In 1989, when a 16 years old thin guy became a part of the Indian Cricket Team, no one would have thought that there is another 22 years to his career. 22 years of perseverance, immense class, zeal to add every new shot in his bag pack and commitment for every form of the game. The World knows him as the little master, we Indian prefer it to say, GOD, needless to say, it’s on the legacy of the cricketing god, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. When Kapil Dev & Co lifted the world cup in 1983, the Mumbaikar was a 10 years old kid batting 6 hours a day all through, meanwhile, dreaming of lifting the same trophy one day.
Sachin Tendulkar made his point very early that he wants to become a cricketer, when he added up 665 runs with Vinod Kambli as a partnership in an inter school match. That was noticed, by many, some of them were people who mattered in the “Cricket Industry”, notably Sunil Gavaskar, so Sachin got his chance to convince the selectors that he is a born cricketer, and he succeeded well, hampering every bowler’s career in the Ranji matches.
It was kind of easy for him to made it to the playing 11 of the Indian Team, but he had it really tough, once he was in, he had to face Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Imran Khan and Abdul Quadir all of them in one go. He failed miserably, got out on duck twice and broke his nose on a nasty Waqar’s delivery, he never lose hope, never ever.
In 1992, when he played his first world cup, he thought of living his dream of lifting the world cup, but he could not help with all of his underused skills, in a team of old lads, denying to leave the game of cricket, India were thrown out of the tournament like an associates team. In one of those games, he made a handsome half century against Pakistan, thus showing the substance he is made up of and helped India won that match against the arch-rivals.As a matter of fact in sports, a player’s career depends a lot on how much his captain believes in him, to be more precise, the players who take a little more extra bit of time to show his metal. For Tendulkar, it was Mohammed Azharuddin, who decided to send this no.6 batsman on the opening slot, and that was the silence breaker for Sachin, he blistered everyone with his 40 ball 82 in only his first innings as an opener.
If one starts recounting the aura of Tendulkar, 1996 world cup was the origin of it, with a team that has a few part time performers, an out of form captain and 4 debutants in the squad, it was almost impossible for us to even qualify to the quarters of the tournament, but tendulkar single handedly fought all odds and India reached the semis of that world cup, he scored a couple of century that totals to his tally of 523 runs, India lost to Srilanka in the semis finally, another world cup journey ends up and the dream was still unfulfilled.
In summer 1996, the Indian team discovered two players who played shoulder to shoulder with Tendulkar, We know him as Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, It was the search of the players that took the pressure off Tendulkar and Sachin’s game flourished even more beautifully in the process.
Now when we had 3 match winners, India depended not only on our hero but on Ganguly and Dravid also in the next world cup in 1999 on the English soil, India started with a lose to South Africa and they even lost to Zimbabwe in their next game, Sachin didn’t play that game as his father died a couple of days before the proceedings of the Zimbabwean tie, it was a fact by then, that not only a player Sachin Tendulkar is for India, he is an atmosphere in the team, that inspires others to do well in their career. He returned to England in the next one dayer against Kenya and scored a solid 140 with no smile on his face, each and every run he made was like a tribute to his dad’s soul. We loved him for that, for the character he had shown as a cricketer, sportsman spirit was at its spiritual best on that English morning, Although he was always a great cricketer, most of us will agree to this that he made places in millions of hearts as an almighty from then only.
