A battle of wile and wit

Kirsten is a tough man, but he is also the kind who is quick to put an arm around your shoulder ... You hear them [the India players] talking about him as though he were a friend more than a coach, which is very telling ... Tendulkar tried the captaincy and decided it was not for him, but still contributes so much to the team on and off the field. When he gives advice to MS Dhoni … he does not wave his arms around just to show the crowd that he is still making decisions, but just walks up and has a quiet word in the captain's ear.

He [Dhoni] is a model of good body language on the field. Watch him when a catch is dropped. He does not mutter to himself or stare at the grass. He holds his head high and puts his hands on hips, almost as though he did not notice it happen. The message he is sending the players is "OK, let's move on and get on with it."

At 33 he [Sangakkara] is only four years Tendulkar's junior and he is not likely to get close to that astonishing haul of 99 centuries, but in every other respect this is a man who can cheerfully place his record against any contemporary. But then it is in his mastery of "psychological sledging" that this universally admired character reveals a special talent for exploiting the pressures on Tendulkar and his team-mates.

It [the sledging] works devastatingly at times, but never in a way that might bring shame ... There is none of the rough, often sexually oriented abuse ... “Sledging should be a measured comment designed to provoke a reaction. It can be something as simple as, 'Let's leave a big gap there, he can't score through there.' Even if you're mentally strong, something like that can still work in the mind…" said Sangakkara.

What he has done for Sri Lankan cricket is outstanding, but that applies not just to the sport in his country. I saw at first hand in the aftermath of the tsunami in Sri Lanka what a generous and fun nature he has … As an off-spinner you are supposed to prefer bowling to left-handers. But Murali prefers right-handers. As a leg-spinner I liked the opposite too. I preferred bowling to left-handers … The reason was identical — because they had to play at the ball or otherwise it was going to hit the stumps.

Both are achievable, though the 100 hundreds would be the most notable feat, only likely to be surpassed by a long-lived prodigy such as him. He certainly has the tools, the opportunity, the team-mates and, it would seem, the divine intervention, to do it, following his captain MS Dhoni’s comments on Friday that “God just made Tendulkar to play cricket.”

In the middle at the sharp end will be Aleem Dar, of Pakistan, who is umpire of the year for the second successive time, and Simon Taufel, his predecessor for the four years before. Although Taufel has made a couple of errors in the tournament, Dar's progress has been unblemished. All his decisions have been upheld in the court of the slow-motion replay and all challenges were thrown out.

To the vast majority he is merely a figure on television, indistinguishable from characters such as Superman and Batman … The campaign to award the nation's highest civilian honour to a sportsman might reek of cuteness anywhere else, but in India there is no embarrassment in suggesting that Tendulkar be placed in the same category as the great leaders, scientists and social workers.