Mumbai mayhem
The first day of the Mumbai Test wasn't as much about two teams slugging it out as much as it was about unrestrained adoration for one man

A manic reception • BCCI
Tendulkar would have been great in any age, yet he was lucky that his cricketing career coincided with the rise of satellite television, as well as with the growing importance of one-day cricket.
The inherent human vanity of an authority reluctant to cede the public stage is reinforced by a culture of adulation, of shrieking, ululating crowds, of an uncritical elevation of heroes to godlike status by devotees who will not let go. In politics, in cinema, even in corporate business houses, old Indian men do not fade into the sunset. They hobble on and on. And when they die, they are "kept alive" by heirs who succeed them: sons, daughters, wives. Sport, by its very nature, is different: there is no elegant case for heirs on a cricket team, and the body imposes its own laws of retirement.
English county cricket used to marvel at the tirelessness of Middlesex off-spinner Fred Titmus, who appeared for club and country in five different decades, from the late 1940s until the early 1980s. But Titmus played in a gentler age and, after he quit, got on with the unglamorous business of running the village post office with his wife.
By now, every possible rhythmical chant "Sachin" can be made into has been chanted. "Sachiiiiin, Sachin." "Saaaaaachin." "Sachin, Sachin-Sachin-Sachin, Saaaachin." How come no one is out of tune when they chant his name?