Tendulkar's changing hues

The whip through midwicket has been replaced with a glide past square leg, the monstrous pulls with taps over the slip cordon. Sandeep Dwivedi writes in the Sunday Express on how Sachin Tendulkar, pushing 37, has adjusted his game to cope with injuries.

That cricket has been increasingly unfair to bowlers isn’t a secret, but of late Tendulkar is making this blatantly obvious. By using the pace that bowlers so excruciatingly generate to his advantage, the man who completed 20 years in cricket last year has evolved a fresh, energy-efficient approach to batting that suits his nearly 37-year-old body which has endured countless X-rays and MRI scans.

In one-dayers, in the space of a year, he has scored four marathon knocks (163, 138, 174 and 200) and at the halfway stage of the IPL, he wore the Orange Cap for being the highest run-getter — his first six coming after having faced 142 deliveries in MI’s fifth game. Making the liability of a fragile frame and growing years into an asset, he has not only extended his stay on the field without comprising on his strike rate, but also increased longevity in the shorter versions of the game.