The Hindu : The maestro is `miles ahead'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

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The maestro is `miles ahead'

London May 1 Cricket Bible Wisden has devoted special space to Sachin Tendulkar in its latest issue, eulogising the Indian batting genius for being ``miles ahead'' of his contemporaries and continuing to ``write an elegant, belligerent and unprecedented history''.

``Sachin is now 30. But to the world, and to India in particular, he is still a boy wonder,'' Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2003 said in its separate write up on Tendulkar — ``Batting for a Billion''.

``Thirteen years and 105 Tests have passed since he first took guard at Karachi in November 1989, but the poet's son with the almost-falsetto voice and the supremely dignified manner continues to write an elegant, belligerent and unprecedented history,'' Rohit Brijnath said in the article.

The write-up says though Tendulkar cannot be the greatest batsman ever in history, ``in Tests and one-dayers together, the reality of international cricket today, Tendulkar will take some catching too''.

``Tendulkar will never be the greatest batsman in history; that seat is taken. But as much as Donald Bradman's Test average (99.94) outstrips Tendulkar's (57.58), the gap diminishes substantially when other factors are taken into account.

``Tendulkar travels more in a year than Bradman did in a decade; he has had to manage the varying conditions of 49 Test grounds, to Bradman's ten; he has already played twice as many Tests as Bradman, and over 300 one-day games, nearly all of them under the unrelenting scrutiny of television. And whereas Bradman had to cope with the expectations of a small populace, not given to idolatry, in an age of restraint, Tendulkar must play God to one billion expectant worshippers.'' — PTI

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