When Sachin Tendulkar was 88 in a Test match at Napier, he played fast bowler Danny Morrison into the hands of John Wright, and walked off weeping. He was 16 years old and yet to score a century. On Friday, he fell again at 88. In between, boy had turned man, made 39 Test centuries, and taken the aggregate record as if by right. There was no weeping this time, no remorse at having failed to carry the world record for centuries into the 40s. He wears his greatness lightly. He continues to be obsessed with the game, but now there is a wife and children, and responsibilities beyond the crease to turn him away from being a monomaniacal introvert. Tendulkar is lucky, and so are we that the greatest batsman of this age continues to retain a love for the game. At 19, the Mumbai boy was already the world's best batsman. It meant that he would never live an ordinary life. He could not afford to slip either as player or person. It is a responsibility he has been deeply conscious of - he would be Tendulkar at all times, modest, simple, caring and all those things that an adoring public would want him to be. No temper tantrums, no word out of place, no controversy. Through 150-plus Tests and one of the game's most turbulent times in the midst of match-fixing, globalization, rule changes, IPL and the rest, Tendulkar had his feet above the turmoil. That is the way Indians love their heroes, either on the screen or at the wicket - self-sacrificing, patriotic, mother-caring, family-loving. In the first two-thirds of his career, Tendulkar was Bradmanesque, not so much in the quantity of runs he made, but in the manner in which he made them - something that Bradman himself pointed out. There was a purity to his approach, classical in defense, creative in attack that placed him among the all-time greats. He gave the world's greatest spinner Shane Warne nightmares, as the bowler readily admitted. Although he made his first one-day century in only his 79th match, his 42 centuries seem like Mount Improbable. Test cricket can never admit of a single 'greatest batsman of all time', but Tendulkar was easily the best one-day batsman of all time. It may have been the Chennai defeat against Pakistan a decade ago that first sowed the seeds of a different Tendulkar. He was distraught at getting out so close to a win. He saw the need to be around; occupancy of the crease was not just a quirk but a team requirement. Tendulkar, the cricketer with a dancer's footwork, curbed himself. The series of injuries that followed - toes, back, elbow - meant that effervescence was replaced by effectiveness, the straight and narrow was preferred to the fantastic. Like great batsmen of any era, Tendulkar often seemed to be playing on a different planet altogether, keen to sculpt an innings that both merged with the team effort and stood out for its uniqueness. His Sydney double-century in 2004, when he scored no boundary between the bowler and point, came after self-examination revealed that he had been playing away from his body too often. It was almost as if the off side did not exist; on display was discipline as well as proof that he could get the bowlers to bowl where he wanted them to. The boy who hit Abdul Qadir for three sixes in Peshawar had moved aside for the man who let the ball go outside the off stump with the realization that not playing was an integral part of playing. In 110 matches before that Sydney Test, Tendulkar was involved in 31 wins; in the 39 Tests following it, he played his part in 16. The win percentage had gone up from 28 to 41 (obviously, there were other circumstances too). But Tendulkar is more than the sum of his figures. His mere presence is a morale booster, both for his ten colleagues in the team, and the billion supporters outside it. When Sunil Gavaskar became the first batsman to cross the 10,000-run mark, he said that it was like Edmund Hillary conquering the Everest. "Others will get there, but it is the first person who will be remembered." Now that Tendulkar has extended the record beyond 12,000 it is necessary to recall that even before he stepped on to the Test arena as a 16-year-old, he was expected to break every batting record (except Don Bradman's average of 99.94). In fact, anything less than the most centuries and the highest aggregate in international cricket would count as failure. Given such expectations, it is amazing that Tendulkar has lived up to them. It has taken him nearly two decades - and longevity is a crucial element of greatness - but what a journey it has been. For him, for the game, for all of us. __
