Tendulkar's lofted drive immortalised at the Wankhede

There was a longer-than-usual gap between the end of Sri Lanka's practice session and the start of India's on the eve of their clash in Mumbai. Wankhede Stadium had paused to honour - nay, immortalise - its favourite son.

It was here, almost exactly a decade ago, that Sachin Tendulkar called time on arguably the most storied career in this sport. In the years since, the master has had a stand at the stadium named after him. Now, in the year he turned 50, the only man with a hundred hundreds in international cricket has a statue of his own at his home turf.

The giant sculpture, placed high and mighty in the gap between the Sachin Tendulkar Stand and the Vijay Merchant Pavilion, has been designed by Pramod Kamble and depicts him playing a lofted stroke straight down the ground - not too dissimilar to those hits that had them all dancing in the aisles in Sharjah 25 years ago.

While statues of cricketers inside stadiums is a common thing in other parts of the world - think Don Bradman at the Adelaide Oval, WG Grace at Lord's, Garfield Sobers at Barbados, Viv Richards at St John's, or Shane Warne at the MCG - it's a rarer sight around Indian venues. CK Nayudu, India's first Test captain, has a few: one at Nagpur's VCA Stadium, one at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Vizag and two in Indore, including one that was unveiled ahead of the the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at Holkar Stadium earlier this year.

Tendulkar's statue is the second iconic installation at the Wankhede this year; during IPL 2023, the venue had seen the inauguration of a 'victory memorial' to celebrate India's 2011 World Cup win, built at the spot where the ball had landed when MS Dhoni finished things off in style.

With Thursday being a rematch of that final, it won't be surprising to find spectators making a beeline to get pictures near the two installations. Good luck then to the security staff around the Sachin Tendulkar Stand, the Vijay Merchant Pavilion, the MCA Pavilion and the Divecha Pavilion.

It does look a sight, and it seems the shot was chosen by Tendulkar himself, but at the risk of questioning the great man's choices, wouldn't you rather choose the classic SRT straight drive? Or, better still, just that sight of him looking skywards, bat aloft, celebrating a century? Nope? Okay, I'll see myself out.