt matter if it was a bowler
like Zaheer Khan, or a promising batsman like Virat
Kohli or Cheteshwar Pujara. They would all speak
of how he made sure they felt they belonged in the
dressing room. He was a hero who was also a mentor.
It wasnt just the young or those that knew him
that came under his spell. When I think of Tendulkar,
I often recall two old men. The first was at a press
conference in Chennai 12 years ago, after Tendulkar
had made 126 in the third and final Test of that epic
series against Australia. This gentleman, who I saw
only that one time, asked him how it felt to emerge
from a bad patch.
It was Tendulkars third hundred in five Tests. A
lesser person would have come out with a cruel barb
about the mans hazy grasp of facts. But Tendulkar,
who looked at him respectfully while answering, put
him down gently, merely stating the numbers and
moving on. Often, humility is just a glib word thrown
haphazardly into sporting sketches. In this case, it
was seen in action.
The second man, my grandfather, was my first
hero. Ive come across very few people who were
as learned or wise. But when it came to Tendulkar,
he too would lose his sense of perspective. When,
in his late seventies, he fractured his leg, he insisted
on the TV being moved to the room where he was
convalescing, just so he wouldnt miss Tendulkars
batting on Indias first tour of South Africa.
Four years later, despite now being in his 80s,
he would insist on being woken up in the middle of
the night when India toured the Caribbean. By then,
Parkinsonism had taken over. But no matter how
tired he was, he would perk up when Sachin came
to the crease. There were times when I joked that
he loved him more than he did his grandson. Other
times, I was almost convinced it was true.
Even as his health failed, his spirit never flagged.
The only time I ever saw him old and defeated was
the day India unravelled while chasing 120 for
Sachin is not as flamboyant or as arrogant as Viv Richards even
though Sachin has more ability.... He never displayed arrogance,
something that Sunil Gavaskar did sometimes.
Kapil Dev
victory in Barbados. Tendulkar was the fourth wicket
to fall. Azharuddin and Ganguly remained, with 88
more needed, but my grandfather, who had followed
the game since he watched Jardines side in Madras
while studying law there, asked me to switch the TV
off. He knew what would happen next, and had no
desire to see it.
Has any sportsman carried a greater burden
for so long? Pele played club football for 21 years,
but only 14 of them were spent dealing with the
great expectations that went with wearing a Brazil
shirt. Muhammad Ali shouldered the weight of race
and civil rights politics, but within the ring, he was
responsible for no one but himself. Michael Jordan
spent his golden years representing a city with a
population of two million.
Each time he went out to bat, as if he wasnt
already aware, Tendulkar was constantly reminded
that he carried with him a nations hopes. India
Expects wasnt the title of some TV show. It was his
daily reality. For 24 years.
How could you make sense
of such a person? Maybe his
dearest friends did. Very few
journalists got close enough to see behind the mask
that was essential for him to maintain his sanity.
Without that little distance, that small bubble in
which to breathe, he may not have lasted more than
two seasons.
Each time you spoke to him, you could scratch
a little beneath the surface, unearth a little more
information. But it was seldom enough to draw a
composite picture. The first time I interviewed him,
I left thinking of what Greta Garbo, who spent many
years as a recluse after her days as a matinee idol,
had once said: There are many things in your heart
you can never tell to another person. They are you,
your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell
them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself,
when you tell them.
CRICKET COMRADES
When Laxman (right)
talked of Tendulkar, it
wasnt just as a teammate.
Time and again, the fan in
him would come out.
Tendulkar was much the same. He never
magnified his triumphs, or dwelt too long on the
failures. You could make out what he was proud of,
and what he would regret. But you would have to fill
in the blanks for yourself. He wouldnt do it for you.
The only time I saw the guard down was the one
time we spoke on a fire escape at St. Georges Park
in Port Elizabeth, after Chennai Super Kings had
knocked his Mumbai Indians out of IPL 2. I wont
forget the controlled anger, or the near-forensic
account of all the lapses that had combined to make
the campaign a disaster. Those close to him had
often told me how much he hated to lose, even if it
was a casual game of pool at 3am. That evening, with
a chill wind blowing in from the bay, I found out for
myself. Those 15 minutes off the record told me far
more about the man than four full-length interviews
that took in thousands of words.
As the years passed, the way the country
perceived him also changed. Once, he was the boy
wonder who could do no wrong. By journeys end,
he has become fair game for many. Some were
irritated by his silence on cricket subjects great
and small. Others thought he had overstayed his
welcome. Another group, ignorant of both his career
details and sporting history, constantly belittled his
achievements, especially once the team stopped
being reliant on him for success.
Irked by this, his most passionate followers went
to the other extreme, behaving like the irrational
lunatics who comprise various cults. Any criticism
of Tendulkar was considered sacrilege. Players,
journalists or commentators that dared suggest that
he was less than perfect would quickly be buried under
an avalanche of contempt. He became yet another holy
cow in a country that already had too many, one more
subject that couldnt be debated without emotion
taking over and logic leaving the room.
Even with Tendulkar though, you know that time
will eventually have its way. As Wright Thompson
wrote in a superb profile of Michael Jordan: Aging
means losing things, and not just eyesight and
flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments
of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes
through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others
through cultural amnesia.
What will we remember most? By the time he
raises his bat to the crowd for the final time, I will
have watched him play 79 Test matches. He already
had 80 caps by the time I covered my first. I watched
13 of his Test centuries live, and at least another
25 in real time on television. I was on live radio for
the BBC, and probably way more nervous than he
was, that Delhi afternoon when he surpassed Sunil
Gavaskars record of 34 centuries.
But at end of it, all these years later, its not the
back-foot drives or the hundreds that epitomise
Tendulkar for me. It was a ball he bowled in Multan
back in 2004. The final one of the fourth days play,
it was a googly that bamboozled Moin Khan. Even
now, I can see the joy writ large on his face the look
of a mischievous child whod finally got the prim
houseguest to sit on a whoopee cushion. Eight years
later, when I mentioned it to him, I glimpsed the same
expression. That joy, that childlike delight he got
from playing the game, was Tendulkars greatness.
Once, when that Barbados defeat was mentioned,
I saw him wince. I did too, for other reasons. Over
the coming weeks, months and years, youll read and
hear many variations of Ah, but he was so much more
than just a player. In this case, it isnt hyperbole. He
really was for teenagers, jaded 30-somethings and
octogenarians alike. We didnt know him, not really
anyway, but it didnt matter. For a quarter century,
he was there, at the forefront of our collective
consciousness. I doubt hell ever go away.
1990, Old Trafford: My initiation

into superstition in
international cricket.
ANIL KUMBLE RELIVES THE TENSE LEAD-UP TO TENDULKARS FIRST HUNDRED WHEN THE DRESSING
ROOM WAS MORE NERVOUS THAN THE 17-YEAR-OLD BENT ON SAVING A TEST MATCH FOR INDIA
R KAUSHIK
A
nil Kumble will not forget Sachin
Tendulkars maiden Test century, not
necessarily for the obvious reason
but also because it came on his own
debut, at Old Trafford in Manchester
in the summer of 1990. The first of 100 international
hundreds to date was a match-saving effort, an
unbeaten 119 in a little under four hours that
prevented India from going 0-2 down in the three-
Test series against England. India had been set an
unlikely 408 for victory and had been reduced to 109
for 4 when Tendulkar walked out to bat. That was soon
to become 127 for 5 when Mohammad Azharuddin,
the captain, was dismissed by Eddie Hemmings, the
offspinner who also accounted for Kapil Dev not long
thereafter. Nearly three hours of play was still left
and India were looking down the barrel on the final
evening at 183 for 6 when Tendulkar was joined in
the middle by Manoj Prabhakar.
As Prabhakar was to say later, it was Tendulkar
who did much of the talking and advising during their
unbroken 160-run stand that steered India to safe
waters. Tendulkar was then all of 17 years old, and
playing just his ninth Test.
The first thing that readily springs to mind is that
we were desperate to somehow save the match, and
there still was a lot of time left when Manoj went in
to bat after lunch, Kumble told Wisden India. Sachin
and Manoj started to bat well, and then something
happened that has stayed with me for all these years.
Kiran More made sure early in their partnership that
no one should change their positions on the balcony
till such time that Sachin got to his 100 and we
managed to salvage a draw. So for four hours, all of
us occupied the same seats; it was my initiation into
superstition in international cricket!
What stood out for Kumble even then was
Tendulkars maturity, his poise, his unflappability
and his composure under tremendous pressure.
Everybody knew about his talent, everyone knew
what he was capable of. But even so, as a 17-year-
old, to play the way he did was fantastic. At that
time, Devon Malcolm was frightfully quick, and Chris
Lewis could crank it up too. And then there was
Angus Fraser with his nagging length, giving nothing
away. Sachin played them with the utmost ease.
His driving on the up, off the back foot, was a
delight. To see a 17-year-old bat with such remarkable
authority was something else. The confidence with
which he went out, that made a deep impression on
me. And then, when he spoke, he had that squeaky
voice. In effect, when he spoke, he was a boy but
when he batted, he was a man fully accomplished.
Sitting up in the balcony, you got the feeling that
he would not get out, that was the confidence he
generated within his teammates even at that early
stage of his career. He was extremely compact, he
knew the situation and he knew that he had to bat till
the end. For a 17-year-old to understand all that, go
about his innings in the manner in which he did and
to end up saving the Test, it was quite an experience.
I myself was only 19 then, but watching him bat that
day, I quickly realised that I still had a lot of chinks in
my armour and I needed to make huge strides to be
a permanent part of an international team but this
boy, he was already there. His fielding was very good,
he could catch well, he had a great arm, he could roll
his arm over and he batted possibly the best in the
team. To have those qualities at 17, just astonishing.
Kumble said, watching from the sidelines, he
couldnt make out if the young lad was nervous as he
approached his hundred, though the team sure was
feeling the tension. I guess we were probably feeling
that. You could make out that he was fully in command
of the situation, though I am sure he too must have
had some butterflies. But he just looked like he wasnt
nervous at all. Now, thats total control. And when he
came back unbeaten with the draw secured, he had a
satisfied look on his face satisfied that he had saved
the game, satisfied that he had got his first hundred.
What it did was also enhance our confidence as a
group. The general mood was that he was a 17-year-
old who had saved a Test match, we must also stand
up and do something for the team. From being beaten
in the first Test, we made England follow on in the last,
and were only thwarted because David Gower made a
brilliant 157 not out at The Oval. That was the kind of
impact Sachin had on the Indian team even then.

No player is perfect, in that they can execute every shot in the book
perfectly, but Tendulkar has no obvious weaknesses.... He is brave, fit
and possesses a great desire to score runs. What more do you need?
Angus Fraser
THE FIRST OF A 100
Tendulkar pounces on
an Angus Fraser delivery
on his way to scoring a
match-saving 119* at Old
Trafford in August 1990.
R KAUSHIK
The Prophet who
taught India how to win
TENDULKAR EMBODIES THE BEST OF WHAT INDIA CAN BE A WORLD LEADER WHOSE ACHIEVEMENTS
ELICIT UNIVERSAL ADMIRATION WHILE BEING UNCONTAMINATED BY BRAGGADOCIO OR TRIUMPHALISM
SHASHI THAROOR
I
still remember the frst time I heard about
Sachin Tendulkar. It was New Years Eve,
December 31, 1987, and on a crowded Calcutta
terrace, the freshly retired Sunil Gavaskar told
me about a 14-year-old in Bombay who would
be the countrys next great batting star. I promptly wrote
about the conversation in a UK magazine, The Club
Cricketer, and started looking out for mentions of the
prodigys name in the sports pages. I didnt have long
to wait for Gavaskars prescience to be confrmed: the
century on debut in the Ranji Trophy when Tendulkar
was just 15, and then selection for India, against the
fearsome pacemen of Pakistan, at all of 16 years of age.
The announcement, 24 years later, of his
imminent retirement marks the end of an epoch.
The greatest Indian to ever wield a cricket bat and
possibly one of the greatest in the history of the entire
sport worldwide leaves when he completes a mind-
boggling 200 Test matches, to go with 463 One-Day
Internationals. His departure has thrown the country
into a paroxysm. Television channels, newspaper
and magazine columns and editorials, social media,
have all waxed eloquent on the occasion; cricket fans
can talk of little else. As a nation of 1.2 billion people
has been riveted by the impending departure from
the national sporting stage of a 40-year-old, is there
anything left to say?
The hyperbole has already been vented. I have
seen God, said Australian rival Matthew Hayden. He
bats at No. 4 for India. Another cricketing immortal,
Shane Warne, when asked who was the greatest
batsman hed played against, replied: First, Sachin
Tendulkar. Second, daylight. Third, Brian Lara.
In a land where 605 million people are below
the age of 25, Tendulkars unusually lengthy 24-year
career he was such a gifted prodigy that he made his
debut for India in 1989 has dominated their entire
consciousness of a sport that is a national obsession.
He owns almost all the important batting records in
the international game, including most Test centuries
and most ODI hundreds, and he has done so while
carrying the expectations of a
billion people every time he
strides out to bat.
The passion for cricket in
India is difficult to exaggerate,
but Tendulkar elevated it into
something more. His success became emblematic of
Indias own rise to assertion on the world stage. When
Tendulkar made his debut for India in 1989 at the age
of 16, it was still a developing country, seen by much
of the world as poor, backward and protectionist. In
1991, India liberalised and embarked on a quarter-
century of galloping growth that averaged 8%. The
world beat a path to Indias door. Our democracy,
proliferating television channels, software experts
PERFECTION PUNDIT
Tendulkar showed
India how to celebrate
individual merit and revel
in the unusual distinction of
boasting the worlds best
at something the whole
nation followed.
SHASHI THAROOR
Sachin should be used as an international ambassador for cricket.
His own personal ethics towards his industry and its people should
be maximised for the continued healthy growth of the game.
Peter Kirsten
and burgeoning English-speaking middle class all
changed the countrys image and led pundits to hail
it as the next major world power. This period of self-
reinvention coincided with Sachins rise. India rose,
and so did Sachin.
The diminutive batting star became Indias
cricket colossus. A nation that had long been used to
lagging behind, whether in economics or sport, now
boasted the worlds best batsman and went on to
become world champions again, 28 years after our
first triumph. The No. 1 ranking in both Tests and
ODIs is no longer an impossible dream: we have held
both, at different times. Television revenues from
the growing and increasingly prosperous Indian
audience have transformed Indias place in world
cricket too: today some 80% of the global games
resources are generated by India. As a result, in the
cheerful words of a senior BCCI official, India is to
the International Cricket Council what the USA is
to the UN Security Council, the one country that all
other members find indispensable and impossible
to ignore. Tendulkars 24 years in top-flight cricket
eerily mirror the transformation of India at the cusp
of the 21st Century. There is an Indian Dream, and in
his own lifetime, Tendulkar is its Prophet.
Just as impressive statistics alone are an
incomplete and inappropriate assessment of
Tendulkar, the story of India in the last 24 years
is not merely a table of numbers and graphs. It is
a story of the transformation of a national psyche,
and the emergence of a fresh and inspiring sense of
a coming renaissance. In a country previously used
to sporting mediocrity, with world champions only
in niche sports like billiards and chess, Tendulkars
triumphs will serve as a benchmark and a lodestar
for many years to come. But they go well beyond
the runs he made or even the way he made them.
Tendulkar matters to India because visibly, on our
television screens and our living-room conversations
afterward he embodied the essence of a new way
of being Indian.
Tendulkar has shown a nation often divided by
religion, language, caste and ethnicity how to dream
that common dream. Not only did he transcend the
heritage of a stratified and under-achieving society;
his is truly also the story of the coming of age of
the Idea of India, and its assimilation of the most
enduring export of the West to the world modernity
and the idea of the rational, autonomous individual,
substantially capable of shaping his own destiny. For
too long, we had accustomed ourselves to accepting
failure in sport, making it was not meant to be into
the most Indian of excuses. Tendulkar showed that
we could change outcomes through the combination
of talent, application, hard work and practice. By
breaking free of the shackles of pre-ordained Fate,
he ended the habitual expectation of failure, and
allowed India to celebrate merit and its rewards.
In a land too long in the thrall of fatalism,
Tendulkars prowess on the field promoted Indias
own new assertion of self-belief. Tendulkar
showed India how to celebrate individual merit
and revel in the unusual distinction of boasting
the worlds best at something the whole nation
followed. He helped Indians forget the bad news
around us sectarian strife, riots, terrorism
and rally round a common cause. He taught
Indians, used to being second-best, to win.
Democracy has long been the major force that
has served to unite India, by assuring every
Indian, irrespective of background, a stake in
the countrys success. For two decades, and for
exactly the same reason, theres been another
force for Indian unity: Tendulkar.
The India of 1989, when Tendulkar first
donned the national colours, was a land that had
thus far belied its promise of a tryst with destiny.
The India of 2013, when he bids farewell to his
playing career, is a nation that, despite recent
economic setbacks, is brimming with optimism
and sometimes impatient expectations of a better
future.
Tendulkar, therefore, is much more than a
sports star. The Indian government has named
him to the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya
Sabha, in a seat reserved for cultural icons. Given
the admiration in which he is held and the hold he
has on the allegiance of the Indian people, he could
speak on any public issue with a moral authority that
very few could rival. If Tendulkar wants to use his
position as a member of the Rajya Sabha as a bully
pulpit to advance his vision of India, he could have a
significant impact on public life.
He may not do so: outspokenness is not a
Tendulkar characteristic. In these two-and-a-
half decades of national adulation, commercial
endorsements and worldly success, Tendulkar has
managed to remain uncontaminated by scandal
or controversy in a sport that has been laden with
examples of both. Fame
has not turned his head: he
remains modest, soft-spoken
and self-effacing. He embodies
the best of what India can be a world leader whose
achievements elicit universal admiration while being
uncontaminated by braggadocio or triumphalism. In
hailing Tendulkar, India hails a symbol of what we, as
a nation, collectively aspire to be.
Shashi Tharoor is a Member of Parliament and

former United Nations Under-Secretary General
THE GREAT ADHESIVE
Tendulkar has shown a
nation often divided by
religion, language, caste
and ethnicity how to dream
that common dream.
SHASHI THAROOR
The prospect
of his absence
HE WILL NO LONGER BE THERE TO ENCHANT US BACK INTO CHILDHOOD
SUPRIYA NAIR
T
he children were always there in
Shivaji Park young, grim, working
metronomically on swinging back,
crouching, blocking and adjusting their
stances against the oncoming efforts of
their small colleagues and coaches. Like caricatures of
genteel expectations of cricketing stoicism, they spoke
little, and mostly in scowls; ready to die, as Wendy says
of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, like English gentlemen.
From time to time, as the water from the sprinklers
evaporated in the heat, a fne, sifting red dust would
begin to rise in drifts.
When I worked in Dadar, I walked around
Shivaji Park sometimes to watch these dustbowl
tableaux, a few dozen of which are always going on
simultaneously, and wondered what it would take
to make these boys happy. Was their single-minded
pursuit of cricket a symptom of their childhood, or a
denial of it? Would they remember these days fondly
if they ever made the Test team of one of the worlds
most competitive sides? Would they pause long
enough to crack a smile if an IPL contract dropped
softly on their ducked, sweating heads? Or was
this the bloody root of Bombay crickets notorious
khadoosi not the smiling grit that seems to implant
itself in so many graduates of, say, the Australian
DREAM COME TRUE
Tendulkar was, in the most
immediate ways, marginal
to the World Cup win. But
then the question of what he
could do for his people had
long been answered, too.
SUPRIYA NAIR
domestic system, but the jealous rapacity of the 40-
time Ranji victor?
I thought these things with a certain remoteness.
You think of cricket idly, and with an ironic distance,
when you have expatriated from the country of
sheer joy and cringing terror where you dwelt
when you were a child, feeling your heart swell as it
fought its way, delivery by delivery, over by over, to
an uncertain fate in match after match. That is what
Sachin Tendulkar recalls for men and women who
grew up regardless of how old they were watching
him, and that, perhaps, is the overwhelming regret of
his impending retirement. He will no longer be there
to enchant us back into childhood.
Perhaps few other cricketers have earned the
moral and emotional earnestness which Tendulkar
evoked, even as a teenaged prodigy. There have
been, at all times, at least ten other men on the
field with him, ready to absorb the burden of those
thundercloud emotions, but few others for whom
they were held so closely in trust. Apart from a brief
moment at age four or five when I was overwhelmed
by the certainty that I would marry Imran Khan one
day, I have never known cricket without knowing
that kinship with Tendulkar. I remember him and
Vinod Kambli, almost from the beginning, a sort
of composite, aspirational alter-ego the best, the
boldest, the most dexterous we could hope to be.
Something was irretrievably lost to Indian cricket
as their paths began to diverge, but Tendulkar alone
proved more than capable of sustaining the most
optimistic fantasy anyone has ever experienced in
Indian sport. We thought he carried us with him
when he played; that buoyed as he was at the crease
by the shouts and cheers of millions, there was no
difference between us and him; and because of him,
there were no differences among any of us.
An apparent lack of poetic ambiguity in
Tendulkars game makes it difficult for amateurs
to deconstruct the synthesis of flair and discipline
that went into his comprehensive, bullying sort
of domination. More so than with his other, more
specialist colleagues, the emotions responded to
his presence before the intellect did. When the
brain caught up, his quantifiable successes made a
wonderful, if unimaginative refuge for his fans. He
elicited awe and wonder because, even on the days
his body failed and bowlers showed up his usually
uncanny vision, there was something about him which
could not be gainsaid. Even through the dispiriting
days when the lights faded over alien stadia and his
unsubstantial tenor, piping acknowledgment that his
India had made mistakes, there was no doubt that,
with him at least, failure was temporary. Over time,
that unanswerable thing became clearer and clearer.
It was a clear and relentless hunger; the desire to
bat and bat and bat, as Gideon Haigh wrote, and as
he fed it, he fed us, too.
It seems strange that he was loved so much in
spite of such an unlikeable quality. But hunger is the
Nobody has ever come close to him and there is no question of
comparing anyone with him. He is the best ever; there is no Ponting
and no Lara, and not even Sir Don Bradman; Sachin is simply the best.
- Sourav Ganguly
TEAR JERKER
The 154 at SCG in
2008 epitomised the
spareness of the older
Tendulkar, sinews and
cockles exposed by
his injuries.
SUPRIYA NAIR
one aspect of genius which can be
cultivated, acquired and nurtured
and practised. Now that I think
about it, the dutifulness of the boys
in Shivaji Park, playing in shifts from
seven in the morning to seven at
night, makes perfect sense, because
if all that misery can set you, even
one among thousands, to grinding
that mill, with your blood in the
wheat, then it has set something in
you in motion for all time.
Tendulkar was young for a very
long time wasnt it Allan Border
who, after Sharjah, said, Yes, but imagine what hell
be like when hes 28? but ageing, too, for a great
many years. We have said many impatient things
about athletes who do that before our eyes. But they
are, in reality, a vital resource. I have a smug theory
that female fans are vastly better equipped to absorb
the shock of seeing their male sports idols grow old,
since our gender circumvents the arrogance of self-
identifying too closely with them. But to propound
it I must forget that Sachin disproved that, too. Back
home and watching a Test match for the first time
in months in 2008, I sat transfixed by his 154 at the
SCG against Australia, an innings that epitomised the
spareness of the older Tendulkar, sinews and cockles
exposed by his injuries. He bared his head slowly on
achieving the century, the manner of a man receiving
a blessing, and tears pricked my eyes as it dawned on
me: So thats going to happen, too.
When you love and place your faith in sport and
in a sports team, even the air around you can make
your skin burn. I dont think I am the only person who,
uncomfortable with the depraved political economy
that governs cricket, unwilling to participate in its
rituals of macho patriotism, had by the 2011 World
Cup victory, said a provisional
goodbye to the country where
cricket can do that to you. I
did not wish to be repatriated
simply because India had a
World Cup, to add to all that it
had already acquired in the new millennium. Tendulkar
was, in the most immediate ways, marginal to that
victory. But then the question of what he could do for
his people had long been answered, too. What remains
from that night at the Wankhede the stadium where
his own crowd once booed him off the field, and where
he will have his last bow are the voices of his younger
teammates. Of Virat Kohli saying, he carried us for
years, now well carry him; and of Suresh Raina, before
the semifinal, saying in words what Tendulkar said to
those who watched him every day for two decades:
I am there. So he has been. So, after him, will remain
the country that erupted in fireworks around him that
night; an imaginary homeland, hovering slightly above
the ground, like the cloud of red dust that rises from a
cricket field on an evaporatingly hot day.
Supriya Nair is associate editor

at The Caravan magazine
SHIVAJI PARK SLOG
His exit will leave behind
an imaginary homeland,
hovering slightly above the
ground, like the cloud of red
dust that rises from a cricket
feld on a hot day.
Excellence. Credibility. Tradition.
ALMANACK
HALL OF FAME
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A piece
of our hurt
WHEN THEIR FAVOURITE SON WAS NOT WELL, THE NATION TRULY WANTED
TO KNOW WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM
SAURABH SOMANI
I
f you ask any physiotherapist or trainer, theyll
probably agree that of the various disciplines
in cricket, fast bowling takes the heaviest toll
on the body and batting the lightest. Then you
look at Sachin Tendulkars career, all 24 mind-
boggling years at a time when more high-intensity
cricket is played than ever, and you wonder about the
exceptions to the rule.
Any long career has its challenges, but youre
right that batting in itself is probably the least
physical activity in cricket that you do, said Rahul
Dravid, who knows a thing or two about the strain
batting can take on the body. Still, repetitive batting
for such long periods of time in so many years is
going to have a wear and tear on your body and
Sachin Tendulkar will be no different. Hes had his
share of injuries, operations and surgeries. Its been
remarkable to see how hes been able to keep going.
It requires a special love and passion for the game
to keep playing through, because its not going to
be easy. Its not going to be easy for him to get to
that level of fitness nowadays. So for him to keep
maintaining that and still wanting to go out knowing
fully well that his body is not the body it was ten or
12 years ago, shows that he truly loves the game.
Tendulkars career is remarkable not just for its
CYNOSURE OF ALL EYES
When Tendulkar gets
injured, the whole of India
gets an anatomy lesson is
how Andrew Leipus described
the attention that Tendulkars
injuries would fetch.
SAURABH SOMANI
length but as Dravid said, his ability to return from
serious injuries and continue to maintain fitness for
as long as he has played.
John Gloster, who was the Indian teams
physiotherapist through 2005-2008, had a ringside
view as Tendulkar overcame what possibly was his
most serious injury, the tennis elbow, and emerged
stronger. In the case of Sachin, he had a couple of
well-documented injuries as we know: the elbow
operation and the shoulder operation during my
tenure with the cricket board, said Gloster. Both of
which he recovered from fantastically. But there were
modifications that he had to make during a certain
period of time to overcome that and ensure it didnt
re-occur. It was a matter of limitations in things like
throwing and fielding positions things like that for
a short period of time. In a match situation and in
training.
It was Andrew Leipus, Glosters predecessor
as the Indian team physiotherapist, who provided
the outside perspective of a Tendulkar injury while
declaring that when Tendulkar gets injured, the
whole of India gets an anatomy lesson. This was
after every injury was dissected, diagnosed, cut,
quartered and healed in televisions and newspapers
across the country. When their favourite son was
not well, the nation truly wanted to know what was
wrong with him.
When not at his physical best, Tendulkars batting
also underwent changes, which was but natural.
But as anyone who saw the uninterrupted highlight
reel he dished out from mid-2007 to mid-2011 will
attest, once he was fit, he no longer looked laboured
while batting. There might have been slightly lesser
daredevilry than earlier, but that had nothing to do
with injury, and more to do with team requirements,
naturally changing styles in addition to the natural
desire to keep himself injury-free. Tendulkar shook
off the after-effects of injury well and Gloster said
that by looking at him in match and training, you
wouldnt know hes had to overcome serious injuries
and surgeries.
Gloster agreed that batting was the least
physically taxing discipline, but pointed out that the
length of a career like Tendulkars involved unique
challenges that batsmen dont normally have to face.
I do know, myself having crossed 40, the body
behaves very differently than it does when youre
25 or 30, explained Gloster. Especially when youre
physically stressing it in demanding conditions such
as we have here in the subcontinent. As you get
older, things like tendon tissue and muscle tissue do
change. You dont adapt as well to loads or accept
forces as well, and you recovery processes are slower.
You are subject to different stresses, like long
periods of concentration, long periods of batting in
the sun and the heat. So endurance becomes a really
important thing. When you talk about cricket, its not
just batting, theres 24 years of fielding there as well,
standing at slips, sprinting around. Theres 24 years
The secret of Sachins seemingly tireless body is simple. Because he
knows the game so well, he knows exactly what he has to do in order
to prepare for it. Knowing ones abilities and limitations is a good gift.
- John Gloster
of training, of travel. So you have to look at
it as a complete picture.
What helped Tendulkar was that
alongwith with his incredible talent to
time a cricket ball and his passion to
perfect the art of batting, he had the
physical attributes necessary to cope with
long periods of stress.
Gloster illuminated, Biomechanically,
he has a structure that is less likely to
get injured, because hes more compact,
has shorter levers, more muscle bulk
around joints things like that. So hes
able to protect himself a lot better than
perhaps someone who is a lot taller, and
leaner and more flexible. Hes also very
powerful, so he has a great advantage
there too. It has made him more durable
as well, this ability to absorb loads better
through his joints and his strength around
them. I believe hes quite strong around
the crucial areas, like lower back, knees,
things like that.
In addition, Tendulkar has been a very
smart trainer, knowing what limits to push
when, and what load his body needs in the
lead-up to a season. Gloster advocated a
longer build-up, more graded training
and intensity, and added that physically, if
his body was taken care of properly, there was no
reason his batting would be affected.
For a long time his batting wasnt affected,
and Tendulkar had shown he could come back
spectacularly from injury as well, which could have
been among the reasons he played on in spite of his
form tailing off at the end of the career.
But in addition to his accomplishments on the
field, the sheer physical task of lasting for so long
against so many setbacks
is equally praiseworthy.
Blessed with a dead eye,
unbelievable balance and a
voracious appetite for runs
and perfection, Tendulkar
completed the package by
packing in the mental and physical attributes that
could allow all of these elements to flourish together
for two and a half decades.
THE HEALTH SECRET

Hes more compact, has
shorter levers, more muscle
bulk around joints, says
Gloster. So hes able to
protect himself a lot better
than perhaps someone
who is a lot taller, leaner
and more fexible.
SAURABH SOMANI
FEB 23-25:
SCORES 326 IN A
MARATHON
PARTNERSHIP OF
RUNS WITH
VINOD KAMBLI
FOR SHARDHASHRAM
VIDYAMANDIR IN THE
HARRIS SHIELD
NOV 15:
TEST DEBUT
VS PAKISTAN
IN KARACHI
AT AGE 16
SCORES 57 TO SAVE THE
SIALKOT TEST & THE SERIES
AUG 14:
SCORES 119* VS ENGLAND AT
OLD TRAFFORD, HIS FIRST TEST
CENTURY, TO DRAWTHE MATCH
I DONT THINK YOU WERE COACHED,
BECAUSE ANYONE WHOS BEEN THROUGH
COACHES IS TOLD TO PLAY WITH THE
LEFT ELBOWPOINTED TOWARDS MID-OFF.
YOU DONT DO THAT.
I DIDNT DO THAT.
JAN 4:
COMPOSES A
DETERMINED
241* VS AUSTRALIA
IN SYDNEY,
ABANDONING THE
COVER DRIVE IN
A BID TO REGAIN
FORM
NOV 14:
BIDS ADIEU TO TEST
CRICKET AFTER HAVING
BECOME THE FIRST
CRICKETER TO
PLAY 200 TESTS
DEC 22:
HITS 35TH CENTURY
VS SRI LANKA IN
NEWDELHI,
GOING PAST
SUNIL GAVASKARS
RECORD FOR MOST
TEST CENTURIES
DEC 1:
BAGS 1
FOR 12 &
SCORES
10 IN HIS
ONLY
T20I, VS
SOUTH
AFRICA IN
JOBURG
MAR 16:
BECOMES THE FIRST
CRICKETER TO SCORE
100 INTERNATIONAL
CENTURIES, MAKING 114
IN THE ASIA CUP VS
BANGLADESH IN MIRPUR
DEC 23:
ANNOUNCES HIS RETIREMENT
FROM ODIS, HAVING PLAYED 463
MATCHES, SCORED 18,426 RUNS
& 49 CENTURIES, EACH OF THEM A
WORLD RECORD
JAN 31:
SCORES 136
VS PAKISTAN IN
CHENNAI IN THE
FOURTH INNINGS,
DESPITE BACK
PAIN, TO KEEP
INDIAS CHASE ON
COURSE, BUT HIS
WICKET TRIGGERS
A COLLAPSE AND
INDIA FALL SHORT
BY 12 RUNS DON BRADMAN TO TENDULKAR
SCORES CENTURY
ON DULEEP TROPHY
DEBUT TO ADD TO
DEBUT TONS IN RANJI
TROPHY AND IRANI
TROPHY
FEB 3:
HITS 114 ON A PACY
PERTH PITCH VS
AUSTRALIA IN THE
FIFTH TEST
NOV 14:
FIRST BATSMAN TO BE
DECLARED RUN OUT
BY THE THIRD UMPIRE,
VS SOUTH AFRICA IN
DURBAN
FIRST OVERSEAS
CRICKETER TO
BE SIGNED ON
TO PLAY FOR
YORKSHIRE
FEB 12:
SCORES 165 VS
ENGLAND IN CHENNAI,
HIS FIRST TEST
CENTURY AT HOME
MAR 27:
OPENS FOR THE FIRST
TIME VS NEWZEALAND
IN AUCKLAND, AND A
49-BALL 82 LATER, HE
MAKES THE POSITION
PERMANENTLY HIS
MAR:
BECOMES THE
LEADING SCORER IN
1996 WORLD CUP
WITH A TALLY OF
523 RUNS
APR 1:
LEADS INDIA TO A WIN VS
AUSTRALIA IN KOCHI WITH
A SPELL OF 5 FOR 32, HIS
FIRST FIVE-FOR
IN ODIS
APR 22:
A BELLIGERENT 143
OFF 131 BALLS VS AUSTRALIA
IN SHARJAH IN THE BACKDROP
OF A SAND STORM HELPS INDIA
QUALIFY FOR THE FINALS
APR 24:
SHARJAH GETS AN
ENCORE AS TENDULKAR
HITS 134 IN THE FINAL
VS AUSTRALIA TO HELP
INDIA WIN THE COCA
COLA CUP
FEB-MAR
FINISHES 2003 WORLD CUP AS
HIGHEST SCORER WITH A TALLY
OF 673 RUNS. HIS 98 VS
PAKISTAN IN CENTURION,
WHERE HE UPPER CUT SHOAIB
AKTHAR FOR A SIX, WAS ONE
OF THE HIGHLIGHTS
DEC 18:
ODI DEBUT
VS PAKISTAN IN
GUJRANWALA,
MAKES A DUCK
MAY 23:
SCORES 140* VS KENYA
IN BRISTOL DURING THE
1999 WORLD CUP,
DEDICATES IT TO HIS
FATHER WHO PASSED
AWAY DURING THE
TOURNAMENT
JUL 22:
REAPPOINTED AS
CAPTAIN OF
INDIA, BUT FINDS
ROLE STRESSFUL.
ANNOUNCES
RESIGNATION ON
FEB 20, 2000
DEC 13:
DUCKS TO AVOID
BEING HIT BY A GLENN
MCGRATH DELIVERY
DURING A TEST VS
AUSTRALIA, ONLY TO
BE DECLARED OUT
LBWBY UMPIRE
DARYL HARPER
OCT 30:
SCORES 217 VS NEW
ZEALAND IN AHMEDABAD,
HIS FIRST DOUBLE
CENTURY IN TESTS
JUL 23:
IS PRESENTED A FERRARI BY
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER FOR
EQUALING BRADMANS 29
TEST CENTURIES
MAR-APR:
CHRONIC BACK PAIN
MISSED: PEPSI CUP
TRISERIES IN INDIA
& COCA-COLA CUP
TRISERIES
IN SHARJAH
FEB:
THIGH INJURY
MISSED: ZIMBABWE
TOUR OF INDIA (5 ODIS)
NOV:
HAMSTRING INJURY
MISSED: WEST INDIES
TOUR OF INDIA (7 ODIS)
NOV-DEC
ANKLE & FINGER
INJURY
MISSED: TOUR OF
NEWZEALAND
(FIRST 4 ODIS OF
7-ODI SERIES)
JUL-AUG:
TOE INJURY
MISSED: COCA-COLA
CUP TRISERIES IN SRI
LANKA & TOUR OF SRI
LANKA (3 TESTS)
AUG-OCT:
TENNIS ELBOW
MISSED: VIDEOCON CUP TRISERIES
IN HOLLAND, NATWEST ODI
SERIES VS ENGLAND (3 ODIS),
CHAMPIONS TROPHY 2004 &
AUSTRALIA TOUR OF INDIA (FIRST 2
TESTS IN 4-TEST SERIES)
AUG-OCT:
TENNIS ELBOW
MISSED: INDIANOIL CUP TRISERIES
IN SRI LANKA, TOUR OF ZIMBABWE
(TRISERIES, TWO TESTS) & ICC
SUPER SERIES IN AUSTRALIA (3
ODIS)
MAR-JUN
SHOULDER INJURY
MISSED: HOME ODI
SERIES VS ENGLAND (7
ODIS) & TOUR OF WEST
INDIES (5 ODIS, 4 TESTS)
APR-JUL:
GROIN INJURY
MISSED: TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA
(LAST 2 TESTS IN 3-TEST SERIES), IPL
(7 GAMES), KITPLY CUP TRISERIES IN
BANGLADESH & ASIA CUP
AUG:
ELBOWINJURY
MISSED: TOUR OF SRI
LANKA (5 ODIS)
JAN:
HAMSTRING INJURY
MISSED: TOUR OF SOUTH
AFRICA (LAST 3 ODIS
IN 5-ODI SERIES)
SEPT:
TOE INJURY
MISSED: TOUR
OF ENGLAND
(5 ODIS)
& CLT20
APR-MAY:
FINGER
INJURY
MISSED: IPL
(4 GAMES)
MAY:
WRIST INJURY
MISSED: IPL (5
GAMES)
MAY:
HAND INJURY
MISSED: NONE,
PLAYED IPL FINAL
DESPITE SPLIT
WEBBING
DEC:
KNEE INJURY
MISSED: HOME
SERIES VS
PAKISTAN (3RD
TEST ONLY IN
3-TEST SERIES)
MAR:
ABDOMEN INJURY
MISSED: TOUR OF
NEWZEALAND
(LAST 2 ODIS OF
5-ODI SERIES)
AUG 8:
NAMED CAPTAIN OF
INDIAN TEAM, BUT IT
PROVES TO BE A CROWN
OF THORNS. GETS
SACKED ON JAN 2, 1998
MAY 14:
MAKES HIS IPL DEBUT AS
ICON PLAYER OF MUMBAI
INDIANS, VS CHENNAI SUPER
KINGS IN MUMBAI
MAY:
SCORES 618
RUNS IN IPL
2010 TO TAKE
MUMBAI INDIANS
TO THE FINAL
DEC 15:
STEERS INDIAS
CHASE OF 387 VS
ENGLAND IN CHENNAI,
SCORING 103* TO
SEAL A FAMOUS WIN
SOON AFTER THE
RECENT MUMBAI
TERROR ATTACKS
MAY 24:
MARRIES
ANJALI
SEPT 9:
SCORES 110
VS AUSTRALIA,
HIS FIRST ODI
CENTURY
NOV 24:
BOWLS INDIA TO VICTORY
IN THE LAST OVER OF THE
HERO CUP
SEMIFINAL VS SOUTH AFRICA
IN KOLKATA

WITH SIX RUNS TO DEFEND,
TENDULKAR CONCEDES
ONLY THREE
DEC 14:
GETS A BLOODY NOSE
AFTER BEING HIT BY A
WAQAR YOUNIS
BOUNCER
FEB 24:
HITS 200* VS SOUTH AFRICA
IN GWALIOR, BECOMING THE
FIRST BATSMAN TO HIT A
DOUBLE CENTURY IN ODIS
APR 2:
ACHIEVES CHILDHOOD DREAM
OF WINNING THE WORLD CUP,
DEFEATING SRIL LANKA IN THE
FINAL IN MUMBAI; IS INDIAS
LEADING SCORER IN THE
TOURNAMENT WITH 482
RUNS
1
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By Nisha Shetty
GUIDE
TESTS
ONE-DAY INTERNATIONALS
TWENTY20S
INJURIES
CAREER TIMELINE
of
SACHIN TENDULKAR
The match in which Waqar
smashed his nose
EVEN SACHIN, I AM SURE, DIDNT KNOW THEN THAT HE WOULD SCORE 100 CENTURIES.
BUT WE KNEW HE WOULD DEFINITELY PLAY 100 TESTS, AT LEAST
SALIL ANKOLA
O
ur careers started off almost
simultaneously. Both Sachin and I
made our frst-class debuts in 1988,
and then made our Test entrances in
Karachi the next year. Before that,
during the 1988-89 Ranji Trophy, we were set to
face each other because he was from Bombay and I
was with Maharashtra. I was really looking forward
to playing against him because he had already built
such a reputation around him. We had never seen
each other, so it was exciting. The first time I saw him,
and bowled to him, was in the Ranji Trophy game
in Aurangabad in January 1989. I got a couple of
wickets there, and Sachin scored a half-century (81).
Of course, we have played together and against each
other many times since.
Everyone was talking about him, even before
he scored an unbeaten century on his Ranji Trophy
debut. People were also talking about me, because
I had picked up six wickets, including a hat-trick,
in my debut game against Gujarat. I obviously cant
compare myself to Sachin, because he was already
touted as the next great thing
in Indian cricket, but I also had
a decent reputation. Then came
the Pakistan tour. We were both
IN ELITE COMPANY
The team for the 1989
tour of Pakistan was
packed with stars such
as Kapil, Azhar, Shastri
and Srikkanth.
SALIL ANKOLA
young. He was only a kid. It was an extremely tough
tour. All the heroes we had heard of were there Kapil
(Dev), (Krishnamachari) Srikkanth, Ravi (Shastri),
Azhar (Mohammad Azharuddin) and Imran Khan,
Javed Miandad and Salim Malik for them.
Off the field, everyone was very warm. But on
the field, there was a lot of barracking; the fans were
very emotional. It was like a ground full of people
against us. But that sort of thing also charged us up.
But neither Sachin nor I had very memorable debuts
in Karachi. I, of course, never got a chance to play
Test cricket again, but thats another story.
Whenever you play for your country, there are
butterflies in your stomach, which settle only once
you start playing. Its just nervous tension and you
need to get it out of your system as soon as possible.
The seniors didnt speak to me much before the game.
Ravi was the only one to speak to me. He supported
me a lot on that series. I dont know how it was for
Sachin, but he was very nervous. Of course he was.
The Sialkot Test was a memorable one. I had torn
a muscle in Faisalabad and couldnt play the next
two Tests, but the fourth Test was played on a very
grassy pitch in Sialkot. I was fully fit, but still didnt
get picked, while Mani (Maninder Singh), who was
picked instead, was given just one over to bowl in the
Pakistan innings.
That was the match in which Waqar (Younis)
smashed Sachins nose. We were all so scared.
Everyone remembers how Sachin continued batting
and got a half-century. He became more determined
when things went against him.
I knew he would make it very big. Not just me,
everyone knew. That he would play 200 Tests and
score so many runs, of course, no one could predict.
These things have happened over the years. Even
Sachin, I am sure, didnt know then that he would
score 100 centuries. But we knew he would definitely
play 100 Tests, at least. There was always an aura
around Sachin, even as a kid.
When we went to Pakistan, he was a baby, but
he had the mind of a 100 year old. He has always
been wise beyond his years. He was so mature in
his batting even then. I dont think he ever repeated
mistakes. The more you try to drag him down, the
stronger he gets. They tried to rib him in Pakistan,
saying things about how young he was, but he only
became more determined.
I played with him off and on for the Indian team,
but we got close when I shifted to Mumbai from
Maharashtra. We were also colleagues at Sungrace
Mafatlal, and played together for them.
He always gave it his best whether playing
a Test match or for Sungrace. He never relaxed.
Sometimes you dont want to risk injuries when you
are playing for your office or club, but he was always
100 per cent. That still hasnt changed.
Salil Ankola, who played one Test and 20 ODIs for
India, spoke to Shamya Dasgupta
Sachin will remain amongst the top three batters I have watched. For
pure technique and for effortlessly shouldering the burden of more
than a billion people day in and day out.
- Shaun Pollock
I prayed for
Sachin
HE WAS VERY LIKEABLE AND ASKED ME TO HELP HIM FIX
HIS BAT THAT HAD BECOME TOO WHIPPY
MUSHTAQ MOHAMMAD
M
y old friend, Sunil Gavaskar, told
me before Indias tour of Pakistan
in 1989 to look out for this child
prodigy who he felt would one
day be a wonder of the world.
From that moment on, I took a special interest in
Sachin Tendulkar. I was myself once regarded a child
prodigy, having made my Test debut at 15.
Because of that connection between us, I have
followed his career with great interest over the years
and have even prayed for the lad at times. I always
wanted him to do well.
But back in 89, I was especially curious to take a
look at the young boy after Sunils endorsement, as I
wanted to compare him to myself at that age, and to
another who was my protg, Javed Miandad.
And after seeing him in that series and then on
the England tour in 1990, I concluded that Sachin
was the best child cricketer I had seen. I knew he was
going to have a big career.
The way he handled himself against Wasim
Akram, Imran Khan, a young Waqar Younis and the
brilliant Abdul Qadir was very impressive. Pakistan
had one of the best bowling attacks around, yet his
technique was and always has been immaculate.
I met him properly for the first time on the 1990
tour of England, when India
played a warm-up match at
Smethwick. He was very likeable
and asked me to help him fix his
bat that had become too whippy.
I was amazed how heavy that bat
was, for such a small boy!
Now, as he prepares for his
200th Test, I congratulate him on
a remarkable achievement and I
am pleased he is retiring on his
own terms rather than waiting
for the tap on the shoulder.
People have asked me many
times over the years who I rate
the best out of Sachin and Brian
Lara, and its a question that is not
easily answered. Each have their
own merits. Sachin obviously has
many records to his credit and his
longevity has been sensational,
though Lara has maybe won more
matches for his team while playing
in an inferior batting line-up.
Sachin would maybe rue the fact that he never
scored a Test triple-century, as he had the talent to do
it, but overall he has so much to be proud of. Garfield
Sobers remains the best cricketer I have ever seen,
but I thank God that he kept me alive long enough to
witness Tendulkars 25-year career.
Mushtaq Mohammad, the only

cricketer younger than Tendulkar
to have scored a century when
Tendulkar achieved the feat at
the age of 17 years and 107 days
in August 1990, spoke to Richard
Sydenham
GENIUS DUO
Sachin obviously has
many records to his credit
and his longevity has been
sensational, though Lara
has maybe won more
matches for his team while
playing in an inferior
batting line-up.
He is made of the right stuff. Its in his genes: he has the maturity
and good sense to acknowledge all the adulation with calm modesty.
Perhaps deep down, he knows that it is only a game.
- David Frith
MUSHTAQ MOHAMMAD
India were meek, but
Sachin just had that look
MATTHEW HAYDEN, JOHN WRIGHT, SOURAV GANGULY, MUTTIAH MURALITHARAN
AND ALAN WILKINS ON TENDULKAR
KRITIKA NAIDU
O
n November 14, 2013, when Sachin
Tendulkar walks out to play Test
cricket for the last time on his home
turf at the Wankhede Stadium in
Mumbai, it will be the culmination
of many childhoods. The day will, incidentally, mark
his completion of 24 years in international cricket the
longevity being testimony to his love and commitment
towards the game.
It is easy to get carried away by his long list of
batting records, but the number of cricketers whove
played Test cricket for India with and after him is
enough to validate why he generates the kind of
frenzy that he does across India. Rahul Dravid and
Sourav Ganguly, two of Tendulkars contemporaries
who made their debut after him, are well into their
retirement. Some of the cricketers, who will carry
him for a lap of honour after his last Test, were
infants when Tendulkar made his debut in 1989.
The appreciation for Tendulkar however, isnt
just restricted to India; its universal. So much that
it is believed, an Australian fan once came to the
ground with a placard that read: Commit all your
crimes when Sachin is batting, because even the
Lord is watching.
The first decade of Tendulkars international
career coincided with Australias dominance in
world cricket, which is why those who saw him make
a century at the WACA in Perth in 1992 are still in
awe of it. Matthew Hayden, the former Australian
opener, made his debut a good five years after
Tendulkar. In terms of age however, Hayden is a lot
older. But, when he talks about his first impression of
Tendulkar, it is easy to see the dynamism he thought
Tendulkar brought to the team.
The first time I saw Sachin was in 1991-92. My
first impression of him was that he was incredibly
small; he was just tiny for his reputation which was
building at that stage, Hayden recollects. It wasnt
really full-fledged, but it was certainly building. His
bat seemed wider than Sachin himself. He treated
Australia with a fantastic summer of cricket. Most
times as well, India was a meek and mild-natured
sort of a cricket team. It had guys like Kapil Dev in
the side which was phenomenal, but it didnt really
have that kind of punch required to win in Australia.
Sachin was just that he just had this look; that
stature and aura that came with his presence that
brought confidence into the side.
Two years before the century in Perth, Tendulkar
missed out on being the youngest centurion in Test
history on New Zealand soil. He was out caught
by John Wright off Danny Morrison on 88. Heart-
breaking for a 16-year-old, youd think. A decade
later, Wright and Tendulkar would share the same
dressing room, scheming against the common
enemy in the capacity of a coach and a senior player,
respectively.
I first saw him as a rival player when he was
just 16. I interacted with him a lot when I was the
India coach and then as the Mumbai Indians coach
it has been a pleasure working with him. The best
part is that Sachin hasnt changed since he was 16
in his approach towards the game. He continues to
be sincere, hardworking and very dedicated. He has
kept it simple. He is the same old Sachin a great
person and a tremendous cricketer.
I think it was in 2003 when I told him he could
score a hundred hundreds. It was just a matter of
simple arithmetic, looking at the number of runs he
was scoring every year and the number of years he
had left. I thought it was quite obvious. I have seen
him closely for years. Youngsters can learn from him.
He still looks keen and fresh.
While Hayden and Wright echoed the views of
many former players and coaches, Alan Wilkins,
an illustrious commentator who has followed
Tendulkars career from the commentary box for
years now, brings in a completely offbeat dimension
to the insights.
Wilkins, like everyone else doesnt perceive
Tendulkar as just a virtuoso. He recognises the art
within the game instead, and has a different outlook.
I first saw Sachin in 1996. I have always felt that he
has been the grand artistic architect of everything he
has set out to do with his bat. In his mind, he has
known, because he has plotted, designed, imagined
and visualised every innings he has played. He has
his own parameters, he knows how to work within
them and he knows how to deliver from within them.
For me, two innings best illustrate this: the 2003
ICC Cricket World Cup against Pakistan at Centurion
when Shoaib Akhtar tested every facet of Tendulkars
skill and courage. 98 from 75 balls launched India to
a win over their great rivals, but, importantly, it was
Tendulkars method that set the tone that Pakistan
from the outset.
Secondly, in 2004 at the SCG, Tendulkar fashioned
a double century that answered not only his critics,
but also his own doubts, as to his contribution to
the Indian team on that tour of Australia. Up to that
Test he had struggled on the tour, and this innings
KRITIKA NAIDU
demonstrated the sheer willpower of his mind to
contribute to Indias cause at the expense of his
natural ability to entertain.
Tendulkar is not just a man for all seasons; he is
a man for all reasons.
Steve Waugh, the former Australian captain, who
was known for his grit and fighting spirit knows all
about the pressures of playing a cricket game. So
much that he goes one step further in recognising
and acknowledging the pressure and expectations
that Sachin carried in every game that he went out
to play for India.
It is very amazing just to think that Sachin has
been there for over 20 years on the top. That is
hard enough to do in any cricket side, but I think it
is doubly hard to do it when you are representing
India and you are out there and 1.2 billion people are
watching and praying on every move that it is going
to be positive. So to handle that sort of pressure
you have to be mentally very strong. And I think he
compartmentalises very well, so he can put things
in boxes and figure out things and concentrate on
the job at hand. But at the same time his love for
batting is very important, he loves to score runs, he
has got the unquenchable thirst for making runs and
hundreds. He tends to relax between the balls pretty
well. So he has caught almost the unique focus where
he can concentrate for that split second when he has
to and then he can tune off and that helps him bat
long periods.
When Tendulkar is the subject of discussion,
leaving out the views of one of the worlds greatest
spinners and the highest wicket-taker in Test history
Muttiah Muralitharan would be unfair. Tendulkar
has enjoyed many successful battles against the spin
wizard, and Muralitharan sums it up best when he
says the only way out against a rampaging Tendulkar
was hoping he would commit a mistake.
I was very impressed by Sachin when he was
very young; he was a very attacking batsman. And
after that he became a great player and now he is
one of the best players in the world. I dont think
anybody will ever be able to break the record of 100
international hundreds.
I have played against him and I must confess it
was really tough to bowl against him. You cant find
weaknesses in Tendulkar because he is perfect when
it comes to batting. And we can only hope that on
a particular day he does something wrong, and we
can capitalise. Tendulkar has no weak area where
you can bowl to, but human beings make mistakes
and we sometimes hope he does that too. But the
best thing about Sachin is in how he has his feet on
the ground. I think it is the most important thing
because however successful you are, you have to be
humble. Sachin is humble. That is the way of life and
that is how things come to you.
Nobody sums up Tendulkars parting better than
Sourav Ganguly, the former Indian captain; someone
Tendulkar had remarkable success with as an opener,
He stands proudly for India and plays with his heart on his sleeve for
the pride of his country. Not many people can have that position in a
countrys psyche!
- Bret Lee
WIZ COMPLIMENT
Tendulkar has no weak
area where you can bowl
to, says Muralitharan,
but human beings make
mistakes and we sometimes
hope he does that too.
a great friend, teammate and someone Sachin
played under. Ganguly and Tendulkar together
changed the dynamism of batting for openers in
One-Day Internationals and set the trend that would
later be matched, if not bettered, by the likes of
Hayden and Adam Gilchrist or Virender Sehwag and
Gautam Gambhir.
For me it doesnt matter whether he gets
a hundred or not in his final Test; he will still be
one of the best. He will always be the champion he
is. He has made the right decision, going out on a
high at his home ground. He deserves every bit of
the adulation he is getting; its the right send-off for
a champion. While he would have been celebrating
in South Africa, all of this that has happened
in Kolkata and that will happen in Mumbai
wouldnt have happened. I am happy he is going on
his own terms.
KRITIKA NAIDU
He meant so much to
the common man
TENDULKAR, BY VIRTUE OF HIS ACTIONS ON AND OFF THE FIELD, HAS INFLUENCED
COUNTLESS LIVES AND EVEN SHAPED THE CAREERS OF MANY
SIDHANTA PATNAIK AND DISHA SHETTY
A
loke Shetty is an ad flmmaker who
follows cricket religiously. His
Facebook profle picture is of him
wearing a pullover of the Indian
cricket team. It is not that but his
snap with Sachin Tendulkar that has garnered him more
likes. He spent close to an hour with Tendulkar before
the 2011 World Cup and has not grown tired reminiscing
the joy of that day.
I could not believe it when I was asked to
direct Nikes advertising campaign for the Indian
team, says Shetty. A country where reverence for
Tendulkar is unmatched, a chance to work with him
has its own set of complexities. Stage fright could
make the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity count for
nothing. Such moments require mental preparation.
Shetty was understandably flustered. The day
before the shoot, I was nervous just thinking how to
direct one of my lifetime idols.
He found his rhythm back through his body of
work. I revisited my old assignments and calmed
myself. Next day, I woke up with recharged batteries,
remembers Shetty. It was chaotic at the set but
suddenly there was a collective silence. I turned
around and Tendulkar was standing behind me.
He trusted my abilities and agreed for many
retakes. That settled me down. Prior arrangements
had been made to capture the day. As a production
FAN FOLLOWING
In 2011, I skipped a close friends
wedding in India to travel to England and
watch Sachin in the Lords Test. I have
already applied for leave to be in Mumbai
for his 200th game, says Nitin Bajaj.
gimmick, I purposely rotated around Tendulkar and
my assistant director clicked many pictures. Those
are my lifetime possessions.
Tendulkar has touched millions directly or
indirectly. The individual bonds he has built over 25
years of mastery can be measured in the freshness
that the anecdotes retain even after innumerable
retellings.
He kept his promise, recalls Vaibhav Garg, who
clicked a picture with Tendulkar in Delhi during the
2012 Indian Premier League. When I approached
him, he was busy and asked if we could do it after
the match. Next day he fulfilled my wish.
This story starts in mid 1988. Sam Panchamukhi
read about Tendulkar for the first time in a national
magazine after his unbeaten 664-run stand with
Vinod Kambli for Shardashram Vidyamandir in the
Harris Shield semifinal. A little later, in January 1989,
Nitin Bajaj heard him speak to Tom Alter on television.
Around the same time, in Mumbai, his father through
the newspaper enlightened Rahul Teny about their
citys new boy wonder. Dr. Sumanta Chakraborty was
just nine years old when Abdul Qadir was hit for four
sixes in one over in an exhibition match.
Today Panchamukhi, Bajaj, Teny and Chakraborty
hold strategic posts in their respective domains.
Tendulkar remains the sole link in their chaotic
transition from childhood to adulthood, a familiar
branch, whose growth gave initial identity to many
and helped them track their own progress.
I belong to a generation who have Sachin to
thank for not only being a role model, when there
werent any, but also for giving us a sense of self-
confidence about ourselves, observes Bajaj.
Tendulkars status as a positive icon and his deep
desire to win struck Panchamukhi, who started his
career around the same time as the 1989 Karachi
Test, the most. Today, like Tendulkar, Panchamukhi
has an exemplary portfolio. He was one of the
creative minds behind the 2010 Commonwealth
Games and 2011 ICC World Cup ceremonies.
For Teny, Tendulkar influenced the choice of his
profession. As a kid, he motivated me to give my
best and was the accelerant in my decision to join
the sports marketing industry as far back as 1998.
Chakraborty, vice-president of a national bank,
has refused to grow up when it comes to his favourite
cricketer. I am so absorbed with Sachin that even
today I am intolerant to any criticism against him
and pick up fights with people easily.
Like Chakraborty, priorities remain fixed for
Bajaj. In 2011, I skipped a close friends wedding
in India to travel to England and watch Sachin in
the Lords Test. I have already applied leave to be in
Mumbai for his 200th game.
Tendulkar has grown to be a tree of wisdom and
each of his innings has edified many. I was at the
SCG when he scored 241 without a single cover drive.
After that I cut out waste work at job and focused on
my strengths, notes Lagnajeet Pattanayak, who lived
We have this running competition between ourselves in the Bangladeshi
team to see who can get him out so that we can talk about it years later
when we all have quit the game.
- Shakib Al Hasan
in Australia for a while. Sumanth DS, an entrepreneur
with multiple interests, has learned the importance of
teamwork from Tendulkars hundreds in lost causes.
Yogesh Gandhi started to back his abilities by
observing the work ethics of a 40-year-old Tendulkar.
At 32, he started running and recently completed a
half-marathon in Pune.
Amrit Mishra went home from the middle of a
haircut to see Tendulkar attack Pakistans bowling in
the 1998 Independence Cup final. Mishra no more
basks in reflective glory and today leads a diversified
life. He has a day job in Hyderabads IT sector, reads
literature, goes on road trips for fun and has trekked
to the Everest base camp. Tendulkar has driven
home the importance of adapting to changes and I
have implemented it in my life.
While experience has made Mishra logical, Niyanti
Verma, a 22-year-old girl from Agra, who shares
her birthday with the little
master, considers Tendulkar
to be an extension of herself.
I always use products that
are endorsed by Sachin. Then
there is Leon Samuel, a BPO
employee, who energises himself during long hours
on the shift through Tendulkars sketch, drawn by
him, fixed over his workstation.
Zenia Dcunha was at the Wankhede Stadium
for the 2012 England Test when Tendulkar got out
cheaply and she grasped the essence of the story.
The North Stand became silent. Grown up men
started crying thinking that it was his last outing at
home. He meant so much to the common man.
The last day at home is not far away. That will
end a habit for those whose age was defined by
Tendulkars time on the field.
WORK WORSHIP
Tendulkar trusted my
abilities and agreed
for many retakes, says
Aloke Shetty who shot an
advertising campaign with
the Indian team.
ALOKE SHETTY
No tantrums, soft spoken,
never tough on people
FORMER TEAMMATE AND FRIEND SUBROTO BANERJEE
ON HOW AND WHY TENDULKAR IS WHO HE IS
SIDHANTA PATNAIK
F
or Subroto Banerjee, 1989 brings back
memories of a friendship that is one of
his cherished possessions. His impressive
bowling performance for Bihar had earned
him a call-up to the Rest of India squad for
the Irani Trophy game against Delhi. The match is best
remembered for Sachin Tendulkars unbeaten 103, after
which he was selected for his maiden tour of Pakistan.
Though Banerjee did not play the game, the occasion
formed the genesis of his bonding with Tendulkar.
It all started in 1989 when he came to bat at the
MRF pace foundation, and during the Irani Trophy
our friendship just clicked, reminisces Banerjee,
currently engaged as the coach of Jharkhand. After
I got selected for India, the tour of Australia was for
five and a half months. Then we were in South Africa
and Zimbabwe for three and a half months and went
to Sharjah too. So, you can imagine the amount of
time we spent during those days.
Dennis Lillee had once famously said that if he
had to bowl to Tendulkar then he would do that with
his helmet on. Lillee had actually bowled to the little
master once and it was when Banerjee saw Tendulkar
for the first time. Sachin requested Dennis Lillee and
Vasu Paranjpe to face Lillee after the end of regular
nets at the MRF academy, remembers Banerjee. We
saw him smash Lillee, who first
bowled from four paces. After
that Lillee requested for his
spikes and pumped in really fast.
Tendulkar continued
without any fear and that left an impression on
Banerjee. The cute little boy amazed us with his
footwork. The moment he tackled Lillee, one of the
best in the business, we straightaway knew that he
would soon be playing for India.
Banerjee, four years older to his friend, was also
astonished by the young boys maturity. I used to
pick his brain a lot. Even those days, when he was
young, there was clarity in his answers. He was
aggressive and never spoke negatively.
It was in Banerjees debut Test match at Sydney
in January 1992 that Tendulkar became the youngest
cricketer to score a century in Australia. Banerjee
remembers how that unbeaten knock of 148 uplifted
the dressing rooms confidence. Their bowlers were
quick and bouncing us but his positivity stood out.
Ravi (Shastri) got a double-hundred but Sachins
innings was an eye-opener, he says. It told us that
if you are a big-hearted player, have high ambitions
then circumstances can never be a limitation. That
innings inspired all of us.
Banerjee feels that it is Tendulkars mentality
that kept him going for 25 years in the international
circuit. His first priority has always been to see how
his score can help the team. That is why he got runs
consistently for so long.
Also as a human being, away from the public
gaze, he has remained grounded. He is the simplest
cricketer you can ever think of, says Banerjee. Leave
aside cricket, just as a person he is awesome. Easily
accessible, approachable, no tantrums, soft spoken,
never tough on people, he helps anyone he can both
inside and outside the dressing room.
It is because todays generation of cricketers
have followed his work ethics, that they are all
playing so well.
Banerjee chuckles before admitting that he has
benefitted from his friendship with Tendulkar. Of
course, I have picked up quite a bit from my friend. I
took advantage of being close to him.
He is, however, quick to guard his closeness
with his mate. He is a very private person outside
of cricket. Therefore it is not right for me to share
anecdotes with you from his personal life, he
mentions. Banerjee believes that Tendulkar cannot
be away from cricket for long after retirement. He
will go on a holiday, spend time with us and then will
be soon back in cricket.
Whatever Tendulkar plans to do after his playing
career, Banerjee will be among the first few to know
about it.
CLEAN IMAGE
He is the simplest
cricketer you can ever
think of, says Banerjee
of his teammate from the
1992 tour of Australia.
SIDHANTA PATNAIK
Beyond just
the hundreds
A PROFILE OF TENDULKARS BEST BELOW-100 SCORES IN TESTS AND ODIS
SAURABH SOMANI
I
f you enjoy an extended run at the topmost
rung of any profession, it is only natural that
you build up a body of chef doeuvre, no matter
what you do. For a Sachin Tendulkar, the
canvas is so vast that the focus is automatically
narrowed by numbers to some extent. You speak of his
greatest innings, and you think of his centuries.
Simon Barnes wrote memorably and movingly
of Tendulkars quest for the 100th international
hundred and the struggle it entailed. If you have to
cherry pick moments from his career, it is likely that
most of them will be comprised of the 99 centuries
that preceded the 100th, but in some ways, that
would be gross injustice.
Tendulkar has had several innings where he
might not have touched three figures, but which
were no less significant, no less exhilarating and no
less memorable. Heres a selection from among the
ones that left a lasting impact.
57 vs Pakistan, Sialkot 1989
In his debut series, already looked at as a prodigy even
though he was all of 16 years old, Tendulkar was up
against Imran Khans formidable Pakistan side in their
own den. He had already scored a half-century in the
second Test, rescuing India from 101 for 4 with Sanjay
Manjrekar. In the fourth and final match, Tendulkar
walked in at 38 for 4 with Navjot Singh Siddhu at the
crease, and Pakistan with their tails up. The first three
Tests had been drawn, and Pakistans pace attack
was sniffing blood with the chance of a Test and
series win. Tendulkar weathered the storm of Imran,
Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in a century stand
with Siddhu during which the umpires had to warn
the bowlers against intimidatory bowling. In what
has now become part of folkore, he carried on after
a nose bloodied by a bouncer, waving off assistance
or offers to retire hurt. The volume of runs wasnt
overwhelming, but the volume of talent and spunk in
one so young was staggering, and served to confirm
the growing opinion that India had unearthed a once-
in-a-generation talent.
82 vs New Zealand, Auckland 1994
The knock that kickstarted Tendulkars career as an
opener non-pareil in One-Day Internationals and
the greatest ODI batsman the game has known. By
1994, Tendulkar was already established as one of
the worlds best batsmen, and had the feats in Test
cricket to back it up. With his promotion to the top of
the order following a stiff neck to Siddhu, he ensured
that he caught up quickly in ODIs too. In 49 balls,
Tendulkar smashed 15 fours and two sixes on the
way to 82 a strike-rate that would draw praise in
a Twenty20 match, and one that was unheard of in
1994. Since that innings, for the rest of his ODI career
over 18 years, Tendulkar averaged over 47 and took
less than three innings to pass 50 on average.
44 vs West Indies, Trinidad 1997
In what could have gone down as an unremarkable
innings in an unremarkable match, if you looked at
only the score or the result, Tendulkar produced
what might be his shortest masterclass. India were
up against Curtly Ambrose on fire, and Ambroses
support cast included Ian Bishop, Courtney Walsh
and Franklyn Rose. It was the first ODI after the
Test series, and India were rolled over for 179, but
Tendulkar was batting on a seemingly different
surface from the one that hissed and spat at the
other Indian batsmen. Given out caught off his sleeve,
Tendulkar made 44 off 43, with ten boundaries each
struck more sweetly than the last. Nayan Mongias 29
was Indias next highest score, and he plodded for 75
balls to get there. Tendulkar himself has spoken of
this innings as among the ones he remembers when
talking of batting in the zone.
76 and 65 vs Australia, February 2001
VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh were the headline
stars in Indias greatest Test series triumph when
Steve Waughs all-conquering Australians were
stopped at the final frontier. Rahul Dravid was the
brightest member of the supporting cast, and for the
opposition, Matthew Hayden loomed like a colossus.
Its not entirely surprising therefore, that Tendulkars
Like any other great player, he has an array of shots, but more often
than not he sticks to the basics. Personally, his straight drive is very
pleasing. He is a complete batsman.
- Mike Gatng
SAURABH SOMANI
contributions form part of the background for this
series, but what a background it was. The record will
show that Australia won by ten wickets in the first
Test in Mumbai, masking just how close the Test was,
and how it ebbed and flowed. And in both innings for
India, it was Tendulkar who stood tall, and mostly
alone. He made 76 and 65, and the next highest for
India in both innings was Nayan Mongias 26 not out
and Sadagoppan Rameshs 44. In the first innings,
it needed a peach from Glenn McGrath in the
corridor and shaping away to get Tendulkar and in
the second innings, an unbelievable catch by Ricky
Ponting after the ball had ricocheted off Justin Langer
at short leg. Before those two dismissals, Tendulkar
drove the ball down the ground with majesty, cut
fast bowlers with disdain and flicked spin with ease.
Masterly was the only word to describe his batting.
98 vs Pakistan, March 2003
Possibly Tendulkars most famous innings that
didnt reach triple figures, in a crucial match with
an occasion, opponent and setting to match. It didnt
get bigger than a World Cup match against Pakistan,
and faced with a stiff chase, Tendulkar once again
soared above the levels that other batsmen had
reached in a match that saw many good innings.
Shoaib Akhtars first over disappeared for two fours
and a six over point perhaps the most astonishing
shot of the match because of the complete authority
and dismissal it contained against the worlds fastest
bowler. Neither Akhtar nor Akram and Younis could
dent Tendulkar, who raced to 98 off a mere 75 balls.
It took an unexpected snorter from Akhtar to finally
dismiss him, but by then Indias chase was on track
and Pakistans bowlers were off it. There hasnt been
an exhibition of batting that packed so much ferocity
into such sweetly timed and elegantly played shots
within such a short space of time before or since.
WORLD CUP MAGIC

There hasnt been an
exhibition of batting
that packed so much
ferocity into such
elegantly played shots
since Tendulkars 98 at
Centurion in 2003.
Shaping legendary
strokes
THE MAN WHO CARVES BATS FOR TENDULKAR OFFERS AN INTIMATE GLIMPSE OF
THE BATSMANS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS FAVOURITE TOOL
KRITIKA NAIDU
F
or some, cricket is a passion. For others like
Ram Bhandari, it is more than just a game.
It takes just one glance at his workshop in
the bylanes of a modest housing colony in
South Bangalore to understand why many
regard him as crickets bat doctor. For the better part
of the last decade, Bhandari has been carving bats
to the specifications of cricketers across the state
and country. Among his clientele are Ricky Ponting,
Matthew Hayden and even Chris Gayle. But he talks
about two gentlemen with most fondness Sachin
Ramesh Tendulkar and Rahul Sharad Dravid. Both
have found a great deal of comfort in getting their
willows customised from him.
He remembers his first interaction with
Tendulkar as if it was yesterday. It was in 2004
when he was at the NCA in Bangalore, he recollects,
before adding that he made some adjustments to
Tendulkars bat. He didnt realise then that the
association would continue for almost a decade.
Tendulkar was facing excruciating pain in his
elbow and back in 2007, and hence, he had a problem
with the weight of the bat, says Bhandari. So I
reduced the weight of his bat and he started using
a considerably light bat thereafter. Then gradually
towards 2011, he went back to the old, heavy bat
that he had used in 2004.
Bhandari considers himself lucky to have
designed the bats of several international cricketers,
but believes the minor adjustments he made to
Dravids bat were what got him noticed among
several other cricketers.
When Rahul Dravid was playing for the state in
the Ranji Trophy, he called me to the dressing room
and told me he needed me to fix his bat. After seeing
that the bat was of the perfect balance and weight,
and was producing the desired results, other players
began calling me and getting their bats done.
When players practised at the NCA, I used to sit
and watch them for hours together. I would observe
their footwork, batting style, balance and strokes.
Since I used to play a bit myself, I had a fair idea
about bats too. So when a batsman would come to
me with an adjustment to be made, I would know
exactly what was needed as I knew how much curve,
width and weight a bat would generally require.
You can tell the difference between footwork
and body language when a bat is heavy or light; or
how strokes change with a curved bat. With these
observations and what their requirements were, I go
about modifying them.
Like every profession, crafting bats is no childs
play and Bhandaris hands are testimony to the kind
of effort and skill it requires, especially in an age
where the bats are predominantly heavy and meatier
than ever before.
It is very tough, says Bhandari. My hands get
pricked and cut quite often with shards of wood.
Sometimes I cut myself with the saw, sometimes
with the grinding machine. With the dust that
emanates from grinding, I have dust allergy; I have
constant bouts of coughing. With the smell of the
adhesives, my eyes burn. I have severe headaches,
and experience dizziness. I have to go out to get
some fresh air, and then get on with the job at hand.
Its definitely not easy, but I havent thought of giving
it up ever.
Bhandari, who started fine-tuning bats for
cricketers in the early 2000s, has not had it easy,
but theres no doubting his passion for the craft. He
picked up most of it by mere observation, assisting
his grandfather who was a carpenter. He did menial
jobs to begin with, but eventually, ended up aiding
some of the best cricketers in the world.
I have worked on the bats of not just Indian
cricketers, but international players like Ricky
Ponting, Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul,
Matthew Hayden, Brad Haddin and Dilshan, he says,
the satisfaction and happiness evident.
Bhandari first began modifying bats when P Doshi,
the owner of a sports store in Gandhi Nagar, handed
him two bats on a trial basis. Once the experiment
was successful, he began to improvise. He believes
that working with Doshi gave him encouragement
and propelled him in the right direction.
Every player has different preferences and
I dont believe there will be another Tendulkar, and his achievements
on the cricket field will never be matched. Like Sir Donald Bradmans
batting average of 99.94.
- Graeme Hick
WOOD WORK
You can tell the difference
between footwork and
body language when a
bat is heavy or light, says
Bhandari, who carves
Tendulkars bats.
the make of the bats are also different
depending on the companies, explains
Bhandari. In India, we have about ten
to 15 bat companies that have different
dyes; their curves are different, bottom
weights are different. For each player, the
level of modification differs with their
style of batting, the bats they use and the
bat manufacturers.
Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir
and Dravid play with lightweight bats,
whereas MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Virat
Kohli play with bats of normal weight,
around 1250 grams, he says. Players
like Gayle and Tendulkar use heavy bats
that weigh around 1350 grams.
The one factor that gives him most
satisfaction is the fact that none of his
revisions have gone wrong. I only do
what Im asked to do by the players;
their requirements are what I pay heed
to. They test the modified bats in their
net sessions and if it suits their game,
they use the blades thereafter. Besides,
why would players keep coming back
to me if they havent had success after
what Ive done?
Although bat manufacturers have never
approached Bhandari, he would not like to collaborate
or work with anyone. Hes a one-man show. This is
my life; my bread and butter, he says, while working
on a bat from the many he has stacked in a small,
dim room in his workshop. I am not interested in
working for a big company. I am comfortable and
happy where I am.
As the conversation veers towards Tendulkar
and the topic of his retirement, one cant help but
feel Bhandaris admiration. There is emotion in
his voice when he echoes the
sentiments of millions of fans
across the country, gearing
up to cheer their hero one
last time.
Sachin is a genius player
and someone like him cannot be born ever again;
not just in India, but in the world, he says. He has
played some amazing knocks and his career has
spanned so many years its just amazing. The only
thing that is left for him to achieve is breaking Laras
record of 400 runs. I hope he can sign off with tons
in both his final Tests.
KRITIKA NAIDU
GREATS
ON THE
LAWN
What do two men
whove transcended
eras in their respective
sports speak of when
they meet? Perhaps
Tendulkar recounted
his childhood dream
of emulating John
McEnroe to Federer.
BOTTOM
HAND OF
SUCCESS

After a dispiriting World
Cup campaign in 2007,
a shiny, new trophy after
winning the three-Test
series 1-0 in England,
puts a smile back on
Tendulkars face.
PITCHING
IN LINE
Wherever he is in the
world, crowds, red
carpets and adulation
are never too far from
Tendulkar.
FOOT ON
THE GAS

At ease in Mark Webbers
machine, Tendulkars
love for fast cars is
second only to his love
for batting. Did India
trade in a potential F1
winner for a batting
champion?
TWEAK IN
THE TALE
He could give it a rip,
or keep it on length
and had a googly that
was good enough to
deceive batsmen even
in the drawing room.
Tendulkar, the bowler,
was a joyous sight who
made things happen.
A CUP OF
EMOTION
A man who has been
Indias Atlas, carrying the
hopes and expectations
of a nation whenever
he walks on the feld,
is overwhelmed by
emotion in the arms
of Yuvraj Singh as his
childhood dream of
winning the World Cup
is fulflled in his sixth
attempt.
KING
PONG
Competitiveness
was inscribed in
Tendulkars DNA. On
his maiden tour in
1989, every table-tennis
defeat was avenged by
the 16-year-old.
RANJI
RIGOUR
When he played for
Mumbai, Tendulkar
inspired victories on the
feld, and afection
and admiration in
spades of it.
EVERY-
WHERE
MAN
In the thick of the action,
at all times.
HELPING
HAND
Whenever Dhoni
needed help, Tendulkar
was one of the few
people he would turn to.
After Kolkata, in Chennai, back in 2001, it was understandable that everyone was talking
of Laxman and Dravid, and Harbhajans feats with the ball. On the eve of the series decider in
Chennai, Peter Roebuck came to the nets, not to fle copy but just to watch. I cant recall more
than a handful of deliveries getting past Tendulkars bat during that session. He doesnt like
being on the periphery, you know? said Roebuck, a man of few words, to an awed young man
covering just his second Test. Big hundred coming up. You can take it for granted.
Tendulkar made 126. When you summon up his most crucial or beautiful hundreds,
this is unlikely to feature. But I, for one, will never forget three fours in an over of Warne,
each ramped over the slips with a nonchalance and mastery that had the bowler at the end
of his tether. Tendulkar the dominator, and Roebuck the clairvoyant Ill remember both
with equal fondness.
It was in 1994, in Hyderabad, the Wills Trophy was underway, with Tendulkar leading
Bombay. After their practice session at the Gymkhana Ground in Secunderabad, a couple
of us journalists approached him for a short chat and Tendulkar was more than happy to
oblige. As we huddled around him, an unfamiliar voice asked, Dont you think Pakistan are
better than India? They will beat India every time, wont they?
As we whirled around to identify the source of these questions, Tendulkar, cool as
ice, asked him, And which paper do you work for, sir? Are you sure you are a journalist?
When the intruder said he wasnt a mediaperson, Tendulkar summoned a security guard
and told him, Can you please gently escort this gentleman out of here, and make sure that
only journalists are asking questions. He was all of 21 then and had already proved himself
on the feld. The maturity and composure that evening in the face of some provocation,
however, made a more lasting impression on me than his on-feld exploits.
- Dileep
Premachandran
- R Kaushik
The
WrITerS
remember
This is from the great Kolkata Test of 2001. It wasnt Tendulkars Test. It belonged to
Laxman and Harbhajan, and Dravid and, me as well, seeing that it was the frst Test I ever
covered. The moment I remember most fondly took place as the game wound to its famous
close, when Tendulkar was thrown the ball. The game wasnt quite in the bag yet for India,
with Hayden and Gilchrist at the crease.
Tendulkar frst sent Gilchrist, and then Hayden, back lbw. In his next over, Warne
confronted him. He was bowling legspinners. With Hayden and Gilchrist gone, the game had
turned, decisively as it turned out, in Indias favour. But there was time enough for Tendulkar
to make one fnal statement. He did, getting Warne out lbw to a wrong un. The series was
touted as one between Tendulkar the batsman and Warne the bowler. My interpretation is
that Tendulkar just wanted to show that he could beat Warne at his own game. A googly,
which even the master of the art couldnt pick, at least on the day.
- Shamya Dasgupta
One moment but one of a thousand others similar frozen in time. It is a delivery, from
a pace bowler, of no exceptional merit beyond its impeccable line, on middle-and-of to of,
and good length, but surely one to be treated with respect. The danger to the batsman lies
only in his own lack of such. Tendulkar watches, and, quicker than almost anyone who has
played the game, picks up the length, and moves automatically into position,head and feet
synchronised. He might play it with defensive bat, but he is in now.
He waits, just a fraction longer than the mortals, until the ball is almost on him, and then
the bat comes down straight, on the line of the delivery, as if to hit it back to the bowler. But
then comes the magic: a turn of the wrist in the last micro-second sends the ball skimming
to the legside instead, the placement impeccable and timing immaculate.Mid-on is beaten to
his right hand, and midwicket to his left. The ball goes unchallenged to the fence. Tendulkar
does not bother to run.
- Mike Selvey
Ask any coach or expert why he thinks a particular batsman is special and he will tell
you the easiest way to spot this is to see how much time a person has to play his shots. What
this means, of course, is that some players get into position sooner than others, are more
balanced at the point of striking the ball, and therefore give an illusion of having more time
to play the ball. Sachin Tendulkar has always had time, but this is not because his eyesight is
so extraordinary that he sees things before other people do. Its a byproduct of a lifetime of
absorbing cricket and being able to read cues better than anyone else. The prime example
of this came in the World Cup in South Africa, at Durban, against England. Andy Caddick,
dropped one short when Tendulkar was on 22, and the batsman had clearly anticipated the
delivery. Tendulkar pulled so fercely over midwicket that the ball ended up in a car park
abutting the ground. It was a moment that perfectly showcased one mans complete mastery
over the game.
- Anand Vasu
For love of
the game
TENDULKARS BLADE MAY NO LONGER BE AS SHARP AS A 16-YEAR-OLD PRODIGYS BUT HE REMAINS
SINGULAR IN THE LIMITS HE CONTINUES TO PUSH 23 YEARS LATER
T
he same moment that you are seen as the
best, the fastest and somebody that cannot
be touched, you are enormously fragile.
Though he didnt say it, its a sentiment
that Sachin Tendulkar has carried with
him throughout a career that is now nudging towards the
quarter-century mark. For all the unimaginable highs,
there have been terrible lows. And though they say no
man is an island, in his case, he has often had to be.
The man who uttered those words about fragility,
Ayrton Senna, has been dead nearly two decades.
When Tendulkar made his debut, he had yet to win
two of his three World Championships. Michael
Schumacher, who retired last year with seven
titles and 91 race wins, was still unknown outside
Germany.
Carl Lewis, who turns 52 this year, was the worlds
fastest man. Usain Bolt was three. Joe Montana, who
now makes wine, was American Footballs premier
quarterback. Steve Davis ruled the green baize, and
Jocky Wilson, the chunky Scot who passed away last
year, was the boss of the oche.
Diego Maradona was still around, with Marco van
Basten, Roberto Baggio, Lothar Mattheus and Ruud
Gullit, some of the other outstanding footballers
of that era. The world hadnt yet heard of Zinedine
FIRST PUBLISHED IN WISDENINDIA.COM ON APRIL 24, 2013
Zidane, who retired in 2006. Lionel Messi was two.
Manchester United had been champions of England
seven times, and not 20. Barcelona had yet to win the
Champions League.
The oldest of Tendulkars teammates on that first
tour to Pakistan in 1989, Arshad Ayub, turns 55 later
this year. Memories of the other young uns from
back then Vivek Razdan, Salil Ankola and Maninder
Singh are lost in the mists of time.
Many of the journalists covering the Indian
Premier League beat this year are far too young to have
any memories of the early part of Tendulkars career,
as are the majority of fans following the event. But for
the wonders of YouTube and other archives, youd be
tempted to think that the story of the boy wonder who
went on to become a run gatherer without parallel
was a chapter from the Brothers Grimm.
Of course, cricket has some previous when it
comes to greats attempting to defy the onset of time.
Jack Hobbs played his final Test
when he was 47, and went on to
represent Surrey for four more
seasons. Yorkshires Wilfred
Rhodes won the last of his 58
Test caps at the age of 52.
The Tendulkar of today is unrecognisable
from the teenager who set about Abdul Qadir in an
exhibition game in Peshawar on his first tour. He
bears little resemblance to the boy-man who stood
on tiptoe to defy Australia on a Perth trampoline.
There are merely faint traces of the player he
was when Shane Warne was savaged in a Test
series in 1998.
As the support cast around him changed two
generations of players have come and gone so
Tendulkar continued to reinvent himself. Once in
a while, you can catch glimpses of the man who
could hit the ball where he wanted, when he wished
THE CONSTANT
There have been so many
halcyon days and years
that weve lost track. But
like O Henrys last leaf,
Tendulkar remains, keeping
winter at bay.
to. That sort of exuberant stroke-making was in
evidence during a second childhood, between 2008
and 2011. After years of playing the percentages, he
expressed himself as he had in his pomp, aware that
the line-up around him was strong enough to afford
him that luxury.
The performance graph has dipped since the
World Cup win in 2011, but even as sports desks
around the world keep retirement copy ready, the
man himself shows little sign of walking away. What
keeps him going is something that he alone knows.
In the movie, For Love of the Game, Billy Chapel,
a 40-year-old baseball pitcher staring at the end, is
asked by Jane, his lover: You dont lose much, do you?
I lose, Billy replies. Ive lost 134 times. You count
them? she asks. We count everything is Billys reply.
Like Billy, Tendulkars ability to recall
moments and numbers from the past borders
on the intimidating. For an interviewer, it can
be embarrassing to go prepared for a chat on his
greatest innings, and find him summoning up
details from a cameo of 44 in Trinidad, a day when
he felt in near-perfect touch against Ambrose,
Walsh, Bishop and Rose.
Seeing Tendulkar in the IPL is to be reminded of
the best lines from For Love of the Game. You get
the feeling that Billy Chapel isnt pitching against
left-handers, he isnt pitching against pinch hitters,
he isnt pitching against the Yankees. Hes pitching
against time. Hes pitching against the future,
against age, and even when you think about his
career, against ending. And tonight I think he might
be able to use that aching old arm one more time
to push the sun back up in the sky and give us one
more day of summer.
There have been so many halcyon days
and years that weve lost track. But like O Henrys
last leaf, Tendulkar remains, keeping winter at bay.
If we agree that a sense of purpose and destiny
separates the greats from the rest, then we may
find a clue to his longevity in something Senna said
in his final years.
On a given day, a given circumstance, you think
you have a limit, he said. And you then go for
this limit and you touch this limit, and you think,
Okay, this is the limit. As soon as you touch this
limit, something happens and you suddenly can
go a little bit further. With your mind power, your
determination, your instinct, and the experience as
well, you can fly very high.
Having left behind limits once considered out of
reach, Tendulkar still wants to spread those wings.
Somewhere behind the athlete youve become and
the hours of practice and the coaches who have
pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the
game and never looked back ... play for her, said Mia
Hamm, whose 17-year career with the US womens
football team included a world-record 158 goals.
Substitute boy for girl and him for her, and you
have Tendulkar in a nutshell.
Sachins innate talent combined optimally with him being a true Indian,
a team player and a hard worker brings him to the cusp of achieving
what no other cricketer has achieved.
- Kiran More
In Peshawar, India find a
little bugger who can play
THERE WAS NO PLAN TO PLAY THE 16-YEAR-OLD IN A ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL THEN; YOU DIDNT
THROW TEENAGERS INTO THE DEEP END
SURESH MENON
T
wenty three years ago, it was easy to see
why the forefathers of the security men
at Peshawar could not control the Khyber
Pass. A huge crowd had turned up at the
cricket stadium, many fans allowed in
by the combination of the friendliness of those paid to
check the tickets and the aggression of those who thought
valour might be the better part of discretion.
The India-Pakistan match was an occasion, as
always. India hadnt been to Pakistan in five years,
they had a brand new captain, and Pakistan were led
by that wily fox Imran Khan.
Everything was in the hosts favour. But Peshawar
was bound to be different. On a clear day, a guide told
us, you could see Afghanistan. But this wasnt a clear
day. In fact, it rained, putting paid to the aspirations
of thousands of spectators some of whom had even
bought tickets. It is possible that those who shouted
loudest about being deprived were those who didnt
have any tickets. It is often that way.
The Indian team was coming together as a unit
on that tour led by Krishnamachari Srikkanth, it
was in transition, Sunil Gavaskar having retired and
Dilip Vengsarkar having lost his job as captain after
FIRST PUBLISHED IN WISDENINDIA.COM ON DECEMBER 25, 2012
a poor tour of the West Indies.
The forced camaraderie for
security reasons meant that
the team and the journalists
had to find entertainment
among ourselves. I have a
picture somewhere of Tendulkar in a false beard we
had to wear one to attend one of the club meetings.
It was my first Test tour; the oldest among us
was Dicky Rutnagur who had been touring for over
three decades. He had reported the series in England
in 1952 when India were led by Vijay Hazare. It
was possible that there were only two degrees of
separation, three at most, between me and a reporter
who covered Indias first-ever Test, in England 1932.
It was easy to feel a part of history.
If Sachin Tendulkar nurtured similar thoughts, I
couldnt say. His connection to that Lords Test would
necessarily have more links. One route was: Kapil
Dev to Erapalli Prasanna to Vijay Manjrekar to Vijay
Merchant to C K Nayudu. Six degrees of separation.
All that was academic as India took on Pakistan in a
hastily-arranged friendly (or as friendly as you could
get under the circumstances) match after overnight
rain had made a full international impossible. Kapil
Dev pulled out with a stiff neck. It was a theme that
was to play out with greater significance later, when
Navjots Singhs stiff neck opened the slot at the top
of the order, one that Tendulkar made his own with
82 off 49 balls in Auckland.
Just get a feel of the game, Srikkanth told
Tendulkar. There was no plan to play the 16-year-old
in a One-Day International then; you didnt throw
teenagers into the deep end. But this was a team
in transition. Sanjay Manjrekar was establishing
himself as a pillar of the batting (he was to make a
double hundred in a Test in Pakistan, after a century
in Barbados against the West Indies).
Indias one-day future arrived with startling
speed. Everything changed in 18 deliveries. Srikkanth,
till then Indias best regarded one-day batsman,
hardly got a stroke in edgewise as Tendulkar hit five
sixes off the leg spinners Abdul Qadir and Mushtaq
Ahmed. The unbeaten 53 he made included 27 in one
Qadir over. There was no wild slogging, just scientific
and gleeful driving and pulling. Three sixes in a row.
When Qadir dropped one short as Tendulkar
stepped out, and was technically beaten. But he was
16, he didnt know better, and so he went through
with the shot. The bat made a lovely arc, and for all
we know the ball is still travelling - no one could
find it.
That evening Srikkanth made what must rate as an
understatement. The little bugger must play now.
Suresh Menon is editor, Wisden India Almanack

GOEL WONDERS
Just get a feel of the
game, Srikkanth told
Tendulkar. There was
no plan to play the
16-year-old in a One-Day
International then.
SURESH MENON
Waiting for
Sachin
THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER OF 2011, ENGLAND WAITED FOR TENDULKARS 100TH INTERNATIONAL
CENTURY, BUT THERE WAS A SADNESS THAT WENT BEYOND THE LANDMARK WHEN HE FAILED
LAWRENCE BOOTH
S
ometimes, as a cricket writer, you are
lucky enough to be in the right place at
the right time. The stars celestial and
terrestrial align, and all seems right
with the world. In July 2011, when Sachin
Tendulkar stood as tall as nature allows and punched
Chris Tremlett through the covers on the Saturday of the
Lords Test, the world could hardly seem righter.
The Lords buzz can be exaggerated, as if tradition
automatically begets frisson. Just occasionally the
place can be cold, damp and empty, though you
rarely hear about it. But that day Lords was magical.
St Johns Wood was in one of its hazy moods, and
both sets of fans plus those who turn up to drink,
dine and be seen were in good spirits.
More to the point, so was Tendulkar. He tucked
James Anderson off his pads, then stroked Tremlett
on the up through extra cover, thus providing us with
a legitimate excuse one we rarely need to lapse
into eulogy. Truly, the scene was set.
It goes without saying that Tendulkar did not
reach three figures. Edging Stuart Broad to Graeme
Swann in the slips, he fell just the 66 short, and so set
the tone for a curious summer in which the expected
waltz to a 100th international century would become
a danse macabre. By the end, he was provoking
sympathy and among those who apparently believe
Tendulkar exists only to boost their own self-esteem
FIRST PUBLISHED IN WISDEN INDIA ALMANACK 2013
even a touch of rancour.
Victorian circuses used to draw crowds with
unusual attractions: the hairy lady, say, or the
elephant man. Now, from north to south London, via
Nottingham and Birmingham, we were treated to
the sight of a run machine forced to recalibrate its
own mortality and all because of a blessed number.
Roll up, roll up and see the 100th bead on the abacus
refuse to budge! For students of psychology and
accountants at the England and Wales Cricket Board
this was gold dust and nectar. And for the man
himself ? Well, it was all a little undignified.
What became clear as the series developed was
that, in sport, hope rarely defers to bitter experience.
Tendulkar, lets not forget, scores a Test century
roughly once every six innings. And while that may
have suggested, at the start of a four-match series,
that he would inevitably tick off the hundred at some
point against England, it still
meant he had only a 16 per
cent chance of doing so in any
given innings. (Apologies for
the maths: it was that kind of
summer.) The way Englands
seamers were bowling, you could have knocked off a
few more percentage points too.
Anderson was especially skilful, dragging
Tendulkar across his stumps with his outswinger,
then zipping it back in to trap him leg-before in the
second innings at Lords. He got him again in the
second innings at Trent Bridge. In between, Broad
had him fending into the slips. The technical experts
who have followed Tendulkar all over the world for
more than two decades recharged their laptops.
In fact, Tendulkar wasnt playing all that badly.
Among the Indian batsmen, only Rahul Dravid was
LONG WALK BACK
Fans turned up in their
thousands at every
venue in anticipation of
Sachin Tendulkars 100th
hundred, but went away
disappointed and sad
every single time.
LAWRENCE BOOTH
coping. Tendulkar kept tantalising us, then getting out.
It wasnt that the script kept being torn up, because the
script existed, on red alert, in a hundred newspaper
offices around the world, and all the editors needed
to do was transfer the pre-written paeans to the page.
Still, there was something especially cruel about the
way Tendulkar fell at Edgbaston, run out at the non-
strikers end via Swanns fingertips after playing like
a genius to reach 40.
For English cricket followers, Tendulkar will
always be synonymous with Old Trafford, where
he saved a Test in 1990 at the age of 17 and walked
off innocent and barely bumfluffed to bemused
applause from ancient-looking players sporting a
variety of facial hair. But Old Trafford wasnt on the
rota this time, and instead Tendulkar headed in hope
to The Oval for the fourth and final Test.
The Oval performs a particular function.
Traditionally the final Test of the summer, it is where
last-ditch bids are made for a spot on a winter tour,
and the Ashes urn is regained or retained. It emits
finality Don Bradmans second-ball duck, and eternal
average of 99.94, is the most infamous example.
Now, as India followed on Tendulkar had made
23 in the first innings the mood changed. Few
sportsmen have the aura to transcend the narrative
all by themselves. But Tendulkars quest for that
century had developed a mischievous momentum of
its own. Fate appeared to be with him: on the fourth
evening, England failed to appeal for a stumping that
would have ended his innings on 34. Next day, in the
company of nightwatchman Amit Mishra, he was
making good headway.
When he moved into the 80s, I left the press box
to sit by the crowd and soak in the atmosphere. You
would not have guessed India were trailing 0-3. It
was as if nothing that had gone before mattered.
Tendulkars pursuit of a nice round number of round
numbers, however, most certainly did.
Enter Tim Bresnan, one of Englands unsung
heroes. Was his shout a fraction high? Or even
leg-sidish? Umpire Rod Tucker thought not and
Tendulkar was gone, for 91. Bradman had left to a
disbelieving, almost reverent, gasp, but crowds are
more partisan now: English fans instinctively cheered
even while Indians looked on in mute incredulity.
Throughout the summer, Tendulkar had been
applauded to the crease then applauded all the
way back again. This time, there was a sadness that
went beyond the missed landmark. English crowds
suspected they would not see him bat in a Test again.
Had they enjoyed him as thoroughly as they would
have liked throughout the summer? Only to an extent.
Greatness sets itself high standards.
Statistics can be dry and unforgiving. Tendulkar fell
short on both counts. But, really, we shouldnt hold it
against him.
Lawrence Booth is editor, Wisden

Cricketers Almanack
Sachin Tendulkars charm goes beyond the field. For cricket, he is
Maradona and Pele out together it is as simple as that. Cricket will
be a poorer sport when he quits the game.
- Allan Donald
A hundred reasons
to smile
TWENTY-ONE FRUITLESS TEST MATCH INNINGS AND A DOZEN IN ODIS BEFORE THE 100TH HUNDRED.
SOMETIMES EVEN THE GODS MANIFEST THEMSELVES AS MORTAL FOR A WHILE
MIKE SELVEY
V
ery few, perhaps in the history of
sport, can truly understand what it is
like to be Sachin Tendulkar, to regard
as normal that which the mortals of
this world see only as an abnormal
existence that demands he is all but incarcerated within
his own country, on a kind of house arrest so that it is
only in the dead of night, when the streets clear, that
he can take his sports cars for a spin. The attention he
receives goes beyond mere adulation and enters the
world of veneration. Is any deity ever worshipped more?
And with the microscopic attention comes
the expectation. From the moment he began his
international career as a curly haired youth of
prodigious reputation and achievement, he has
carried the hopes of a billion people on his shoulders
each time he has pottered, invariably blinking, to the
stage he has dominated for two decades. It followed
him to England last summer when each entrance was
accompanied by a standing ovation and each exit
similarly marked. Every dismissal is accompanied by
despair (and, in the huge stadia of India, a deafening
silence), each entrance by hope renewed. In the
film Clockwise, the English comedian John Cleese
distinguishes between the two emotions: I can take
the despair, he says of his situation, it is the hope
FIRST PUBLISHED IN WISDEN INDIA ALMANACK 2013
I cant stand. For followers of Tendulkar, rather
than the man himself, it is hard to know which is the
greater encumbrance: the despair of a failure or the
hope of another hundred.
Then, on 10 March 2011, in Nagpur, following
Indias World Cup match against South Africa,
everything intensified. For that day Tendulkar made
111, the 99th time that he had reached three figures
for his country, and suddenly came the clamour
for him to reach a landmark. Now there were
many, this correspondent included, who saw this
as a contrivance, a concocted effort to further the
adulation of one who needed none further. Adding
together Test match centuries and those scored in
limited overs cricket was, it was reasoned, to mix
apples with pears and come up with a fruit bowl.
Was not a half-century of Test match hundreds, and,
yet to come but in all probability, the same in limited
overs not sufficient in their own right to mark him
as one standing with other gods on the Olympian
summit of cricket achievement?
But then we outsiders do not, cannot, fully
understand quite what Tendulkar means to the
people of India. His achievements embody the
unattainable aspirations of a nation. Through him
it is they themselves who live the dream. And so
whatever level he reaches, there will always be one
more beyond. It takes a remarkable fellow to be
philosophical and sanguine about this. And yet with
each innings, and each failure to reach three figures,
the intensity began to build up in the game even of
one so mentally strong.
There is an interesting comparison to be drawn
between this milestone (or was it millstone?) and
that of those few who have scored one hundred
first-class centuries. What it shows is that luck,
circumstance, form, fortune and state of mind can
dictate how readily the transition is made from 99
centuries to 100. Geoffrey Boycott, for instance, did
it in his very next innings, and in the highest profile
manner imaginable for an Englishman, in his 100th
Test, against Australia, on his home ground. Graeme
Hick even managed his 99th and 100th in the same
match. So fraught did the great Walter Hammond
get, on the other hand, that he went 23 fruitless
innings before, at a loss, he went out, threw the bat
with abandon and made 116.
Yet none of these achievements remotely carried
the hope heaped on Tendulkar. The more he batted,
and the more he failed to cross the threshold, the
more the questions were asked and the more self-
doubt must inevitably have crept in, even with him.
There were flirtations: 94 on his home ground in
Mumbai and what almost seemed preordained cut
off by the sharpest of slip catches; 91 at The Oval last
year, brought down by an lbw decision.
It was during the tour of England, valedictory
for him, that the weight may have borne down
heaviest. It dominated the agenda even as India
as a team struggled to make headway. Tendulkar
It takes a master to produce a masterpiece. Lesser mortals might
tap into the well of brilliance or temporarily befriend inspiration, but
mastery belongs to the precious few.
- Peter Roebuck
himself found it difficult. As batsmen age, they lose
the instinctiveness, impetuosity, and verve of their
youth, when everything is an adventure, and settle
into a pragmatism forged in the heat of experience.
At times it must be wearying. Tendulkar looked
vulnerable early on in an innings, as bowlers
sought his outside edge or his pads, his movements
no longer twinkling and just a fraction more
ponderous now. He still played sublimely at times:
the back foot punch through the covers; the flick
through midwicket with nothing more than a turn
of the wrist; the straight drive that was little more
than a defensive stroke played with chronometric
timing. But the air of invulnerability was no longer
there. Respect for him never wavered but his aura
had slipped.
He left England without a century and it was
not until an ODI against
Bangladesh in Dhaka, one
year and four days since
his Nagpur hundred, that,
grateful and relieved, he was
able to trot through for the
leg side single that with it brought release. The last
leg of a remarkable journey had taken him through
21 fruitless Test match innings and a dozen
in ODIs before this last one. Never, in his entire
cricket life, had he gone as long without a hundred.
Sometimes even the gods manifest themselves as
mortal for a while. Hammond, he might like to know,
went on to make a further 67 hundreds.
Mike Selvey, former English Test cricketer, is the

cricket correspondent for The Guardian newspaper.
THE EVOLUTION
As batsmen age, they
lose the instinctiveness,
impetuosity, and verve of
their youth, when everything
is an adventure, and settle
into a pragmatism forged in
the heat of experience.
MIKE SELVEY
ACHREKAR
Where would Tendulkar be if not for Ramakant Achrekars
guidance and disciplining in his early days? It is said that
Achrekar used to take Tendulkar on his bike to all the grounds
around Mumbai and make him play four-fve games every day.
FERRARI
The Ferrari Modena 360 didnt cost him anything, but it
created controversy and fury when Tendulkar asked for
exemption from paying the import duty of 1.1 crore. The car
was later sold to a Gujarati businessman.
INJURIES
From the back pain that thwarted him against Pakistan in
1999 in Chennai to the tennis elbow condition each made
headlines; injuries to the toe, thigh, hamstring, ankle, fnger,
shoulder, knee, groin, elbow, abdomen and wrist Tendulkar
has seen it all.
LITTLE MASTER
Thought the title was bestowed to Hanif Mohammad frst
and then passed on to Sunil Gavaskar, it was to Tendulkar
that it would remain associated with the longest.
MRF PACE FOUNDATION
Before his career really took off, Tendulkar wanted
to become a fast bowler and went to the MRF Pace
Foundation, where Dennis Lillee rejected him and asked
him to focus on his batting.
HANSIE CRONJE
It wasnt Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram or Glenn McGrath
that Tendulkar picked as the bowler who troubled him the
most: Hansie Cronje. Honestly. I got out to Hansie more than
anyone. I never knew what to do with him.
JOHN McENROE
In his formative years Tendulkar was a huge fan of
tennis legend John McEnroe and wanted to be a tennis
player. He even aped his idol by growing his hair long
and tying a band around it.
KAMBLI
Kambli was the school friend and club mate with whom he
notched up one record after another playing for Sardashram
Vidya Mandir. Their 664-run partnership created in 1988 was
a world record till two boys from Hyderabad broke it in 2006.
ERA
The period between 1989 to 2013 will have to be known as
the Tendulkar Era, during which he played 662 international
matches, including playing with or against 982 cricketers.
BRADMAN
Don Bradman anointed Tendulkar as the modern
day master, the one who reminded him the most of
himself. The baton had been passed. They famously
met at the formers residence in Adelaide in 1998
with Shane Warne for company.
DOUBLE HUNDRED
It was probably ftting that the frst double
hundred in ODIs was registered by Tendulkar, who
redefned the way batting was done in limited-
overs cricket over the years.
GAVASKAR
One of his heroes while growing up, and whose
record he ultimately broke, was Sunil Gavaskar, who
also gifted Tendulkar with light-weight pads, which
Tendulkar wore when he made his debut and later,
when he scored his frst Test hundred.
CENTURIES
Tendulkars century of international centuries 51 in
Tests and 49 in ODIs; a record that will probably never
be broken. The enormity of it is such that the next
two in the list are 29 and 39 behind respectively.
A
C
F
I
H
K
D
B
J
L
M
N
Q
S
T
R
P
O
X
Y
V
Z
W
U
G
E
Compiled by Dileep V
Illustration: Ashish Mohanty
ZERO
He has been dismissed for a duck only twice in domestic frst-
class games once by Hampshires Paul-Jan Bakker in 1992
and then by Uttar Pradeshs Bhuvneshwar Kumar in 2009.
UNDER-19
Usually the stepping stone to international cricket
for all cricketers, in Sachins case he moved from
school cricket to senior cricket directly and never
played an U-19 game for the country.
VIV RICHARDS
Viv Richards was Tendulkars childhood idol. He wanted to
be as destructive as the Antiguan and did achieve that in
the frst half of his career.
YORKSHIRE
Yorkshire signed him as an overseas player when he was
just 19 Tendulkar became the frst overseas player to
represent the county.
XI
He is the only Indian in the Wisden World
XI selected to mark the publications 150th
anniversary and only Indian and modern day
cricketer to be included in Don Bradmans all-
time Test XI.
OZ
No player except Jack Hobbs has scored more Test runs
against Australia, the best attack of that era, than Tendulkar.
With 11 centuries in Tests and nine in ODIs, he stamped
his authority on the best in the business.
*Jack Hobbs has 3636 runs against Australia to Tendulkars 3630.
WORLD CUP
It took more than two decades for the dream to come true, but
he made the 1996 and 2003 World Cups his own and, apart
from the winners medal in 2011, also owns the records for
most runs, hundreds and appearances.
SHARJAH
The desert city has seen some fne ODI performances
from Tendulkar including the epic back-to-back centuries
in 1998 against the Australian bowling line-up that
included Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
PARTNERS IN CRIME
Tendulkar and Gangulys opening partnership is the best in ODI
history in terms of runs scored (8227) and hundreds (26). In Tests,
he and Dravid added 6920 with 20 hundred partnerships.
RECORDS
He holds most of the important batting records
in Tests and ODIs including most runs, hundreds
and appearances.
NERVOUS NINETIES
For the hundred international hundreds he scored, there
were also 27 nineties on three of those occasions, he
was out on 99.
TONY GREIG
Some say Tony Greig had a huge role to play in making
Tendulkar famous. That might be an exaggeration but anybody
who heard Tony Greig yell, The little master has smashed it
over the bowlers head will agree it added to the excitement.
QUOTES
Whether it was from his frst known interview, where he
said, I always wanted to play Cricket to Kohlis Tendulkar
has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years ; quotes
around Tendulkar have been, well, quotable.
Sachin, and the
age of innocence
TENDULKARS FIRST INTERVIEW IS A REMINDER OF A TIME WHEN PLAYERS ACTUALLY
SPOKE THEIR MIND WITHOUT FEAR OF THE CONSEQUENCES
ANJALI DOSHI
H
is fortieth birthday is a good occasion
to recall my favourite Sachin
Tendulkar interview. Lest you worry,
this is not another birthday-induced
Sachin tribute God knows there are
enough of those doing the rounds already.
If you havent chanced upon this gem, watch it
now - Sachin being interviewed by Tom Alter, veteran
theatre personality, in January 1989. Long before he
took to experimenting with his hair, wearing flashy
Ed Hardy T-shirts, signing multi-million dollar
contracts, or sporting a diamond stud in his ear.
Long before he learned how to speak
grammatically correct English. And tackle questions
that may involve a possibly controversial answer
with an air of practiced and noncommittal ease.
This is Sachin at 15, waiting patiently to be
interviewed after DilipVengsarkar, sipping tea from
a steel cup in Shivaji Park and, if its possible, his
voice was even thinner than it is now.
This is Sachin in the age of innocence. When there
was plenty of speculation over his probable Test
debut during Indias tour of West Indies (in March-
April 1989) and questions over his ability to face up
to the worlds most fearsome pace attack - Marshall,
Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop - at such a tender age.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN WISDENINDIA.COM ON APRIL 24, 2013
He tells Alter that he wont have any trouble
to face Marshall, hes not too young, he loves fast
bowling because it comes on to the bat (note the
strong emphasis on the final consonant of bat) and
he enjoys bowling middyum pace. When asked if
he was tired of doing interviews, Sachin says with
utmost sincerity, This is just the start.
There is a certain purity to that interview the
casual setting, no studio lights, no sponsors in the
backdrop or on the gear, no rehearsed questions and
responses that has long since escaped the game.
Nowadays, youd be hard-pressed to gain access
to any player - even those yet to find their bearings in
international cricket - without the interference of an
entourage of sponsors, agents, PR professionals, and
marketing-branding types. After all, why agree to an
interview for free when you
are obligated to plug publicity-
starved sponsors?
Its odd then to chance
upon cricketers earlier
interviews, when they werent the finished product
they are today. By finished, I mean sans the naivet
and earnestness that once informed their public
persona jaded as most of them are now by all the
attention, the constant hankering for interviews and
the plethora of back-to-back media commitments.
When they do occasionally deign to indulge the
press usually at the behest of a sponsor its with
a cynical view of the media in general, especially the
Indian media.
But its not just innocence that is now gold dust -
ONE FOR THE FUTURE
Tendulkar before making
his debut for Yorkshire
in 1992, at an age when
the setting for interactions
with cricketers had a
certain purity.
ANJALI DOSHI
honesty is too. A piece I did for Vogue soon after MS
Dhoni became Indian captain had him talking openly
about his lack of confidence as a pimply teenager and
his aspiration to own a Rolex having just ordered
his first one, following his handsome US$1.5 million
contract in the 2008 IPL auction.
In another interview to NDTV, right after India
won the CB series in Australia, when asked about
being critical of his team members, he says, I am
a transparent person. Whatever happens on the
field, I just repeat it at the press conference. There is
nothing confidential about it.
Such candour is now off the table, as the press
pack knows only too well. Hows this for honesty?
Mark Butcher, when asked what he had for tea
after his 173 not out during an Ashes Test at Leeds,
replied: A coffee and a fag in the shower.
Among the many reasons for discarding
honesty, especially as far as the Indian cricketers
are concerned, is the gag imposed by the BCCI a
constant reminder lurking behind the code-of-
conduct euphemism that shows the cricketing
superstars of this country who their daddy is.
When Greg Chappell, the coach, spoke about the
teams seniors operating like the mafia after Indias
2007 World Cup exit, Tendulkar told the Times of
India he was deeply hurt. Ive given my heart and
soul to Indian cricket for 17 years. No coach has ever
mentioned, even in passing, that my attitude was not
correct. The BCCIs response? Slapping Tendulkar
with a show cause notice.
One can understand disallowing media
interactions during a series. But the new rules
apparently involve not speaking about a series even
a month after the dust has settled. This explains the
absence of any interviews from the Indian players
after the 4-0 whitewash against Australia.
In the post-IPL era, its not just the BCCI calling
the shots but franchises too. When Saurabh Tiwary
made a point during his 2010 stint with the Mumbai
Indians about a 30-run cameo in the IPL grabbing
headlines (compared to a century or double century
in the Ranji Trophy that is often overlooked), the
Mumbai Indians team management did not waste a
moment in ordering the press to delete that bit.
Of course, the media - particularly in India - does
not help matters when its raison detre seems to be
twisting innocent remarks for a sensational story. At
the press conference after the fourth day of the Oval
Test in 2007, when asked whether the bowlers were
tired because Rahul Dravid opted not to enforce the
follow-on, Zaheer Khan said, As far as I am concerned,
I have given my everything to the series. I dont think
I was tired or anything. That was enough to set off a
massive TV news-generated controversy back home.
Zaheer refused to entertain any media requests
for months after. And the manager on tour told a
newspaper, The players are quite tired with the way
quotes are being misinterpreted or being used back
home, especially on television.
The best thing about Sachin is he never sledges. During the matches
in Toronto for the Sahara Cup in the late 1990s, I abused him. But by
choosing not to reply, he showed how great a human being he is.
- Saqlain Mushtaq
This explains why, on the rare occasion when one
did manage some off-the-cuff and candid answers -
my own experience involved interviews with Muttiah
Muralitharan and Rahul Dravid - a polite request
was made soon after the interaction to remove bits
they feared would be taken out of context, or invite
censure from their respective cricket boards.
The day is not far, then, when cricketers will
regularly have their agents stage-manage interviews
with them to cut the media out of it altogether
Kevin Pietersen has clearly shown the way in this
post-TextGate interview on YouTube.
The clip, described in the 2013 Wisden Almanack
by Pat Collins as sensationally awful, talks of a
disembodied voice his agents - feeding him some
gentle full tosses masquerading as questions that
he answered with a series of wooden cliches. As
Collins goes on to suggest, the whole thing reeked of
an insincere apology that was unwittingly revealing
of Pietersens priorities. Unsurprisingly, the ECB did
not approve.
But had these self-
imposed embargoes, stifling
codes of conduct and intense
media scrutiny always been
the case, some of crickets most memorable quotes
would never have made it past the lips of the games
greatest characters. Among them is Jeff Thomson,
with no love lost for his English opponents. Stuff
that stiff upper lip crap, he once said. Lets see how
stiff it is when its split.
And heres another delicious bit of honesty from
Thomson: It doesnt worry me in the least to see the
batsman hurt, rolling around screaming, and blood
on the pitch. Now, if only Dale Steyn would be so
kind as to oblige.
Anjali Doshi is former cricket editor,

NDTV 24x7, and is currently enjoying cricket
from the vast expanse of her living room couch
NO MIC, PLEASE
The day is not far
when cricketers will
regularly have their agents
stage-manage interviews
with them to cut the media
out of it altogether.
ANJALI DOSHI
The wall of
memory
IN AN AGE WHEN THE IMAGE, MOVING OR STILL, IS SO ESSENTIAL TO PROJECTING MEMORY, HOW WILL
YOU REMEMBER TENDULKAR? WHAT WILL EXIST OUTSIDE THE FRAME?
TARIKA KHATTAR
I
have lived in the same room all my life. A small,
square room with green walls, the exact shade
of a Nirulas lime ice cream soda. A window
and a cupboard cover two walls; my bed is
against the third and opposite it is a story that
begins on April 25, 1998.
Dodging multiple family members who searched
for the morning paper, I sneaked the Times of India
into my room and tore off the front page. I then
proceeded to carefully cut, with scissors too big for
my seven-year-old hands, around the dramatically
titled Tornado Tendulkar gifts India a perfect
present. It featured a black-and-white long shot
of Sachin Tendulkar in Test whites, bat raised
nonchalantly.
I dont know what made me do it. There I was,
sitting on the floor clutching a pixelated image of
a man whose name I couldnt pronounce, unsure
of what to do. And then it came to me. Scotch tape.
Four long strips, and it was done. The thought of a
scrapbook didnt even cross my mind. Who needed a
book, when you had a wall?
To collect photographs, wrote Susan Sontag in
the marvellous essay In Platos Cave, is to collect the
world.
This summer, having just graduated from
college and officially transitioned into
adulthood, I began, for the first time,
to examine my Sachin Wall. It had been
such a constant in my life, as constant
as the man who adorned it, that I
had never given it much conscious
thought. Over the years, I had added a
newspaper cutout here, a photograph
there; the occasional Sportstar special
edition poster somewhere in the
middle. But I had never paused to
consider what it represented. This was
the lime green canvas of my childhood,
a hundred images that became the
collection of my world. But why did
I choose these photographs, these
memories, this world?
My eyes find that first article on
the wall, crookedly placed next to a
photograph from the day before. Time
has curled its edges off, faded the ink
to a watercolour blur. Tendulkar is
dancing down the track and lofting the
ball over cover as an open-mouthed
Adam Gilchrist looks on.
Sharjah. The Desert Storm of 98.
I remember a lot of yellow. A goateed
Damien Fleming perpetually walking
back to his run-up the memory
of him actually bowling doesnt
seem to have registered. Red Wills
stickers plastered on blue. The flat-batted swat
over a ducking non-striker. The ferocious pull over
midwicket. Anything was possible. Any shot could
be played, any bowler could be demolished. This
was the self-belief that came to define a generation,
and it began with Sachin of Sharjah.
Three photos down is a very different Sachin
Sachin of Sydney. Blurred green stands at the SCG.
In the foreground, Tendulkar raises his arms in
characteristic fashion towards the heavens. But there
is so much more to this photograph. The ball crashing
into Gilchrists gloves over and over again. The
midwicket boundary. And most of all, restraint. A new
word to associate with a changing man. The same self-
belief expressed not through power, but discipline.
LESSON ON RESTRAINT
Three photos down is a very
different Sachin Sachin
of Sydney. Blurred green
stands at the SCG. In the
foreground, Tendulkar raises
his arms in characteristic
fashion towards the heavens.
TARIKA KHATTAR
Theres Edgbaston 1996. A YouTube discovery
for me, but one of my favourite Tendulkar centuries.
Heres Cape Town 1997, and again in 2011. A man
at the peak of his natural ability, and a man who
succeeded in reinventing himself.
There is so much in between. Here, a back-foot
punch from the 2003 World Cup. Feet withdrawing
gracefully into the crease, the sudden spring on to
the toes, the quick back lift to meet the ball and then,
the follow-through frozen in time, a sculpture of
batsmanship. Its the shot that for me, even more than
the straight drive, truly marked when he was in form.
One of my favourite photographs is of Tendulkar
defending a short ball. There is nothing remarkable
about the image except the moment it captures. A
phenomenal spell of seam bowling from Asif and Gul
in Lahore, 2006. India are 12 for 2 with Tendulkar
and Dravid at the crease. What follows is one of the
best displays of batting judgement. Patience. The
ability to leave the ball. The humility to respect the
bowler. Sachin made 95. India won.
Chennai 99. All I remember are tears. Multan
2004. Not his 194*, but his celebration after bowling
Moin Khan between the legs. December 2005 the
35th Test century. I was there that day, climbing up
the spectators cage, floating above the Kotla as if in a
dream. I dont need a photograph to remember that.
And then there are moments I didnt want
to remember, the deliberate gaps in my wall of
memory. Tendulkars captaincy. The 2007 World
Cup. As if my 15-year-old self wanted to spare me
the pain in the future, as if the memories existed
only in these photographs.
Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality,
Sontag wrote. One cant possess reality, one can
possess images one cant possess the present but
one can possess the past.
So I ask myself the question, knowing, like
everyone, that the end is near. Do I need photographs
to possess the past? No, not when so much of it
exists outside the frame.
My fingers brush against frail paper. The edges
are so carefully cut. I trace the words that had, so
many years ago, inspired me to preserve the past,
to keep forever on my wall the perfect present. My
nails peel back the tape, taking with it part of the
wall. Lime green sticks to white.
The wall is now scarred and empty. Every picture
seems to have taken a part of it with it. Cracks of my
childhood. Marks of my memory. Tendulkar-shaped
holes in my wall.
Just days after Sachin announced
his retirement, my mother informed me that she
was reconstructing part of the house. Time to
move into a bigger room, she said. I offered no
resistance. If there can ever be a marker for the end
of an era, this is it. Its time.
Tarika Khattar is a graduate student
at the University of Cambridge
It wasnt until I really played against him that I
understood that there was a tiger that lay within him:
he was a very competitive little man.
- Mathew Hayden
The numbers prove
his greatness
WHEN TENDULKAR WAS IN THE ZONE, IT WAS ALL ABOUT HIS BATTING BEING
IN A RAREFIED AIR, THE FORMAT AND OPPOSITION WERE MERE INCIDENTALS
SAURABH SOMANI
I
f you had to describe Sachin Tendulkars
international career with the shortest, and most
pithy, phrase possible, it would be length of
excellence. Its a description that has been used
several times when writers try to evoke why
he was one-of-a-kind. So often, in fact, that the sheer
mind-boggling scale of the length of his excellence is
perhaps not understood fully. Its just a recitation of 24
years, X number of cricketers who have come and gone,
Y number of historical facts that have changed while he
played.
Ironically enough it is numbers that illustrate just
how dominant his 24-carat international innings has
been. Numbers are comfortably low on priority for
those who took sublime joy from his backfoot cover
drive or the rocket straight past the bowler, but one
day, when there is a generation who knows Tendulkar
only through videos, numbers will provide the crux
of why their grand-parents are likely to get misty-
eyed when recalling the boy who square cut in Perth,
the man who sent the ball into the stands at Sharjah,
and the gent who was carried around the shoulders
of his teammates at the Wankhede.
There is a remarkable similarity between
Tendulkars phases as a Test batsman and as a One-
Day International batsman, as evidenced by this
study on the occasion of his ODI retirement. When
Tendulkar was in the zone, it was all about his batting
being in a rarefied air, the format and opposition
were mere incidentals. There have been only three
serious periods when he wasnt performing at his
best when he was first handed the captaincy and
struggled with the demands of the job, when he
battled the most serious of his injuries, and when he
reached the final lap.
Offsetting these dips, by a margin as wide as his
bat when in the zone, are the peaks. We call them
peaks because of the length of his career, but a
cursory look at the time spans shows that they were
more extended high-raise plateaus. When Tendulkar
got going, he never seemed to stop. He took a
short while to ease into Test cricket, dusted off the
captaincy crisis quickly enough, and took a little
longer than that to overcome injuries, but pockets of
months apart, it has been one long, continuous peak
for him from November 1989 to January 2011.
The longest downturn came when the
combination of chasing the 100th ton, being on his
last legs and Indias sudden downward turn overseas
as a team, became finally too much to handle and
keep churning out runs.
For huge stretches of his career, Tendulkar was
almost one and a half times as good as the average
top-order batsman worldwide in Test cricket. The
more interesting column is how the Indian top
order performed over the course of his career. For
the second half, Tendulkar had a galaxy of batting
talent around him in the team, but how the batsmen
did is very closely mirrored to how his own form
was. When Tendulkar hit the high notes, he played
a significant part in lifting the stats of the entire top
order, and Indias performance was considerably
better than average. When Tendulkar was in one of
his troughs, India slipped back to towards the mean,
with hardly any difference between their top six and
that of the rest of the world a fact that illustrates
just how pivotal Tendulkar has been.
The other length of excellence that was talked
of is best illustrated by picking out the top five
batsmen worldwide during each of Tendulkars
three long peaks.
It is important to remember that the time spans
represented above account for about 80 percent of
Tendulkars playing career, and of the two decades
and from July 1990 to January 2011, the above covers
85 percent of the total time. With that in mind, you
can go ahead and let your jaw hit the floor. Across
the majority of two decades, Tendulkar has been in
Heres a snapshot of Tendulkars Test career, broken down in phases:
Span Mts Inns No Runs Avg 100s 50s 0s
Nov 1989 to Feb 1990 7 10 0 332 32.20 0 3 1
Jul 1990 to Jul 1996 34 50 7 2579 59.98 10 11 2
Oct 1996 to Apr 1997 12 20 1 706 37.16 1 4 1
Aug 1997 to Mar 2005 70 118 13 6517 62.07 23 23 8
Dec 2005 to Jan 2007 12 19 1 534 29.67 1 2 1
May 2007 to Jan 2011 42 73 10 4024 63.87 16 16 1
Jul 2011 to Present 21 37 1 1145 31.81 0 8 0
Overall 198 327 33 15837 53.87 51 67 14
form far more than out, and when hes been in form,
hes been amongst the five best batsmen in the world
everytime. How remarkable and difficult that is can
be seen by the fact that save Jacques Kallis, no other
batsman makes a second appearance in the tables
above. Granted, the time spans are Tendulkars
career centric, but they cover such large swathes
that its impressive nonetheless. The dominance is
similar to his ODI dominance.
The last two years of struggle have sometimes
seemed to become bigger than 22 years that
preceded it. This is numerical proof, if any was
required, of the extent to which Tendulkar sustained
world-beating form.
SAURABH SOMANI
Heres how Tendulkar stacked up against the rest of the world during each of his phases.
Span SRT Avg World Top 6 Avg Diference % India Top 6 Avg Diference %
Nov 1989 to Feb 1990 33.20 43.72 -24.06 41.60 -20.20
Jul 1990 to July 1996 59.98 37.06 61.85 40.38 48.53
Oct 1996 to April 1997 37.16 33.73 10.15 33.27 11.67
Aug 1997 to March 2005 62.07 38.42 61.56 45.43 36.61
Dec 2005 to Jan 2007 29.67 39.08 -24.08 38.92 -23.78
May 2007 to Jan 2011 63.87 41.45 54.11 49.29 29.58
May 2007 to Jan 2011 31.81 38.53 -17.46 39.15 -18.76
NUMERO UNO
For huge stretches of
his career, Tendulkar
was almost one and a
half times as good as
the average top-order
batsman worldwide in
Test cricket.
86 THE SACHIN SUNSET
August 1997 to March 2005
Batsman Tests Inns NO Runs Avg
Sachin Tendulkar 70 118 13 6517 62.07
Rahul Dravid 75 128 15 6657 58.91
Jacques Kallis 85 144 25 6997 58.80
Ricky Ponting 81 132 20 6493 57.97
Matthew Hayden 60 105 10 5460 57.47
May 2007 to January 2011
Mahela Jayawardene 31 50 1 3238 68.89
Jacques Kallis 38 64 9 3517 63.95
AB de Villiers 38 61 11 2984 59.68
Virender Sehwag 35 63 3 3539 59.98
July 1990 to July 1996
Steve Waugh 42 65 16 3019 61.61
Brian Lara 33 55 2 3197 60.32
Graham Gooch 41 76 1 3926 52.35
Michael Slater 33 57 3 2611 48.35
88 THE SACHIN SUNSET
Fw Sports And Media India Private Limited
Wisden House, 13/A,1St Cross, Lavelle Road
Bangalore 560 001, India

WisdenIndia Extra Issue 4

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WisdenIndia Extra Issue 4

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SACHIN

1990, Old Trafford: My initiation

Shashi Tharoor is a Member of Parliament and

Supriya Nair is associate editor

THE HEALTH SECRET

Mushtaq Mohammad, the only

WORLD CUP MAGIC

Suresh Menon is editor, Wisden India Almanack

Lawrence Booth is editor, Wisden

Mike Selvey, former English Test cricketer, is the

Anjali Doshi is former cricket editor,

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