Tendulkar's genius captured in 19 seconds

Sachin Tendulkar's six off Albie Morkel in the opening match of IPL 2012 demonstrates that his genius lies in the fact that he’s found a way to use the basics of batting even when he’s going against the rules, says Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in his blog.

One of my coaches once saw me play an ugly hoick and said: “I don’t care where the shot starts as long as it ends in a correct way”. Tendulkar started by charging down the track to a ball that was away from his body. He then struck the ball away from his body. He finished as if he had creamed a text-book perfect cover-drive. All in less than five seconds ... No batsman can be taught to bat this way. No batsman can be made to look so beautiful even when he is actually doing something that’s against the textbook.