Watching 'Tendlya' bat
Sachin Tendulkar broke Brian Lara's record for most Test runs on Friday in Mohali and Sunil Gavaskar remembers the time he first watched him as a schoolboy in Mumbai and nicknamed him 'Tendlya'
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
AFP
Sachin Tendulkar broke Brian Lara's record for most Test runs on Friday in Mohali and Sunil Gavaskar remembers the time he first watched him as a schoolboy in Mumbai and nicknamed him 'Tendlya'. He writes in the Hindustan Times:
... Milind would often call up to say how "Tendlya" had smashed this bowler and how he had toyed with the other. And if he was batting somewhere close by, he would ask me to join him and enjoy his batting. We would then chortle as retired cricketers do seeing "Tendlya" taking apart an attack like he was having a net. It wasn't long before he was picked for India, and we had to reluctantly share our "Tendlya" not just with India but with the rest of the cricketing world...
Writing in the Times of India, Harsha Bhogle says in the last two or three years Tendulkar worked on getting his body back into shape, says Bhogle, and each time it was a more uphill battle than before.
He is still only 35 but because he started so young, and couldn't sign a tour contract till he had scored three Test hundreds, it seems he has been around forever ... But the zest, the limitless energy, the obsession with cricket hasn't dimmed. That, in itself, is extraordinary.
Is he the greatest? The answer for Bobilli Vijay Kumar is yes in the same paper. In this age of hyper nationalistic sport, Tendulkar is perhaps the only player who receives a standing ovation every time he steps out to the middle, Boria Majumdar points out.
No sportsman in history, not Pele, not Babe Ruth, not Muhammad Ali, has had the effect on supporters of the man who became the Little Master, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
The turnstiles were the evidence: when he was in they flocked through them in their thousands and thousands and when he was out they flocked out again. It is 10 years since India Today reported: "When he goes out to bat people switch on their TV sets and switch off their lives."
The BBC's sports editor Mihir Bose says that what makes Tendulkar exceptional, is that his career has been central to the way cricket has changed in the last 20 years since he made his Test debut against Pakistan at the age of 16.
Tendulkar's former team-mate, Delhi captain Aakash Chopra, reflects in the BBC on the master's achievements. Like countless numbers in India, Chopra wanted to be the next Sunil Gavaskar when he started out, but then along came Tendulkar. And it all changed.
Tendulkar's journey, unlike Lara's has not be a lone one, surrounded as he has been by such as Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virender Sehwag, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian
In the Daily News & Analysis Ayaz Memon finds himself resorting to cliches to describe Tendulkar's achievement.
In the Hindustan Times, Anil Kumble writes that it was Tendulkar's calm that fascinated him.
Whenever there's been a bad decision ... he comes back into the dressing room, sits in his place, looks at the TV screen and that's it. There are no tantrums, no reproaches, nothing. I have never really seen showing how upset he is with an unfair decision.
Also check out Cricinfo's comprehensive coverage of Tendulkar's feat. Suresh Menon talks about how Tendulkar has changed his game with age, Dileep Premachandran hopes Sachin plays with some of the insouciance that characterised Lara towards the end of his career, S Rajesh tells the Tendulkar story in numbers while the gallery tells it in pictures.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo