Eight and a half on the roar-ometer

The bass-heavy tannoy boomed. The crowd drummed on the stands and roared, teaming across the terraces with the Indian tricolour streaming behind them like ensigns on a fleet of speedboats. And from the pavilion emerged … not Sachin but MS Dhoni, the Indian wicketkeeper and pyrotechnic batsman.

For years the English have equated the Indian batting with Dravid, Laxman and above all Tendulkar – all members of the team immortalised by the miracle comeback to beat Australia in 2000-01.

And in India Tendulkar was beyond massive, forced by the sheer pressure of adulation to go out in disguise or perform religious duties at temples in the dead of night. But if you imagine a roar-ometer on which ten is outright pandemonium, Dhoni’s arrival scored about nine and a half today, against Sachin’s eight and a half.

It is a stupid person who underestimates the skill and resolve of a great batsman, or the Indian public’s love for Tendulkar. Perhaps more than anyone else he, as the best in the world, symbolised what modern India was capable of.

But there are small signs that things are changing on the field for Sachin, with only two centuries in two years. And yesterday there was the smallest hint that things could be changing off it too.