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'The crowd loved it, and so did I'
Mark Nicholas: The year after I retired from first-class cricket I was asked to lead the Duke of Norfolk's XI against India. Sachin was captain and it was fun to toss up with him, though he rather flattened the occasion by choosing to bowl first. We were a pretty ordinary team, save Robin Smith, who made 60-odd.
Mark Nicholas: The year after I retired from first-class cricket I was asked to lead the Duke of Norfolk's XI against India. Sachin was captain and it was fun to toss up with him, though he rather flattened the occasion by choosing to bowl first. We were a pretty ordinary team, save Robin Smith, who made 60-odd.
Anyway, Sachin made a hundred in pursuit of about 170 to win and seemed
to enjoy his partnerships with Navjot Sidhu and Sanjay Manjrekar. With
India needing 6, I brought myself on to bowl - just to be able to say
for the rest of my life that I bowled to Tendulkar.
Sanjay blocked the first three balls of gentle offspin and took a single
from the fourth. Sachin drove the next to the extra-cover boundary -
scores level. I suggested he finish the match in style, there and then,
with a straight six. He smiled and then drilled this thing flat and
gunbarrel straight over the middle of the sightscreen. The crowd loved
it. So did I. Alongside Barry Richards, he is my favourite batsman ever.
Salute Sachin.
Former Hampshire batsman Mark Nicholas hosts Channel 9's cricket coverage
Former Hampshire batsman Mark Nicholas hosts Channel 9's cricket coverage
A greatness that transcends the instant
Gideon Haigh: Boxing Day Test match, 2003. Virender Sehwag slashing the ball to all points. But the crowd is waiting for Sachin; it's almost like they're holding something back in expectation. Finally he appears, a tiny white dot amid the coloured throng, and emerges from the gate to a reception of a kind I can imagine greeting Bradman in his pomp. This is the moment. This is the man. I've seen many great visiting players at the MCG, but none, I suspect, whom the crowd has so openly wanted to succeed - his achievement, they sense, will ennoble them also.
Gideon Haigh: Boxing Day Test match, 2003. Virender Sehwag slashing the ball to all points. But the crowd is waiting for Sachin; it's almost like they're holding something back in expectation. Finally he appears, a tiny white dot amid the coloured throng, and emerges from the gate to a reception of a kind I can imagine greeting Bradman in his pomp. This is the moment. This is the man. I've seen many great visiting players at the MCG, but none, I suspect, whom the crowd has so openly wanted to succeed - his achievement, they sense, will ennoble them also.
Sod's Law. Murphy's Law. The Little Master feathers his first ball
down the leg side to the keeper, and the crowd, which has barely
finished applauding Tendulkar's entrance, begins to applaud his exit. I
am quite proud of my fellow Melburnians. They know that Tendulkar's
greatness transcends the fallibility of the instant, and they cheer him
to the echo all the way off. At the end of my aisle, two people get up
and leave. They've come to see Tendulkar, and not even Sehwag will do. I
saw Tendulkar make tons of runs, but this isolated failure, and the
public's response, was a telling event in itself.
Gideon Haigh is a cricket writer and historian in Australia
Gideon Haigh is a cricket writer and historian in Australia
"He strode in like a miniature colossus"
| All about him, the Anglo-Asian diaspora hit pure worship mode, hollering and hooting, but he was in a moment of both serenity and sadness. I'd never seen batting, adoration or poignancy like it. What a player | |||
Ashley Mallett: The ground rose as one to greet Sachin Tendulkar.
He strode to the wicket like a miniature colossus and there was a
standing ovation, one that befitted this modern Bradman.
Almost immediately he drove sublimely for four through the covers. There
were a few hits to leg for singles or twos but no other classic
Tendulkar boundaries. Then the sky fell in.
Tendulkar lamely hit a ball from a pedestrian medium-pacer straight to
cover point and departed for a paltry 11. It was as if the enemy had
aimed for an eagle and had killed a dove: cricket's darling had fallen
foul of a badly directed salvo.
The year was 2002, or was it 2003? No matter, Tendulkar lives in the
memory of all who saw his batting wizardry. I met him in Colombo years
later but that short innings in England in whatever year burns in my
memory of modern cricket's great batsman.
Offspinner Ashley Mallett took 132 Tests wickets in 38 Tests for Australia
Offspinner Ashley Mallett took 132 Tests wickets in 38 Tests for Australia
Kid's got mettle
Ayaz Memon: My best Sachin Tendulkar memory predates his international career. After his world-record partnership with Vinod Kambli in schools cricket as a 15-year-old, he made a magnificent start to his first-class career, scoring centuries in Ranji, Duleep and Irani Trophy matches - all before he turned 16.
Ayaz Memon: My best Sachin Tendulkar memory predates his international career. After his world-record partnership with Vinod Kambli in schools cricket as a 15-year-old, he made a magnificent start to his first-class career, scoring centuries in Ranji, Duleep and Irani Trophy matches - all before he turned 16.
In the 1988-89 season India were to tour the West Indies under Dilip
Vengsarkar. After such rousing performances, it seemed a cinch that
Tendulkar should be in the touring party. But he wasn't. The selectors,
afraid of the teenager being hit by the fearsome fast bowlers the West
Indies possessed then, kept him out of the side.
The actor Tom Alter and I were collaborating on a sports video called Grandstand for Sportsweek
magazine, for which Tendulkar was interviewed. He came to the venue,
Hindu Gymkhana in Bombay, straight from a match or practice, kit bag in
tow.
After waiting patiently for his turn to face the camera, when asked if
he was disappointed at not being selected, he said yes. When told that
the selectors did not want to expose him to the fast bowlers for fear of
injury, Sachin replied, "If I get hurt, I will learn quicker.''
In those few words, he showed me the mettle and character that would make him one of the greatest in the game.
Ayaz Memon is a senior Indian journalist who writes on sport and other subjects
Ayaz Memon is a senior Indian journalist who writes on sport and other subjects
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Tendulkar's totem
Jon Hotten: When I think of Tendulkar, one of the first images I get is of his bat, the one he used on that tremendous spree that drew him close to his unapproachable record of one hundred international hundreds. If the game of cricket has an Excalibur, it's that piece of willow. It must have fit his hand so perfectly that he couldn't bear to lose it. He kept patching it up, taping it, binding it, loving it, not parting with it even when its centre was actually beginning to blacken with the number of balls that had struck it. Even Tendulkar needs a totem, and that bat was it. I bet he's still got it too.
Jon Hotten is a writer based in England
Jon Hotten: When I think of Tendulkar, one of the first images I get is of his bat, the one he used on that tremendous spree that drew him close to his unapproachable record of one hundred international hundreds. If the game of cricket has an Excalibur, it's that piece of willow. It must have fit his hand so perfectly that he couldn't bear to lose it. He kept patching it up, taping it, binding it, loving it, not parting with it even when its centre was actually beginning to blacken with the number of balls that had struck it. Even Tendulkar needs a totem, and that bat was it. I bet he's still got it too.
Jon Hotten is a writer based in England
A moment of serenity and sadness
Tanya Aldred: Nevil Road, Bristol, May 1999. A little man stands in the middle of a slightly down-at-heel county ground, looking up at the patchwork southern sky. He has just scored a quite beautiful, scintillating century in a World Cup game for India. Yet two days earlier he had been at his father's funeral in Mumbai. All about him, the Anglo-Asian diaspora hit pure worship mode, hollering and hooting, but he was in a moment of both serenity and sadness. I'd never seen batting, adoration or poignancy like it. What a player.
Tanya Aldred is a writer in Manchester
Tanya Aldred: Nevil Road, Bristol, May 1999. A little man stands in the middle of a slightly down-at-heel county ground, looking up at the patchwork southern sky. He has just scored a quite beautiful, scintillating century in a World Cup game for India. Yet two days earlier he had been at his father's funeral in Mumbai. All about him, the Anglo-Asian diaspora hit pure worship mode, hollering and hooting, but he was in a moment of both serenity and sadness. I'd never seen batting, adoration or poignancy like it. What a player.
Tanya Aldred is a writer in Manchester
Forever the floppy-haired teen
Nicholas Hogg: So farewell to the "Little Master", and farewell to a player not only worshipped for his venerable cricketing abilities but universally admired for the way in which he played the game, both on and off the field. The 100 hundreds are carved in stone, but for me he is forever the floppy-haired teenager sprinting in to take that stunning one-handed catch at Lord's in 1990. Watching the glorious clip again one can see a love of cricket that would carry the ebullient youngster into legend.
Nicholas Hogg is a novelist and co-founder of the Authors Cricket Club
Nicholas Hogg: So farewell to the "Little Master", and farewell to a player not only worshipped for his venerable cricketing abilities but universally admired for the way in which he played the game, both on and off the field. The 100 hundreds are carved in stone, but for me he is forever the floppy-haired teenager sprinting in to take that stunning one-handed catch at Lord's in 1990. Watching the glorious clip again one can see a love of cricket that would carry the ebullient youngster into legend.
Nicholas Hogg is a novelist and co-founder of the Authors Cricket Club
That Centurion six
Saad Shafqat: In Pakistan we've always been deeply envious that India produced Sachin Tendulkar. He combined a subcontinental physique with a self-effacing manner and incomparable batting ability. I remember when he came out to bat against us during a match in Centurion in the World Cup of 2003. It was, inevitably, a highly anticipated contest, with cranked-up emotions on both sides. I had thrown a party at my house in Karachi to follow the game with a few other die-hard fans. We thought Pakistan had a defendable total, and with some top names in our bowling line-up, we sensed a decent chance.
Saad Shafqat: In Pakistan we've always been deeply envious that India produced Sachin Tendulkar. He combined a subcontinental physique with a self-effacing manner and incomparable batting ability. I remember when he came out to bat against us during a match in Centurion in the World Cup of 2003. It was, inevitably, a highly anticipated contest, with cranked-up emotions on both sides. I had thrown a party at my house in Karachi to follow the game with a few other die-hard fans. We thought Pakistan had a defendable total, and with some top names in our bowling line-up, we sensed a decent chance.
During the innings break, we ordered pizza and it arrived piping hot and
smelling delicious just as Tendulkar, who had come out to open, took
guard. There were all these great hopes from Shoaib, but Tendulkar had
soon carved him over point for six. Nobody felt like eating after that.
Saad Shafqat is a writer based in Karachi
Saad Shafqat is a writer based in Karachi
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