MUMBAI — Delirious crowds greeted India's Sachin Tendulkar as he walked out to bat in his last Test match Thursday, an emotional farewell game for a national hero whose 24-year career has made him a cricketing legend. Crowds at the Wankhede Stadium in his home town of Mumbai erupted as Tendulkar went to the crease on the first day of the match, walking through a guard of honor created by his West Indian opponents, television pictures showed. Tendulkar was unbeaten on 38 off 73 balls with Cheteshwar Pujara on 34 as India took stumps at 157 for two on day one of the second Test. The Caribbean outfit was bowled out for 182 after M.S. Dhoni won the toss and elected to bowl. India trails West Indies by 25 runs. Earlier, Pragyan Ojha took five wickets as India bundled out the West Indies. Dhoni took his 250th catch to dismiss Tino Best off Ojha. India is unchanged from the last Test, while the West Indies has brought in Narsingh Deonarine and Shannon Gabriel in place of Sheldon Cottrell and Veerasammy Permaul. Tendulkar's each run was greeted with raucous applause and cheering, with several textbook cover drives exhibiting the elegant strokeplay that had marked Tendulkar out since his international debut in 1989. The 40-year-old is ending an international career during which he became the all-time leading Test and one-day batsman and the only man to score 100 international centuries. Ahead of the match, he said the last 20 years had been “marked by some of the most challenging, exhilarating, poignant and memorable moments of my life.” “The game has seen so much change over the last two decades — from advances in technology, new formats, yet the basic spirit and passion surrounding the game remains the same,” he wrote in a front-page Hindustan Times article. Tendulkar led the team out onto the field at Wankhede Stadium in the morning and the toss took place with a specially minted coin bearing his image on one side, footage showed. Cries of “Sachin! Sachin!” echoed throughout the day. Many followers expressed disappointment that only 5,000 out of 32,000 seats were for the general public, with the rest reserved for VIPs such as sponsors and cricket club members. Many seats were empty. Such was the demand for the publicly available tickets that the main website selling them crashed within minutes of sales opening Monday. British Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to New Delhi, called him “absolutely an all-time great” and said he was an example and inspiration to cricket-lovers. Despite his glowing status, his cricketing powers have waned in recent years and some suggested that he should have retired earlier. The latest of his 51 Test centuries was back in January 2011 against South Africa. Brief scores: West Indies 182 (Kieran Powell 48, Darren Bravo 29; Ravichandran Ashwin 3 for 45, Pragyan Ojha 5 for 40) leads India 157-2 (Murali Vijay 43, Cheteshwar Pujara 34*, Sachin Tendulkar 38*; Shane Shillingford 2 for 46) by 25 runs. — Agencies
