Celebrating Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar has been playing top class cricket for 20 years and he’s still playing blistering innings, still looking hungry, still demolishing attacks, still a prized wicket, still a proud competitor. He has not merely been around for two decades. From his first outing to one of his most recent efforts, a stunning 175 against Australia in the Hyderabad ODI, he has been a great batsman.

Longevity counts amongst his strengths. Twenty years! It’s a heck of a long time and it’s gone in the blink of an eye.

When Tendulkar first took guard in his country’s colours, Nelson Mandela was behind bars, Allan Border was captaining Australia, and India was a patronised country. In those days Tendulkar was a tousle-haired cherub prepared to stand his ground against all comers, including Wasim Akram and Merv Hughes, the most menacing of the Australians.

Now he is a tousle-haired elder still standing firm, still driving and cutting, still retaining some of the impudence of youth but nowadays bearing also the sagacity of age.

It has been an incredible journey, a trip that figures alone cannot define.

Not that the statistics lack weight. To the contrary they are astonishing, almost mind boggling. Tendulkar has scored an avalanche of runs, thousands upon thousands of them in every form of the game. He has reached three figures 87 times in the colours of his country and all the while has somehow retained his freshness, somehow avoided the mechanical, the repetitive and the predictable. Perhaps that has been part of it, the ability to retain the precious gift of youth. Alongside Shane Warne, the Indian master has been the most satisfying cricketer of his generation.

Source:- http://www.sportstaronnet.com