The secret to Sachin's success

"Tendulkar loves the game. Even after all these years, all these grounds, hotels, fielding drills and press conferences, it's not an effort for him to play or practise," writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. "Cricket is his game and his way of life. He does not need anything else. Always it has been the same. The most underestimated thing about him has been his longevity, his constancy."

Has any cricketer of his calibre changed less? Has any sportsman of his duration shown so few signs of mental wear and tear? Garry Sobers comes closest. For him, too, the game never became an ordeal.

Of course, the body grumbles but the Indian's mind has remained attentive. To an extraordinary extent, Tendulkar plays for the same reasons as in his youth. It's not that he has failed to grow; just that from the outset he saw the game in its true light, as an end in itself.