Bombay’s maidens are
a stage. Where every cricketer has a role to play. And his seems to be the
blockbuster. Ever since he unveiled Act One early last year, audiences have
been waiting, a little too eagerly at times, to watch the next scene. Sachin
Tendulkar is only, so far, acting in a high-school production. Yet critics have
gone to town. And rave reviews have not stopped coming in.
I guess it can only happen in
Bombay. That a schoolboy cricketer sometimes becomes the talk of the town. Why,
at the end of every day’s play in the final of Bombay’s Harris Shield (for
Under 17s) everybody wanted to know how many he had made. For he does bat three
days sometimes! And for all the publicity he has received, Sachin Tendulkar is
really still a kid. He only completed 15 on 24 April. And is very shy. Opening
out only after you have coaxed him for some time. As his coach Mr Achrekar
says, “Aata thoda bolaila laglai” [He's started talking a bit now]. And
it’s then that you realise that his voice has not yet cracked.
His record is awesome. He has scored
far more runs than all of us scored looking dreamily out of the window in a
boring Social Studies class when we were his age.
For a prodigy, he started late. When
he was nine years old. And it was only in 1984-85 that he scored his first
school-level fifty. But 1985-86 was a little better. He scored his first Harris
Shield hundred and played for Bombay in the Vijay Merchant (Under-15)
tournament. And 1986-87 was when he blossomed. Still only 13, he led his
school, Shardashram Vidyamandir, to victory in the Giles Shield (for
Under-15s). He scored three centuries – 158*, 156 and 197 – and then in the Harris
Shield scored 276, 123 and 150. In all, he scored nine hundreds, including two
double hundreds, a total of 2336 runs.
By now everyone had begun to sit up
and take notice. The beginning of the 1987-88 season saw Sachin at the Ranji
nets. Once again the top players were away playing Tests and perhaps the Bombay
selectors felt it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give Sachin first-hand experience
of a higher category of cricket. He was named in the 14 for the first couple of
games, and manager Sandeep Patil kept sending him out whenever possible – for a
glass of water or a change of gloves. All along Sachin probably knew that he
was still at best a curiosity, and that while Bombay was giving him every
blooding opportunity, he had to prove himself on the maidens.
And that is exactly what he did.
Season 1987-88 was a purple patch that never ended. Playing in the Vijay
Merchant tournament he scored 130 and 107 and then at the Inter-Zonal stage he
made 117 against the champions, East Zone. Then in the Vijay Hazare tournament
(for Under-17s) he scored 175 for West Zone against champions East Zone.
Then came the avalanche. A 178* in
the Giles Shield and a sequence in the Harris Shield of 21*, 125, 207*, 329*
and 346*! A small matter of 1028 runs in five innings! And in the course of
that innings of 329* he set the much talked-about record of 664 for
the third wicket with Vinod Kambli, who, it is not always realised, scored
348*. Perhaps the most fascinating of them all was the innings of 346*. Coming
immediately, as it did, in the shadow of the world record, a lot of people were
curious to see him bat. Sachin ended the first day on 122, batted through the
second to finish with 286, and when the innings closed around lunch on the
third day, he was 346*. And then came back to bowl the first ball. In April’s
Bombay summer.
“People
don’t realize that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation
or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children’s library.
This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start
thinking he has achieved everything.”Tendulkar’s coach, Ramakant Achrekar.
But when did this story begin? Like
all children, Tendulkar took to playing “galli” cricket.
His brother Ajit was a good player and persuaded Mr. Achrekar, probably
Bombay’s most famous coach, to look at him. Achrekar recalls, “When he first
came to my net four-five years ago, he looked just like any other boy and I
didn’t take him seriously. Then one day I saw him bat in an adjacent net. He
was trying to hit every ball but I noted that he was middling all of them. Some
time later he got a fifty and a friend of mine, who was umpiring that game,
came and told me that this boy would play for India. I laughed at him and said
that there were so many boys like him in my net. But he insisted. ‘Mark my
words, he will play for India.’ My friend is dead now but I’m waiting to see if
his prophecy comes true.’
Tendulkar is taking first steps
towards getting there. He discovered that his house, being in Bandra, would not
allow him to be at Shivaji Park whenever he wanted. He now spends most of his
time at his uncle’s house, just off this nursery of Bombay cricket. When he is
not actually playing, that is.
Quite often, he is playing all day;
important because it has helped him build the stamina to play long innings. “I
don’t get tired,” he says, referring to them. “If you practice every day, you
get used to it.”
And what about that world-record
innings? “I could bat very freely then because my partner Vinod Kambli was
batting so well that I knew that even if I failed, he would get enough runs for
the side.”
Isn’t there a lot of pressure on him
now? Everyone assumes he will get a big score? “Only in the beginning. Till I
get set. Once I get set, I don’t think of anything.”
Wasn’t he thrilled at being invited
to the Ranji nets? “Definitely. After playing there I got a lot of confidence.”
Everything in Tendulkar’s life has
so far revolved around cricket. Including his choice of school. A few years
back he shifted to Shardashram Vidyamandir, only so that he could come under
the eye of Achrekar. “It helped me tremendously because ‘sir’s’ guidance is so
good,” he says.
Strangely his parents were never
very keen about cricket. His brother Ajit says, “They were not very interested
in the game, though they gave him all the encouragement. You see, in our colony
all parents were training their children to be engineers and doctors. And they
would say, “Gallit khelun cricketer hoto kai?” [You
don't become a cricketer by playing in the alleys]. I am so happy he is doing
well because now people think he is doing something.”
The question that arises then, given
all the publicity is: Just how good is Sachin Tendulkar?
“For his age, unbelievable,” says
Sharad Kotnis, Bombay’s veteran cricket watcher. “He is definitely comparable
to Ashok Mankad, who had a similar run many years ago. But remember Ashok had
cricket running in his family and his father often came to see him play. I
think Tendulkar’s strongest point is that he is willing to work very hard.”
Luckily for Sachin, there is a
calming influence over him, just so he doesn’t get carried away by this
acclaim. His coach Achrekar knows exactly what he is talking about. “He is not
perfect yet. Far from it. In fact, I would say he is not even halfway there.
He still has a lot of faults,
particularly while driving through the on, which is an indicator of a class
batsman. He still has a long way to go, but what I like about him is his
ability to work hard. I don’t think we should get carried away by his scores.
After all, one has to take into account the nature of the wicket and the
quality of the bowlers. By his standards the quality of the bowling he faced
was not good enough.
“His real test will come this year
when he plays in the ‘A’ Division of the Kanga League. [Sachin will play for
the Cricket Club of India, which for him has waived the stipulation that
children under 18 are not allowed inside the Club House!] He should get 70s and
80s there and not just 20s and 30s; particularly towards the end of the season,
when the wickets get better.”
Achrekar, in fact, is quite upset
about the publicity Sachin is getting. “People don’t realize that he is just
15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he
was asked to inaugurate a children’s library. This is ridiculous. These things
are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything.
I hope all this stops so he can concentrate and work hard.”
Yet both
Achrekar and Kotnis agree on when they think Sachin will become a Ranji
regular. “I think he should be playing the Ranji Trophy next year. I think it
is unfair to compare him to the [Lalchand] Rajputs and [Alan] Sippys yet, but I
think he should play next year,” feels Kotnis. And Achrekar adds, “Inspite of
what I said about him, if he maintains this kind of progress, he should play
the Ranji next year.”
Clearly the curtain call is still a long way off for
Sachin Tendulkar. He has a lot of things going for him. Most importantly he is
in Bombay, where the sheer atmosphere can propel him ahead. In how many cities
would a 15-year-old be presented a Gunn and Moore by the Indian captain? And in
which other city would the world’s highest run-getter write to a 15-year-old
asking him not to get disheartened at not getting the Best Junior Cricketer
award? Sunil Gavaskar wrote to Tendulkar to tell him that several years
earlier another youngster too had not got the award and that he didn’t do too
badly in Test cricket. For him the letter from his hero is a prized possession.
Another great moment was a meeting with him where “… he told me that I should
forget the past every time I go to bat. I should always remember that I have to
score runs each time.”
He is in the right company. And the right
environment. The next few years will show whether he has it in him the mental
toughness to overcome the over-exposure. If it does not go to his head, surely
there is a great future beckoning. This is really just the beginning and I will
be watching this little star with avid interest for the next three years.
If he is still charting blockbusters, I’d love to do
another review then.
This
piece was written 21 years ago for Sports
world magazine (and was only
retrieved thanks to Mudar Patherya, who was a young cricket writer then).
Sachin Tendulkar was 15, a year and a half away from playing Test cricket
and four months short of his first-class debut. I was not yet 27, in an
advertising job out of business school, with one Test match and a handful of
one-dayers on Doordarshan behind me. We were both looking ahead in our own
spheres. What a time it was, it was, a time of innocence…
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