Twenty years of mastery

In the business paper Mint, Dileep Premachandran marvels at the longevity of Sachin Tendulkar, and writes that its Tendulkar's efforts against the best team over the past two decades, Australia, that make him peerless.

More than cold statistics though, it’s the moments that will endure long after he’s put his bat away for the last time. That final over in the Hero Cup semi-final. The audacious assault on Shane Warne in Chennai. The cold-eyed targeting of Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion, South Africa, in 2003. That match-winning century in Chennai, just a fortnight after the streets in the vicinity of his restaurant in Mumbai had resembled war-torn Beirut.

On his blog Cricket with balls, JRod writes that Tendulkar's glittering 175 made the result of the match almost irrelevant.

He scored over half the runs, passed some unimportant milestone, seemed to be dragging Raina and Jadeja by the neck like kittens, and then eventually went out to a shot that wasn’t even thought of when he started playing.

India didn’t deserve to win, but Sachin did. I wanted him to make 200 and win the game, but he came up short and pretty much no help at all.

KingCricket pens a tribute to Tendulkar on his blog, where he writes that staying at the top for 20 years is the batsman's most jaw-dropping achievement.

You get batsmen who are exceptional when they’re 16. You get batsmen with adamantium wrists. You get batsmen who choose their shots well.

You get cricketers who are fit and dedicated to their sport. You get cricketers who can cope with the downs and who come back stronger. You get get cricketers who can last for 20 years.

You never get all of this.