Tendulkar - a Blast of Sunlight

Trying to read Tendulkar is like trying to read this voluminous book which you know you will never finish reading. Every word about the master would seem insufficient to describe his astonishing genius. However, for the sake of form, one shall simply recall one comment, made by blogger Soutik Biswas on the BBC website that opens a window to begin to describe the indescribable. Biswas wrote, within the hour of that gigantean knock of 200 that Tendulkar pummelled hapless the Springpoks with at Gwalior early this year, that what stands out about Tendulkar is the respect he has for the game.

Indeed, nothing could be truer than this: Tendulkar has enormous amounts of respect for cricket, the reason he has remained wholly unaffected by the madding hoopla that has always surrounded him. There is certainly something otherworldly about the grace with which he has played the game, and in this alone he matches the all-time cricket icon Don Bradman. He is at once a monarch and an ascetic.

What is brilliance if not this? Let's take two of Sachin's great batting contemporaries, Ponting and Sehwag (let's leave Mahela out just for the sake of brevity), to further illustrate this point. Ponting is doubtless one of the game's greatest batsmen. Every record, for instance, that Tendulkar has against his name is within Ponting's reach: that's how great he is. But, of course, Ponting doesn't have to deal with the delirious expectations that a billion people have of Tendulkar. Ponting doesn't have to take his family, like Tendulkar, to Iceland for a quiet holiday.

Ponting is, by a stretch, among the least likable characters of the game. His sledging is legendary and he has an air of a brat who will do worse if he could. He bats like a champion but his behaviour is adolescent. Unlike, for instance, some other Aussies, most notably that colossus Steve Waugh. And Tendulkar is greater than either. Tendulkar has been the perfect ambassador -- there's no escaping this cliché in...