Celebrating Sachin Tendulkar's 20 glorious years [Update: 28th year]

[Holysmoke]

He has been mentored by Sachin Tendulkar since his debut in South Africa when he scored his first hundred while batting with the maestro and has since formed one of the most devastating opening pairs in world cricket. Here’s Virender Sehwag’s very special tribute to his hero. When you two bat the synergy is excellent. What do you guys discuss while batting? We enjoy each other’s games, have fun in the middle and push each other on. When I play a good shot Sachin speaks to me and often tells me that he knows I can hit more of such shots and I do the same. We just stay focussed and enjoy our time out there in the middle. Sachin is a legend, isn’t he? For 20 long.. (Sehwag interrupts) He is not simply a legend. He is God. He is the god of cricket and it has been an absolute privilege to be able to share the dressing room with him and play with him. Talk a bit about the famous centurion partnership in the 2003 World Cup in SA? Pakistan had scored 273 and the Indian dressing room was completely quiet. Sachin was only listening to music and wasn’t even talking to anyone. When the umpires walked out to the middle I went up to him to tell him that we need to go out and we did so. The moment we stepped out to the middle he said he would take first strike. This was because Wasim Akram was bowling and I hadn’t faced him before. In the very second over he tore into Shoaib Akhtar and hit the fantastic six over point. He followed it up with three boundaries and we raced off to a blistering start. The Pakistanis were abusing us in Hindi and I urged him to continue hitting them. That was our retort for their behaviour. Also, let me say that the hit over slip or point is a stroke I learnt from Sachin and have used it ever since. Sachin has now said that he will play the 2011 World Cup. Your thoughts. Why only 2011 he is fit enough to even play the 2015 World Cup. See his innings in Hyderabad. He fielded for 50 overs and then came out to bat and played for 47 overs. Not many Indian players have been able to do that over the years. He still practices more than any youngster and he is fit enough to play for many years. After practice Gary throws balls at him for over 40 minutes and he continues to knock them around. His dedication is infectious. Off the field he is a fun-loving guy. He loves playing video games and enjoys going to the movies with us. I am fortunate to be able to spend time with him and it is fantastic that he will play the 2011 World Cup. He is Sachin’s best buddy. He has been presented with eight bats by the master over the last two years and thinks Sachin was well capable of picking 350 wickets had he been a bowler. Sachin completing his 20 years in international cricket is a very special occasion for this sardar from Jalandhar. Harbhajan Singh shares his views about Sachin. Bhajji, Sachin completing 20 years is a special moment for you as well. Isn’t it? Absolutely it is. And to remain at the very top for all these years makes it all the more special. He is an extraordinary man and a truly great friend who I can turn to at any point in time in my life. Tell me about your first meeting with Sachin? I met him for the first time in Jalandhar. India was playing Sri Lanka and I was asked to come and bowl at the nets to the Indian batsman. By the time I reached the ground the practice session was over. Sachin came out and spoke to me for two minutes. It meant the world to me. Tell me about sharing the dressing room and anything in particular that you have learnt from him? I have learnt a lot from him both on and off the field. Off the field I’d only eat Indian food when we travelled out of India. Sachin was the one who told me not to restrict myself to makai ki roti and chicken (laughs). He has introduced me to a wide range of cuisines and I have now learnt to adapt to all conditions and palettes. On the field I learnt the outswinger from him ,which I use if I have to bowl early in the innings. I have picked many wickets with this ball. He is blessed. I haven’t seen many who can spin the ball as much as he can. Had he wanted to be a bowler he could easily have picked 350 wickets. Not many remember that it was Sachin with the ball who won us the famous Kolkata Test in 2001 against Australia. The two of us bowled in tandem and he picked up three crucial wickets on the last day of the match. Did he give you anything after that special performance of yours? He gave me a pair of spikes. Had it been today I’d have asked for his Ferrari! But those spikes are invaluable for me. Over the last two years he has given me 8-9 bats of his own. I have been batting with them ever since and my batting has improved considerably over the last couple of years. Sydney remains a Test match I must ask you about. Did it help you during monkeygate that Sachin was out there with you? Of course it did. Had Sachin not been there the situation could have gone completely out of control. He was a calming influence and did much for me all through the controversy. He is a special man and I wish him all the best with everything he does even after he retires from the game in a few years.

[DomainK]

Man, this thread is gold really. I am going to make a PDF of this thread and preserve it forever.

[Holysmoke]

Whenever talk veers towards the early excitement around Sachin Tendulkar’s talent, I remember the words of Kapil Dev. I had broken the news to the Indian team in the dressing room about Sachin making a hundred on Ranji Trophy debut . The first to respond was Kapil, who immediately told his teammates ,‘‘ Please don’t go overboard over this performance. We have also had our prodigies in Haryana. There was Rajdeep Kalsi. But he flattered to deceive.'' Kapil’s Mumbai teammates, like Dilip Vengsarkar and Sanjay Manjrekar, sniggered. They had been following Sachin’s performances since he was 12. They had played with and against him. They knew the buzz. They knew what happened with Kalsi would never happen with Sachin. Mumbai cricket has its system of checks and balances and people with the right priorities usually let a talented young one sail through to the top seamlessly. Also, word spreads around Mumbai’s cricket maidans very fast. When Sachin scored his first fifty for Shardashram against Don Bosco he was barely 11, but umpire DS Gondhalekar immediately told Sachin’s coach Ramakant Achrekar that his ward would one day play for India. In Achrekar’s own words, Sachin was a ‘‘ natural” . He says: ‘‘ By the time he was 12 or 13 I knew he would reach the top. I had to tell him one thing just once, and he would stick to it.”' Still, there were people not willing to get carried away. Like for the semifinal of a suburban tournament, Sachin was left out of the XI by the Hind Sevak skipper . When the skipper got a scolding from Achrekar, Sachin was picked for the two-day final against Prabhu Jolly Young. In the first innings he was out first ball, for a duck off the back of his bat. The bowler was a little known legspinner, yours truly! The members of the team cursed this bowler for denying them the pleasure of watching the prodigy from close quarters. In the second innings, Sachin hit three boundaries in a row off Ajit Pai, former India seamer, before being run out by his skipper. He went back crying to the pavilion. This is the ‘check-and-balance ' system. There were a few Doubting Thomases. The city had seen many young talents. Quickie Ramakant Desai played for India before he played for Mumbai and Budhi Kunderan did likewise. Madhav Apte claimed all ten wickets in the Giles Shield and played for India as opening batsman . Ravi Shastri had been catapulted into Test cricket within a year of his first-class debut. Nadeem Memon was among the senior players when Sachin played for John Bright in the F Division of the Monsoon tournament Kanga League, which is a test of batsmanship because the deliveries rise off the drying pitches. Says Nadeem, ‘‘ Achrekar Sir asked me to include Sachin, who was about 12. There were some who thought he might get hurt but he got 16 not out. Vinod Kambli, Samir Dighe, Iqbal Khan, Dattaram Pandit were also there in the side.” Two teammates who saw him from close quarters at that raw age were Amol Muzumdar and Sairaj Bahutule. Amol Muzumdar was waiting for his turn during the world record 664-run stand with Vinod Kambli, while Sairaj Bahutule was in the opposition, in the St. Xavier’s High School bowling lineup. Amol recalls,‘‘ We knew he would play Test cricket but not for 20 years. I was not in Achrekar’s stable initially but with coach Anna Vaidya. “But at Shivaji Park this buzz was there. I remember once I was travelling in a bus with my mother . Sachin was in the same bus. I didn’t know him then. I told my mom when we saw Sachin get off, ‘That’s Sachin Tendulkar, he will play for India.’” Amol adds, ‘‘ He had special talent . At that time the stress was more on correct technique and temperament, less on flamboyance . But Sachin had this terrific ability to hit the ball which we never saw in others. When one knows that one can hit any bowler it is a big plus point.” Sairaj Bahutule is all praise for Sachin’s consistency, right from the U-15 level. ‘‘ He hit big runs off me in that world-record stand but he played the bowling on merit even at that young age, which is remarkable.”' Naresh Churi was another Achrekar chela like Amol Muzumdar , who missed the international bus in spite of having performed and taken the route that Pravin Amre did — Ranji trophy for Railways and Duleep for Central Zone. He says,‘‘ I had passed out of school when Sachin joined but when in town I would go to the nets and see him. Sir had a special net for the extra-talented . Once I saw Sachin hitting in the air and asked him, ‘You told us to keep the ball along the ground but Sachin is doing the opposite .’ Achrekar told me, ‘When he hits, he not only middles the ball but he clears the ground. Plus he doesn’t get out when he lifts the ball.’ I appreciated the logic and I knew then that Sachin was special.” Churi says at the same time there were many who were pointing out that Vinod Kambli was the greater player. ‘‘ Once I took our Railways coach Vinod Sharma to watch a Shardasharam game. After Sachin got out with some 250 runs still needed to chase down Anjuman’s 500-plus score at Azad maidan , it was Vinod who scored over 250 and earned us victory. Sharma was impressed more by Vinod. But I insisted that Sachin would be the one.” Soon after, when we were in Delhi for a Ranji game, Sharma knocked on my door in the morning saying,‘‘ Your Sachin has been picked for Mumbai.” When the late Raj Singh Dungarpur saw Sachin play at the Brabourne Stadium in the schools final, he remarked about his maturity. About how when the field was spread out, Sachin would turn his boundary-bound drives to longon and long-off for twos. How he didn’t hit the ball in the air for nearly two days. No wonder it took little persuasion for Raj Singh, as chairman of the national selection committee, to pick Sachin for India ahead of the likes of Gursharan Singh and Praveen Amre. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Holysmoke]

Sachin makes time stand still.

In a sport that specialises in the manufacture of instant stars and transient celebrities, Tendulkar is the real thing. Even now, twenty years Sachin after his debut, there's always a sense of occasion every time he comes to the crease, no matter the game, no matter the place Many tributes to Sachin Tendulkar. This month will begin with a recollection of one of his epic innings. I wish to cite one of the shortest. It was in Melbourne, my hometown, on Boxing Day 2003. It was a day rich in entertainment, containing a Virender Sehwag century full of eye-popping strokes. Seldom, however, have I sat in a crowd so obviously awaiting one player, and when Tendulkar appeared they radiated happiness and contentment, bursting into heartfelt applause. Tendulkar at the MCG? Delayed Christmas presents come no better. Except that it was all wrapping and no gift. Tendulkar feathered his first ball down the leg side, and was caught at the wicket — a miserable way to fall for any batsman, in addition to being a lousy anti-climax . The crowd had hardly ceased cheering than it was compelled to resume, cheering Tendulkar off, and the feeling afterwards was almost devastation. You could hear the sibilance of conversations, as connoisseurs ruminated that cricket sure was a funny game, and fathers tried explaining to sons that even the greats had bad days. About three overs later, three spectators at the end of my row got up and left. It was mid-afternoon , Sehwag was still mid-spectacular , and they left. This was not what they had come for, and they would accept no substitute. I had to stay — it was my job — but I could easily have followed them. The hollow feeling persisted all day. When it comes to communicating Tendulkar's place in cricket history to future generations, I suspect, this is what will be most significant, and also the hardest to convey. In the twenty years of his career, international cricket has changed unrecognisably: elaborate and ceremonial Test cricket has been usurped, economically at least, by the slick, shiny celebrity vehicle of Twenty20. Yet even now, Tendulkar makes time stand still: every time he comes to the wicket, no matter the game, no matter the place, there is a sense of occasion. It needs no pop music, no cheerleaders, no word from his many sponsors. He is announced by his accumulated excellence, the effect somehow magnified by his tininess: little man, big bat, great moment. His entry could not seem more dramatic if he was borne to the crease on a bejewelled palanquin by dusky maidens amid a flourish of imperial trumpets. This, moreover, has been the case almost for longer than one can remember. I first saw Tendulkar bat live in England in 1990. He looked so young, so small, like a novelty item on a key chain. Any sense of frailty, however, was quickly dispelled; instead, there was a sureness of touch, not just impressive but altogether ominous. You told yourself to remember him this way; you wanted to be able to say you were there; he was going to be good, so good. By the time he first toured Australia eighteen months later, he simply oozed command. All that held him back, and it would be a theme of his career, especially abroad, was his sorely outclassed team. Sometimes, this looked almost eerie. Ten years ago in Melbourne, India and Tendulkar played a Test at the MCG. To distinguish between the two was only fair. India were terrible, a shambles. Kumble dropped the simplest catch imaginable from the game's second ball and took 2-150 ; Dravid batted more than three and a half hours in the match for 23 runs; Laxman and Ganguly failed twice, the latter playing on to Greg Blewett, of all people. Tendulkar batted as if on a different pitch, to different bowlers in a different match. Shane Warne came on in front of his home crowd with Australia in the ascendant. Tendulkar promptly hit him into that crowd beyond mid-off . Brett Lee, in his debut Test, bowled like the wind. Tendulkar treated him as a pleasant, cooling breeze. The follow-on loomed, apparently unavoidable. Tendulkar guided India past it, toying with Steve Waugh's formations, making the fielders look as immobile and ineffectual as croquet hoops. Had it not been for his ten teammates, Tendulkar could have batted until the crack of doom. As it is, he had to rest content with 116 out of an otherwise bedraggled 238. And this wasn't just an innings; it was, at the time, a synechdoche of Indian cricket. No matter where he went, Tendulkar was the main event, preceded by acute anticipation, followed by grateful wonder, seasoned with sympathy, that such a flyweight figure had to bear such burdens. There is no discussing Tendulkar, even in cricket terms, as batsman alone. He is also, of course, Indian cricket's original super celebrity; as Pope wrote of Cromwell, ‘damn'd to everlasting fame' . In this sense, he has been preternaturally modern, at the forefront of developments in the culture of stardom in his country, with his telephone-number television entanglements and sponsorship deals, and his reclusive private life. Without Tendulkar's prior demonstration of cricket's commercial leverage, Lalit Modi and all his works would have been unthinkable. What's truly amazing, nonetheless, is that the simulacrum of Tendulkar has never overwhelmed the substance. He has gone on doing what he does best, and has done better than anybody else in his generation, which is bat and bat and bat. Like Warne, albeit for different reasons, cricket grounds have been a haven for him: in the middle, he always knows what to do, and feels confident he can do it. Life is full of complications and ambiguities; cricket by comparison, even shouldering the expectations of a billion people, is sublimely simple. Tendulkar's fame, then, is of an unusual kind. He is a symbol of change, but also of continuity. What's astonishing about his batting is not how much it has changed but how little. He set himself a standard of excellence, of consistency, of dominance, and challenged the rest of Indian cricket to meet him up there. Gradually, in the 21st century, albeit not without setbacks, stumbles, financial excesses and political wranglings, it has. His presence now is an ennobling one. First it was his excellence that rubbed off; now it is his integrity. Cricket today specialises in the manufacture of instant stars, temporary celebrities, glorious nobodies. Tendulkar acts as a kind of fixed price or gold standard. To choose a well-loved and well-worn advertising catchline, he is ‘the real thing' . In his sheer constancy, in fact, Tendulkar unwittingly obscures just how completely cricket has been transformed, to the extent that it is almost impossible to imagine his fame being replicated. Who in future will play international cricket for twenty years, losing neither motivation nor mastery? Who in future will master all three forms of the game, capable of spontaneous spectacle and massive entrenchment alike? Who in future will excite us simply by walking onto the field, just a man and a bat, and disappoint so seldom? Recalling how shocked, even grief stricken, was that crowd in Melbourne six years ago as Tendulkar's back was swallowed by the shadows of the pavilion, I find myself brooding anxiously on the thought of what it will be like when he disappears for the last time. 154 That's how many one-day wickets Sachin has claimed with his gentle leg-breaks . Nehru Stadium in Kochi has been his happy hunting ground, with both his fivers coming there — 5 for 32 against Australia in 1998, and 5 for 50 against Pakistan in 2005. The Pakistani giant Inzamam-ul Haq was an unlikely Sachin bunny, falling to him seven times 44 Test wickets have been fewer with 3-10 against South Africa at Mumbai in 2000 being his best.

[DomainK]

During the course of the match I asked him about the possible bowling changes. He explained the situation and predicted who would be bowling next. The change was made and the same bowler, who he had foreseen, came in to bowl next. For the next half an hour he was reading the game like an open book. He was only making an accurate prediction of the bowling changes; he was spot on with his views on field placement. He could even sense what shots the batsmen would play. It was unbelievable. I was stunned by his observations, his knowledge of the game, and the way he read the minds of the opposition.

:adore: :adore:

[Holysmoke]

:adore: :adore:

I was watching them watch the match:haha:

[DomainK]

I was watching them watch the match:haha: http://i36.tinypic.com/e0l4j6.jpg

You mean you were sitting right there?:omg:

[Sachinism]

[Laaloo]

^^^^ :adore: :adore: :adore: :adore: :adore:

[varun]

Something I wrote about my earliest memory of Sachin. I remember being curious about Sachin Tendulkar. I knew he was a really young kid, a few years older than me, selected for the Indian team. Mum thought he was cute with his curly hair. We didn't think much of him except that he was the baby of the Indian cricket team. Then Karachi happened. The ODI was reduced to a 20-over exhibition game. Pakistanis had a formidable total up. Qadir was outfoxing our batsmen throughout the innings. Out steps little Sachin, and boom goes Qadir. 6, 0, 4, 6 6 6. The Karachi crowd was stunned and amazed at the dichotomy of seeing such brutish strokes come out of someone who looks so innocent. How can you hate the kid ? And it didn't stop there.. Akram came in, and Sachin hit him around too ! We couldn't believe our eyes sitting in front of the TV. This was the post-Miandad-Chetan-Sharma time when the Pakistanis were considered oh so formidable, and we had become used to seeing the Indian team giving in meekly to them. And then out of nowhere comes this baby faced curly haired boy who shows no fear, hits 53 runs from 18 balls and gets us so close from an almost impossible position. Quote from Sachin about the match "When I came in to bat we needed 69 runs in five overs or so. I had a go at Mushtaq Ahmed who had taken two wickets and hit him for a couple of sixes. Qadir then came up to me said, "Bachchon ko kyon mar rahe ho? Hamein bhi maar dikhao" ("Why are you only hitting the kid? Hit me too.") Qadir was a great bowler and I was only playing my first series. I didn't say anything, but it fired me up. I took up the challenge and gave it a go. Ultimately we fell short only by four runs." A Hero was born, and the fact that he took us so close but tragically failed to win made him appear more vulnerable and human to the people watching him. He wasn't the unattainable adonis that people looked up to and idolized. He was the sincere little son whom mums wanted to comfort after seeing him disconsolate on losing, he was the older brother who smashed the living daylights out of our "enemies" and showed no fear, he was the cute baby faced boy who was making a name for himself and becoming a heartthrob among all the young girls, he was the gritty hardworking son whom dads hoped would make them proud, and one by one he was slowly becoming the hope of a billion people, the main protagonist of a movie that had its ups and downs, joy and anguish, jubilance and heartbreak, . Sachin had arrived, and was on the way to becoming a legend. But along with him, Cricket was reborn in India as a wholesome form of entertainment, as a replacement for the fading bollywood industry of the early 90s which people from all walks of life flocked to for a little bit of Sachin.

[Chalks]

When did he start wearing the Indian flag on his helmet? Early 00s? Only ever seen him bat once in the flesh, and that was at MCG two years ago. Day Two. Dravid was dismissed for 5 off 66 balls last ball before lunch. I knew Sachin was next in, so as I was having lunch, I pondered what would happen next. Almost immediately he came in the run-rate picked up from its moribund ~1 run per over. He was threatening to bring India back into the game almost by himself. As soon as he left, bowled by Stuart Clark for 62 (out of 89 while he was there), the innings collapsed. So 90s, I thought to myself. I knew I'd witnessed something special, even if it was a cameo. Time just seems to stand still when he is batting. That hasn't been the case the times I've seen Lara and Ponting bat (and I've seen a fair bit of them, mostly in ODIs).

[Chandan]

A tribute by Atul Ranade MENTAL STRENGTH IS HIS BIGGEST ASSET Tendulkar may have reached the pinnacle of his career, but that hasn't stopped him from living life to its fullest. Here's a peek... My favourite Sachin innings The 98 he scored against Pakistan in the 2003 World Cup at Centurion. I can't forget how he belted Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar all round the SuperSport Park. The way Sachin executed his innings was remarkable. Chasing 270-odd runs, it was a terrific effort against a formidable Pakistan pace attack. His greatest strength It has to be Sachin's mental strength. He puts in a lot of effort to improve his physical fitness. We trained for hours before the Australia series at the Bandra Kurla Complex. He knows his body well -- how to treat it and when to rest it. It is difficult to break his concentration. Weakness Sachin's tendency to glide the ball to third man seems chronic. He has got out so many times edging a catch behind the stumps trying to get cheeky. Sachin & me After he scored his 35th Test hundred, Sachin called me from the dressing room. He was slightly emotional, as he finally surpassed Sunny sir's record. He was tense not because he was on the verge of breaking the record, but it was the media hype that got to him. A huge tension was off his shoulders and I could feel it too. (Sachin's best friend Ranade spoke to Bivabasu Kumar) Navjot Singh Sidhu pays tribute HE COULD HAVE DONE BETTER AS A SKIPPER My favourite Sachin innings To start with, I would say the `Desert storm' innings Sachin played in Sharjah in 1998 was one of the best. The master batsman showed how he could dominate the bowling and play shots at will. Sachin also played a superb innings in the Chennai Test against Pakistan and scored a hundred despite struggling with back spasm. Although India lost that Test, the world saw what a player Sachin was despite not being at his best. On his first Pak tour, he was hit on the nose. But the then 16-year-old did not lose courage and scored a brilliant half-century to draw the Sialkot Test. His greatest strength He has got a wolf in his belly, which is always hungry for runs! Sachin just knows how to convert obstacles into stepping stones, defeats into triumphs and weaknesses into strengths. Weakness He is almost flawless when it comes to technique, but I feel he could have done better as skipper. When it came to captaincy, things did not go his way. Sachin & me I feel blessed and thank God that I played alongside such a great player. Opening the innings with him and watching him from the non-striker's end was always an inspiration for me. (As told to Aseem Bassi) SACH FRAMES BON VIVANT Tendulkar may have reached the pinnacle of his career, but that hasn't stopped him from living life to its fullest. Here's a peek...

[Holysmoke]

Anshuman Gaekwad - I was lucky to be the manager of Team India when Sachin Tendulkar was in his prime. The assignment gave me the opportunity to watch some of his scintillating knocks live and understand his approach to the game. Almost a decade on, I fondly remember his three knocks — two against Australia and one against Pakistan — in the 1997-98 and 98-99 seasons not only because of the quality of his batting but also for his mindset. Shane wanes The first match of the India-Australia Test series in Chennai in March 1998 was pitted as the battle between Sachin and Shane Warne. And knowing Sachin, I was sure he wouldn’t want to come second best. Before the match, on Sachin’s request, we invited leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan to nets. We created a rough outside the leg stump and asked Siva to pitch his deliveries on it. Things, however, didn’t go according to our plan in the first innings. We were bowled out for 257. Some useful partnerships lower down the order helped Australia gain a 71-run lead in the first innings. But I knew, we could still turn the tables on Aussies. I walked up to Sachin, who was in the physio’s room at the Chinnaswamy stadium, before our second innings. “Look Sach, I think we still have a chance to win the match. But for that, we need a quick 70 from someone. Who will do it?” I asked him. “Don’t worry, I will,” Sach replied. But the way he batted next day was amazing. He hit Warne all around the park. As anticipated, Warne came round the wicket and tried to pitch his deliveries on the rough on a wearing track. But Sachin was equal to the task, he swept, pulled, drove and cut Warne with disdain. His 155-run knock helped India win the match by 179 runs and set up the series for us. Desert storm We were down in the dumps in the Coca Cola Cup in Sharjah in April 1998. Only a monumental effort in our final group match against Aussies could see us enter the final of the tri-series. Australia batted first and scored 284. We needed to score 254 to qualify for the final. Sachin sounded the warning bells for the Aussies by whacking two Michael Kasprowicz deliveries into the stands. A desert storm saw the match being interrupted for a while. Our target was reduced to 276 and in order to qualify for the final, we had to score 237. And after the desert storm, Tornado Tendulkar took the Aussies head-on. He hit every bowler. He was finally dismissed for 143 off 131balls. His knock was studded with five sixes and nine fours. His scintillating ton ensured India’s qualification. After the match, when I reached the hotel in Dubai, I happened to come across Kasprowicz in the lift. He called me out loud, “Hey coach! How to stop this man (Sachin)?” I told him, “ Kasper, listen. Only Sachin can stop Sachin and no-one else.” I was late to retire to bed that night. It was well past midnight and I was about to fall asleep when I got a call from Sachin seeking permission for a quick chat. He told me, “I think there is a slight problem in my technique, Anshubhai.” This coming from a man who had just decimated the Aussie attack puzzled me. “When I am trying to loft the fast bowlers, I am not getting the right elevation? How can I rectify this?” he asked me. Well, in all my years I have been associated with cricket I have never come across a more committed man. To me, Sachin is a perfectionist. He is 99.9 per cent perfect. Sach went on to score a hundred in the final too, which saw India lift the Coca Cola Cup. Post-ton pain Sachin was fighting back spasms during the first Test of the series between India and Pakistan in Chennai in January 1999. We needed his presence and he took the field. The match ebbed and flowed both ways and India needed 271 to win in the fourth innings. Sachin, troubled by a sore back, almost led India to an unlikely win. But he fell 17 runs short of victory scoring a superb 136. The tail-enders caved in and India lost the match by 12 runs. Sachin was shattered. At the post-match presentation, Sachin was declared man of the match. But Sach was no where to be seen. I went to the dressing room and found him sitting in a corner with his face covered with a towel. I tried to draw his attention. But couldn’t. I never saw a more shattered Tendulkar.

[Lord]

MAN-CHILD SUPERSTAR by Rahul Bhattacharya Sachin Tendulkar comes to the ground in headphones. He might make a racket in the privacy of the bus, who knows, but when he steps out he is behind headphones. Waiting to bat he is behind his helmet. The arena is swinging already to the chant, "Sachin, Sachin", the first long and pleading, the second urgent and demanding, but Tendulkar is oblivious, behind his helmet. At the fall of the second wicket, that familiar traitorous roar goes round the stadium, at which point Tendulkar walks his slow walk out, golden in the sun, bat tucked under the elbow. The gloves he will only begin to wear when he approaches the infield, to busy himself against distraction from the opposition. Before Tendulkar has even taken guard, you know that his quest is equilibrium. As he bats his effort is compared in real time with earlier ones. Tendulkar provides his own context. The conditions, the bowling attack, his tempo, his very vibe, is assessed against an innings played before. Today he reminds me of the time when … Why isn't he …. What's wrong with him! If the strokes are flowing, spectators feel something beyond pleasure. They feel something like gratitude. The silence that greets his dismissal is about the loudest sound in sport. With Tendulkar the discussion is not how he got out, but why. Susceptible to left-arm spin? To the inswinger? To the big occasion? The issue is not about whether it was good or not, but where does it rank? A Tendulkar innings is never over when it is over. It is simply a basis for negotiation. He might be behind headphones or helmet, but outside people are talking, shouting, fighting, conceding, bargaining, waiting. He is a national habit. But Tendulkar goes on. This is his achievement, to live the life of Tendulkar. To occupy the space where fame and accomplishment intersect, akin to the concentrated spot under a magnifying glass trained in the sun, and remain unburnt. "Sachin is God" is the popular analogy. Yet god may smile as disease, fire, flood and Sreesanth visit the earth, and expect no fall in stock. For Tendulkar the margin for error is rather less. The late Naren Tamhane was merely setting out the expectation for a career when he remarked as selector, "Gentlemen, Tendulkar never fails." The question was whether to pick the boy to face Imran, Wasim, Waqar and Qadir in Pakistan. Tendulkar was then 16. Sixteen and so ready that precocity is too mild a word. He made refinements, of course, but the marvel of Tendulkar is that he was a finished thing almost as soon as began playing. The maidans of Bombay are dotted with tots six or seven years old turning out for their coaching classes. But till the age of 11, Tendulkar had not played with a cricket ball. It had been tennis- or rubber-ball games at Sahitya Sahwas, the writers' co-operative housing society where he grew up, the youngest of four cricket-mad siblings by a distance. The circumstances were helpful. In his colony friends he had playmates, and from his siblings, Ajit in particular, one above Sachin but older by 11 years, he had mentorship. It was Ajit who took him to Ramakant Achrekar, and the venerable coach inquired if the boy was accustomed to playing with a "season ball" as it is known in India. The answer did not matter. Once he had a look at him, Achrekar slotted him at No. 4, a position he would occupy almost unbroken through his first-class career. In his first two matches under Achrekar Sir, he made zero and zero. Memory obscures telling details in the dizzying rise thereafter. Everybody remembers the 326 not out in the 664-run gig with Kambli. Few remember the 346 not out in the following game, the trophy final. Everyone knows the centuries on debut in the Ranji Trophy and Irani Trophy at 15 and 16. Few know that he got them in the face of a collapse in the first instance and virtually out of partners in the second. Everyone knows his nose was bloodied by Waqar Younis in that first Test series, upon which he waved away assistance. Few remember that he struck the next ball for four. This was Tendulkar five years after he'd first handled a cricket ball. Genius, they say, is infinite patience. But it is first of all an intuitive grasp of something beyond the scope of will - or, for that matter, skill. In sportspersons it is a freakishness of the motor senses, even a kind of ESP. Tendulkar's genius can be glimpsed without him actually holding a bat. Not Garry Sobers' equal with the ball, he is nevertheless possessed of a similar versatility. He swings it both ways, a talent that eludes several specialists. He not only rips big legbreaks but also lands his googlies right, a task beyond some wrist spinners. Naturally he also bowls offspin, usually to left-handers and sometimes during a spell of wrist spin. In the field he mans the slips as capably as he does deep third man, and does both in a single one-dayer. Playing table tennis he is ambidextrous. By all accounts he is a brilliant, if hair-raising, driver. He is a champion Snake player on the cellphone, according to Harbhajan Singh, whom he also taught a spin variation. His batting is of a sophistication that defies generalisation. He can be destroyer or preserver. Observers have tried to graph these phases into a career progression. But it is ultimately a futile quest for Tendulkar's calibrations are too minute and too many to obey compartmentalisation. Given conditions, given his fitness, his state of mind, he might put away a certain shot altogether, and one thinks it is a part of his game that has died, till he pulls it out again when the time is right, sometimes years afterwards. Let alone a career, in the space of a single session he can, according to the state of the rough or the wind or the rhythm of a particular bowler, go from predatorial to dead bat or vice versa. Nothing frustrates Indians as much as quiet periods from Tendulkar, and indeed often they are self-defeating. But outsiders have no access to his thoughts. However eccentric, they are based on a heightened cricket logic rather than mood. Moods are irrelevant to Tendulkar. Brian Lara or Mohammad Azharuddin might be stirred into artistic rage. Tendulkar is a servant of the game. He does not play out of indignation nor for indulgence. His aim is not domination but runs. It is the nature of his genius. The genius still doesn't explain the cricket world's enchantment with Tendulkar. Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis are arguably not lesser cricketers than he, but have nothing like his following or presence. Among contemporaries only Shane Warne could draw an entire stadium's energy towards himself, but then Warne worked elaborately towards this end. Tendulkar on the pitch is as uncalculated as Warne was deliberate. Warne worked the moments before each delivery like an emcee at a title fight. Tendulkar goes through a series of ungainly nods and crotch adjustments. Batting, his movements are neither flamboyant nor languid; they are contained, efficient. Utility is his concern. Having hit the crispest shot between the fielders he can still be found scurrying down the wicket, just in case. Likewise, outside the pitch nothing he does calls up attention. In this he is not unusual for the times. It has been, proved by exceptions of course, the era of the undemonstrative champion. Ali, Connors, McEnroe, Maradona have given way to Sampras, Woods, Zidane, Federer, who must contend with the madness of modern media and sanitisation of corporate obligation. Maybe Tendulkar the superstar, like Tendulkar the cricketer, was formed at inception. Then, as now, he is darling. He wears the big McEnroe-inspired curls of his youth in a short crop, but still possesses the cherub's smile and twinkle. Perhaps uniquely, he is granted not the sportstar's indulgence of perma-adolescence but that of perma-childhood. A man-child on the field: maybe it is the dichotomy that is winning. The wonder is that in the years between he has done nothing to sully his innocence, nothing to deaden the impish joy, nothing to disrupt the infinite patience or damage the immaculate equilibrium through the riot of his life and career.

[littlemaster1982]

'Tendulkar controls the game' What are the things that set the great man apart from mere mortals? The ability to read the game acutely, pick the ball early, dedication, discipline and more The first time Virender Sehwag met Sachin Tendulkar was in March 2001, at a practice session ahead of the first ODI of the home series against Australia. For Sehwag, Tendulkar was the man who had inspired him to skip exams in school and allowed him to dream of cricket as a career. Sehwag was shy then, and didn't speak to his hero. He got 58 off 51 balls and picked up three wickets. Tendulkar later walked up to him and said, "You've got talent. Continue playing the same way and I'm sure you will make your name." That ability to motivate youngsters is one of the traits, Sehwag says, that makes Tendulkar special. Here he tells Cricinfo about 10 things that make Tendulkar stand out. Discipline He never comes late to any practice session, never comes late to the team bus, never comes late to any meeting - he is always five minutes ahead of time. If you are disciplined, it shows you are organised. And then he is ready for anything on the cricket field. Mental strength I've learned a lot of things from him as far as mental strength goes - on how to tacke a situation, how to tackle a ball or bowler. If you are not tough mentally, you can't score the number of runs and centuries he has in the last two decades. He is a very good self-motivator. He always said to me: whatever the situation or whichever the bowler you face, always believe in yourself. There was this occasion in South Africa, early in my career, when I was not scoring runs fluently, so he suggested I try a few mental techniques that had worked for him. One of the things he said was: Always tell yourself you are better than others. You have some talent and that is why you are playing for India, so believe in yourself. Picking the ball early He can pick the ball earlier than other batsmen and that is a mark of a great batsman. He is virtually ready for the ball before it is bowled. Only great players can have two shots for one ball, like Tendulkar does, and a big reason is that he picks the ball very early. Soft hands I've never seen him play strokes with hard hands. He always tries to play with soft hands, always tries to meet the ball with the centre of the bat. That is timing. I have never been able to play consistently with soft hands. Planning One reason he can convert his fifties into hundreds is planning: which bowler he should go after, which bowler he should respect, in which situation he should play aggressively, in which situation he should defend. It is because he has spent hours thinking about all of it, planning what to do. He knows what a bowler will do in different situations and he is ready for it. In my debut Test he scored 155 and he knew exactly what to do every ball. We had already lost four wickets (68 for 4) when I walked in, and he warned me about the short ball. He told me that the South African fast bowlers would bowl short-of-length balls regularly, but he knew how to counter that. If they bowled short of a length, he cut them over slips; when they bowled outside off stump, he cut them; and when they tried to bowl short into his body, he pulled with ease. Luckily his advice had its effect on me, and I made my maiden hundred! Adaptability This is one area where he is really fast. And that is because he is such a good reader of the game. After playing just one or two overs he can tell you how the pitch will behave, what kind of bounce it has, which length is a good one for the batsman, what shots to play and what not to. A good example was in the Centurion ODI of the 2006-07 series. India were batting first. Shaun Pollock bowled the first over and fired in a few short-of-length balls, against which I tried to play the back-foot punch. Tendulkar cautioned me immediately and said that shot was not a good option. A couple of overs later I went for it again and was caught behind, against Pollock. Making bowlers bowl to his strengths He will leave a lot of balls and give the bowler a false sense of security, but the moment it is pitched up to the stumps or closer to them, Tendulkar will easily score runs. If the bowler is bowling outside off stump Tendulkar can disturb his line by going across outside off stump and playing to midwicket. He puts doubts in the bowler's mind, so that he begins to wonder if he has bowled the wrong line and tries to bowl a little outside off stump - which Tendulkar can comfortably play through covers. In Sydney in 2004, in the first innings he didn't play a single cover drive, and remained undefeated on 241. He decided to play the straight drive and flicks, so he made the bowlers pitch to his strengths. It is not easy. In the Test before that, in Melbourne, he had got out trying to flick. After that when we had a chat he said he was getting out playing the cover drive and the next game he would avoid the cover drive. I thought he was joking because nobody cannot not play the cover drive - doesn't matter if you are connecting or not. I realised he was serious in Sydney when he was on about 180-odd and he had missed plenty of opportunities to play a cover drive. I was stunned. Ability to bat in different gears This is one aspect of batting I have always discussed with Tendulkar: how he controls his game; the way he can change gears after scoring a half-century. Suddenly he scores 10-12 runs an over, or maybe a quick 30 runs in five overs, and then again slows down and paces his innings. He has maintained that it all depends on the team's position. If you are in a good position you tend to play faster. He also pointed out that the batsman must always think about what can happen if he gets out and the consequences for the team. The best example is the knock of 175. I was confident he would pull it off for India and he almost did. Building on an innings I learned from Tendulkar how to get big hundreds. He told me early on that once you get a hundred you are satisfied for yourself. But it is also the best time to convert that into a bigger score for the team because then the team will be in a good position. If you look at my centuries they have always been big. A good instance of this was in Multan in 2004, when he told me I had given away a good position in Melbourne (195) the previous year and the team lost, and I needed to keep that in mind against Pakistan. In Multan, in the first hundred of the triple century I had hit a few sixes. He walked up to me after I reached the century and said he would slap me if I hit any further sixes. I said why. He said that if I tried hitting a six and got out the team would lose the control over the game, and I needed to bat through the day. So I didn't hit a single six till I reached 295. By then India were 500-plus and I told him I was going to hit a six! Dedication This is the most important aspect of his success. In his life cricket comes first. When he is on tour he is thinking about nothing but cricket, and when he is not on tour he dedicates quality time to his family. That shows his dedication to the game and to his family. He has found the right balance. From Cricinfo

[Holysmoke]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart started composing at the age of five. Pablo Neruda wrote his Book of Twilights when he was 19. Sachin Tendulkar was all of six when he took up a bat in earnest. By the time he was 15, he was the most talked-about schoolboy cricketer ever. More than two decades on, he remains Indian cricket’s man for all seasons, the repository of a nation’s hope. Those that played with him in the days of auld lang syne have long since migrated to the coaching field and the commentary box. Tendulkar, his eyes perhaps set on a World Cup swansong on home turf, continues to mark his guard and settle into that unmistakable stance. What is there left to say about this man? At the age of 18, he was standing on tiptoe to drive and cut Australia’s finest on his way to a century in Perth. At 21, he decided that he’d like to open in one-day cricket. He’s still going strong 45 hundreds later. A few days short of 25, he played an innings, with a desert storm as backdrop, that will never be forgotten by those fortunate enough to see it. At 30, faced with the longest lean trot of his career, he memorably decided to eschew the cover-drive in Sydney, ruining Steve Waugh’s farewell with a 241 that was an enactment of monastic denial on a cricket field. The records and the catalogue of achievement will be cherished for years. What’s even more admirable though is the manner in which he’s dealt with unimaginable fame and untold riches. When he was still a teenager who had yet to make his Ranji Trophy debut, Ramakant Achrekar, his coach, said: “People don’t realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children’s library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything.” The wonder of Tendulkar is that he never did. A couple of years ago, at a bookshop in the newly opened Bangalore Airport, I happened to see an entry in the visitors’ book. Beneath the familiar signature, there was one line: ‘Sachin Tendulkar, Indian cricket team.’ To others, he may be primus inter pares, the ubiquitous face of his sport, but after all this time and all those halcyon years, he still views himself as part of a bigger picture. That picture has changed beyond our wildest imagination from the time that a curly-haired 16-year-old walked out on to the field at the National Stadium in Karachi. Back then, cricket was still a sport. Passionately followed, but hardly the commercial behemoth that it has since become. Over the next few years, Tendulkar did for cricket what Michael Jordan had done for the NBA and what Joe Namath and Super Bowl III did for the NFL. When he walked to the crease, a nation stopped to watch. Even now, at restaurants and airports, Blackberrys come out and ball-by-ball updates are discreetly accessed once people learn that “the boss is batting”. Those that don’t really know India well speak of cinema as the country’s greatest unifying force. That’s nonsense. Amitabh Bachchan’s oeuvre resonates little with the man in Tamil Nadu’s interior, just as Rajnikanth is little more than an object of curiosity to someone in Punjab. But Chennai or Chandigarh, Guwahati or Cochin, Tendulkar walks out to undiluted acclaim. With the exception of Gandhi, perhaps no other Indian has managed to rally so many behind the flag. When he reached his century with the last stroke of the match in Chennai a year ago, it wasn’t just a stadium that cheered and danced and wept. Coming three weeks after the terror attacks in Mumbai, there was something pre-ordained about it all. A few days earlier, he had released a commercial with the line: “I play for India, now more than ever”. There may not have been a cape or a mask, but there were no murmurs of dissent when Kevin Pietersen called him Superman. His struggles with captaincy make him human, and the heartbreaks of Chennai (1999) and the Wanderers (2003, when a World Cup final was lost even before he came out to bat) will perhaps haunt him for the rest of his days. But when all is said and done, the 36-year-old continues to do what the schoolboy did. And as we ponder what makes him tick, maybe we just need to listen to a nursery rhyme that’s sung to one of Mozart’s tunes. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

[Sachinism]

I'm still on page 3 with the articles :/

[DomainK]

I don't think so much was written about one person ever in a span of a few days. This is amazing.

[Online]

Man' date=' this thread is gold really. I am going to make a PDF of this thread and preserve it forever.[/quote'] once u do that, please link me a copy

[Jersey #10]

Man' date=' this thread is gold really. I am going to make a PDF of this thread and preserve it forever.[/quote'] Can I also get a copy?