Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is just a day away from celebrating his 50th birthday. It seems unreal that more than three decades have gone by since a teenage boy stood up and said “mein khelega” after being hit by a bumper from Waqar Younis in Sialkot. Simply put, such has been his allure and magnetism, Tendulkar has become a part of our psyche over the decades.
Time just flies. Long, long ago, on November 10, 1991, India were playing South Africa in an ODI at Eden Gardens. South Africa, led by Clive Rice, were returning to international cricket after a little more than two decades of isolation. The historic moment and the sheer adulation from Indian fans was such that Rice went on to say, “I know how Neil Armstrong felt when he stood on the moon.” As a writer, I also fondly remember that game as it was the first time that I watched cricket live on TV. It was also a first experience of watching Tendulkar bat in real time.
I need to spool back in time and virtually coax my memory bank to recount anything from that game. There are few memories that still stand out. One of them is Allan Donald bowling from the High Court End with zinc cream smeared on his face, and pounding through the crease. Donald also forced Ravi Shastri to edge one behind and, subsequently, Sanjay Manjrekar’s stumps were rattled. That is when Tendulkar walked out to bat to loud cheers from the crowd. At just 18, he was already the Pied Piper of cricket in India.
The memories are once again vague. South Africa perhaps missed an easy run-out chance at the non-striker’s end, with Tendulkar getting a reprieve. On occasions, Tendulkar’s willow acted like a magnet for the ball, and he cracked a few sumptuous flick shots. Eventually, India won that low-scoring game by three wickets. Although Pravin Amre also made a valuable contribution, the defining moments of the match would always be Tendulkar’s contest against Donald, whose opening spell he negotiated quite expertly.
Roughly a month later, in completely different climes, India took on the West Indies’ pace battery on a Gabba track that offered considerable bounce. If you just glance at that long-ago scorecard, it shouldn’t be a surprise that India could score only 191 against a pace attack comprising Malcom Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Patrick Patterson. Anderson Cummins also deserves a mention as he bagged a five-for in that game. For India, it was Tendulkar who towered over the rest of his team-mates with a gritty 77. One iconic shot from that game has been photo-framed in the caverns of the brain – Tendulkar pulling Patterson for a boundary.
Patterson: He was fast, he was scary and when his foot slammed into the crease, the sound was like a thunderclap. It has to be said that Patterson wasn’t exactly at his peak in terms of pace in 1991-92 but he still looked quick. When he pounded one on a short of a length, Tendulkar quickly rocked back and pulled the ball into the boundary hoardings. The hands, feet and eyes all accentuated his craft as he showed one of the fastest bowlers going around at that time who was the boss.
In the same tri-series, which also involved Australia, we got to witness his other skill – the golden arm with the ball in hand. In a keenly-contested, low scoring game at the WACA, through the efforts of Ambrose and Cummins and Patterson, West Indies had clawed their way towards a target of 127. As the four main pace bowlers had already completed their quota of 10 overs, Mohammed Azharuddin, the Indian captain, brought Tendulkar into the attack. And he turned out to be the side’s lucky charm.
After Patterson had levelled the scores, Tendulkar ambled to the crease and found enough inswing to force Cummins to edge one to the slip cordon, where the ever-agile Azharuddin pouched a terrific low catch a few centimeters from the ground. A couple of years later, Tendulkar’s golden arm once more turned out to be the difference in a Hero Cup game against South Africa.
A few more memories come gushing forth from that time. Tendulkar’s superlative brilliance on a WACA pitch that offered trampoline bounce, against Merv Hughes and Craig McDermott. It is hard to recollect much from the 30-minute highlights package that Doordarshan used to show after the completion of each day of the Test series. The most enduring memory is of a friend, a few years elder to me, stealthily using the transistor radio in the classroom and telling me the score during the interval.
There is also Tendulkar’s match-turning fifty against Pakistan from the 1992 World Cup. Pulls, cuts and a hoick across the line while facing Mushtaq Ahmed are some of the shots that keep on reverberating from that game. During his innings, he also had a midwicket conference with Kapil Dev, India’s finest all-rounder. While taking a jog down memory lane, one can almost imagine the baton being passed from veteran to youngster.
It is difficult to pen a tribute to a cricketer who played for India for 24 years and left an immeasurable number of footprints with his feats. Writers have to patiently flip through thousands and thousands of pages in the dictionary to search for adjectives to describe how a nation was spellbound by his batsmanship and breathed collectively when he walked out to bat. Even then, it is quite a task to find the right kind of adjectives.
But just for a few minutes, turning back the clock to 1991-92 allows me to relive and share some of those incredible Tendulkar experiences.