Sir Sachin Tendulkar 4

[littlemaster1982]

Terrific Tendulkar

There are many truly wondrous things about Sachin Tendulkar breaking the world record for the highest one-day score and becoming the format’s first double centurion, in effect cracking one of cricket’s many four-minute miles. He is months away from turning 37 and he batted through 50 overs.


He has now been in the game for over 20 years. He did it not against minnows but a top side and the best fast bowler today. And for years he has looked the most likely to do it. But above all was the simplicity with which he greeted his feat: arms raised, a smile, and a peek up to the great beyond. No leaps, no fist-punches or extravagance, only humility. It has been the leitmotif of one of sport’s greatest, most significant careers, for the most remarkable thing about Tendulkar is that he is still Tendulkar 20 years on.

He remains as committed and devoted to the sole idea of scoring runs and winning matches as any teenager taking his first steps in the game. The game today is not the same he came into. For one, greater riches are now available. Tendulkar is part of the reason for this abundance and is its beneficiary as well. Countless other distractions offer themselves. But he remains the same, the focus, priority and hunger untouched and untainted, his skills undimmed.

All cricketers, but particularly some on this side of the border, would do well to learn from that. Swiss watchmakers might have struggled to create a more consistent, longer-lasting and elegant model. In all likelihood there will be more double hundreds now that Twenty20 has further liberated batsmen — not that they needed it. But few will come from a man such as Tendulkar. We have been fortunate in the subcontinent to have Little Masters aplenty, in Hanif Mohammad and Sunil Gavaskar. But Tendulkar is the biggest of them all. Remember him and appreciate him, for there may never be another like him.