February 27, 1996. Sachin Tendulkar stands in the middle of Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, his home ground, a pulsing floodlit amphitheatre that sways to his command. He scans the field, dotted with Australian fielders, splotches of mustard sauce in a vast expanse of green.
His palms grasp a plank of balsa that points heavenwards. Damien Fleming, goateed, hustles in from the Tata End. Tendulkar pats his bat against the earth once, then twice. The crowd’s chant approaches crescendo. Another pat and Tendulkar is ready; ready for mischief.
There are many Tendulkars: the upstart keelhauling Qadir in Peshawar; the trooper scurrying twos and threes from the middle order in Sydney; the mutineer promoted to open at Auckland; the seraph overwhelming Australia in Sharjah; the impetuous virtuoso blasting McGrath in Nairobi; the Zen-master rattling Shoaib and Wasim in Centurion; the peerless technician thwarting Gul and Asif at Lahore; the sorcerer’s 175 at Hyderabad; and the path-breaker charting the course for the first one-day double-hundred in Gwalior.
And we’ve barely scratched the surface.
And then there is that Tendulkar. Those who watched him between March 1994, when he first opened, and April 1998, when he walked on water, know this avatar, a pixie who hopped across television screens. Spry and indulgent, he was always ready with a prank. His bat traversed dangerous arcs. He opened up his stance and swished across the line. He charged fast bowlers, slog-swept leg-spinners and lofted off-spinners inside-out. He even hooked. Here was a ballet artiste on a jagged boulder on the edge of a steep cliff. Of course he slipped now and then – and that was to have consequences – but when he came off, it was unworldly.
The Mumbai escapade was a keystone. Tendulkar was 22, eligible for alcohol and marriage, but still the youngest member of the team. He was the linchpin of the line-up but still the most free-spirited batsman. He was yet to have the captaincy thrust upon him. This was the last phase of his batting childhood. He was innocent, insatiable and incorrigible; consummate, adventurous and borderline reckless. And he was glorious.
India are chasing 259. Fleming starts with away swing, then quickly shifts to curling it in.
A half-assed appeal for lbw is drowned out by an intimidating hum from the stands.
Tendulkar examines his bat, a Vampire, as if to indicate an inside edge. The next ball, also angled in, is over-pitched. Tendulkar shuffles his front foot and the bat meets the ball delicately.
As the ball races to the long-on fence his head, shielded by a navy blue helmet, stays still; the Wills stickers, plastered on his sleeve and chest, shimmer. The Vampire is a study in verticality, giving us a clear sight of the sponsor logo plastered across the bat face… except there is no sponsor logo. The Vampire is stark naked.
This is one of cricket’s great marketing ironies: the highest paid cricketer (of his and all time) did not have a bat contract at the start of the 1996 World Cup. His 523 runs, at 87.16, were harvested with a bare piece of wood. Sixteen years later he would reveal, in an interview with Time magazine, that he was approached with a deal before the Australia match. “But I had already played the first two matches without a sticker on the bat: I was used to the way it looked, and didn’t want to change that in the middle of the tournament; didn’t want the distraction.”
McGrath bowls three maidens in a row. Ruthless with his line, he cramps Tendulkar for room: short of a length moving out, short of a length moving in. Many of these exchanges finish with a cautious push back to the bowler. Then, an in-cutter that thuds into the pads. McGrath shrieks in appeal. Umpire David Shepherd says no, with the look of a man who has just resolved a serious dilemma. Replays show how harrowing the dilemma might have been.
These were early days in the Tendulkar–McGrath–Warne chronicles, only the fourth ODI when the three shared the same tinderbox. The first was at the Austral–Asia Cup in Sharjah (Tendulkar fell early to McGrath, India won); the second at the Singer World Series in Colombo (Tendulkar’s first ODI hundred, India won); and the third at the New Zealand Centenary Tournament in Dunedin (Tendulkar flayed a 40-ball 47, India won). Tendulkar had not yet known defeat to Australia outside Australia.
The Mumbai match was the first time he would face the duo in a global tournament. McGrath had established himself as one of the world’s best opening bowlers; Warne, after a glittering 1994, was the leading spinner. And Tendulkar was arguably the world’s finest batsman. This would be a battle for the ages.
McGrath digs one short outside off. Bang. The screen turns technicolour. Tendulkar has pushed onto his back foot and pulled through mid-wicket. The ball screams to the boundary. On air Ian Chappell says that the ball was not that short at all. He talks about the speed with which Tendulkar has rocked onto his back foot. These are the first runs McGrath has conceded tonight. A gigantic pressure valve has been released.
Two balls later, Tendulkar tries to ramp a short ball over the wicket-keeper, as if prodding a broom against a cobweb. He misses. The ball is high enough to be no-balled but Tendulkar shadow-practises the shot, showing us how he ought to have played it. The next ball, short again, is pulled off the front foot, an irreverent mosquito swat that he, as Ravi Shastri says, has “dismissed from his presence”.
In his pomp Tendulkar was a horizontal bat anarchist. He pulled (off both front and back foot), slashed, late-cut and flat-batted forehands down the ground. There was puckishness to these shots. His violent pulls – when the ball threatened to crash into his face – and back-foot square cuts – often lashed off tiptoe – accentuated his littleness. Still a few years adrift of a serious back injury, he explored his range with aplomb.
Never before had India seen such a technically correct batsman dismantle bowlers with such a vast repertoire of strokeplay. Here was a classical dancer swinging to hip-hop, infusing the new art form with a correctness associated with the old. This was beautiful, racy and intoxicating.
India are 40 for 2 after 10. Tendulkar has scorched four fours in two overs. His shirt is unbuttoned and a chain glints in the bare V around his neck. You can feel the urgency.
McGrath strays wide, Tendulkar clatters a cover drive (it takes Mark Waugh’s brilliance to prevent a boundary). McGrath angles one in, Tendulkar responds with a juddering on-drive for four, with frightening economy of movement. McGrath is full and straight, Tendulkar pops a leading edge back to the bowler (which is high enough and quick enough to deflect off his palms). McGrath is accurate outside off, Tendulkar is cautious with a pat to cover. McGrath drifts onto the pads, Tendulkar launches a six over mid-wicket. McGrath slides a wide full toss, Tendulkar consigns the ball to the extra cover outpost.
India have reeled off 37 in three overs, including 27 off McGrath’s last two. Mohammad Azharuddin seems to be telling Tendulkar to calm down. Chappell calls it “unbelievable batting”. He says the counterattack is the “most exciting” part of cricket. He says he wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of India’s batsmen are “intimidated” by Tendulkar.
Batsmen with similar attitudes were
emerging. Sanath Jayasuriya and Mark Waugh enjoyed spectacular success as
openers. Saeed Anwar was blazing a trail in Pakistan. A few years down the line
every team would have at least one popcorn-bursting batsman at the top of the
order. But Tendulkar started all this. Yes, there were belligerent openers
before him. Yes, there were pinch-hitters who had come off. But nobody was
consistent enough and successful enough to instigate a change in thinking.
Tendulkar did. And that is one of his lasting legacies.
India are 56 for 2 after 12 when Warne, his
lips zinc-creamed, is introduced. His loosening-up routine – bowling to the
mid-off fielder – is long enough for both Chappell and umpire Shepherd to lose
patience. Tendulkar waits. He tries to delay Warne further by checking the
field. The two seem to be enjoying the foreplay.
The first ball is a long hop. Tendulkar can
tonk it anywhere square of the wicket. Strangely, even though there’s a fielder
at long-on, he chooses to back away and flat-bat a forehand straight over the
bowler’s head for four. Warne looks confused with the shot. Tendulkar raises
his bat to the dressing-room and then to the crowd. Fifty off 41.
Warne’s third ball is a leg-break that drifts
in and spits away. Tendulkar winds up, as if to blast a straight drive over the
roof. The leading edge sails tantalisingly over mid-off, grazing Stuart Law’s
fingertips along the way. The fifth ball is flayed again and another edge races
to third man for four. Then comes a ripped leg-break that beats his bat.
“Awwwww,” says Ian Healy behind the stumps. “There’s anticipation every ball,”
says Chappell.
Warne vs Tendulkar was never short of frisson. There was an audacity to Warne’s tactics and a ferocity to Tendulkar’s attempts at throwing him off rhythm. These were the days when Tendulkar treated leg-spinners as if they had no moral right to breathe the same air as him. And he telegraphed his intent from the first over of a spell. He would do it again, most memorably, in a warm-up match in Mumbai and a Test in Chennai in 1998.
He would do the same in a one-day series in India and a tri-series in Sharjah in the same year.
Nobody knew it then but it remained the first and last time that Warne bowled to Tendulkar in a World Cup game. Tendulkar was claimed by McGrath in 1999 and Warne by a diuretic pill in 2003, after which he never again played the format for Australia.
Over the next few overs Warne sticks to a plan: he chooses to pitch on leg stump and curl in his leg-breaks. Mark Taylor stands at slip and stations a backward square leg at the edge of the inner circle. The fielding restrictions are gone and Tendulkar is content to nudge singles. Chappell talks of the respect Warne is giving Tendulkar by keeping just five fielders in the circle and adopting a restrictive line. The pressure gradually builds, in part because Sanjay Manjrekar is facing most of the strike.
These were a significant few overs in the Warndulkar rivalry, when the bowler pitched on and outside leg stump while spinning the ball into his pads. He bowled differently to Manjrekar, sticking to a line that was on middle and off. This ploy to Tendulkar worked. The quiet phase added to the pressure on the team.
And Warne came off the victor.
But Tendulkar would remember this. Before the 1998 home Test series he would practise with former Indian leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan ripping leg-breaks from the rough outside leg stump.
And he would go on to crush Warne’s leg-stump tactic in the first Test in Chennai with a staggering slog-swept six over mid-wicket. The strike, Chappell maintains, changed the course of both the match and series.
Tendulkar would pounce again a few months later, in the final of the Coca-Cola Cup in Sharjah, his ODI pièce de résistance, when Warne shifted to around the wicket at a critical stage of the game. Tendulkar charged down the ground and smacked a six. India won the game.
Warne joked he had nightmares about Tendulkar (though it would have been totally believable had he been serious).
Australia introduce their second-string bowlers, Shane Lee, Mark Waugh and Michael Bevan. Lee pitches short and watches a flat-batted swat scream to the ropes at long-off.
Waugh flights one outside off only to be swept to the boundary in front of square. Sunil Gavaskar points out that the sweep isn’t a shot Tendulkar prefers against spinners. “But the pitch is affording a bit of turn and he’s playing it with the turn, something which the Australians do very regularly.”
Tendulkar’s flat-batted forehand down the ground and the sweep in front of square were endangered species post-1999, when he suffered a back injury and turned himself into a more ruthless, risk-free batsman. You could still spot these shots once in a while but never with the same regularity.
These were signatures of his naughty phase, when he pulled them out at will, intimidating the bowlers and injecting new life into the middle overs.
Mark Waugh has his collar up. His hair is neatly parted at the centre. His shades, which give him an air of mystique while fielding, have been handed to the umpire.
He flights one outside off. A menacing Tendulkar prances down the ground, meets the ball on the full and clatters it back down the ground. This is an almighty biff. Waugh dares to get his hands behind the ball, risking injury. He prevents a four and, in characteristic style, brushes off the blow with a steely walk back to his mark.
Two overs later Waugh hops in to bowl again. Tendulkar begins a shimmy down the ground even before Waugh’s back foot lands. This is too early.
Waugh is canny enough to float it wide. Tendulkar tries a late cut. Not a pat to off. Not a desperate lunge. But a late cut! The ball eludes him.
Healy whips the bails off. Umpire Steve Dunne calls a wide but Waugh is ecstatic. For a brief moment, for those in the stadium and many others watching on television, the world stops spinning.
You can watch every ball of this Tendulkar innings on YouTube in a 43-minute clip uploaded by Rob Moody, the creator of the popular channel Robelinda2. Rob describes Tendulkar’s innings as “fucking amazing” and follows up with eight exclamation marks.
“Took me awhile [sic] to make,” writes Rob, “you can witness the sheer mastery of this great, great cricketer, he single-handedly keeps India in the contest, before he loses his cool and loses the match. Superb display of batting anyway, obliterates Glenn McGrath in the process.”
This comment is reflective of two (related) narratives that were to haunt Tendulkar through his career: one, when Sachin does well, India lose; and two, Sachin doesn’t do enough in big matches. Mumbai ’96 was one of the early games that sowed the seeds of this perception (a week later he scored a hundred against Sri Lanka and India lost) and over time – with every Indian defeat, with every big Tendulkar innings in vain – the roots took hold and grew into a gigantic banyan.
Now no debate on Tendulkar – or enraged dogfight online – is complete without these recurring themes. The comments below this particular YouTube video are a microcosm of most Tendulkar discussions. Some have pointed to the meagre contribution from the other batsmen and the excessive burden that Tendulkar was forced to carry. Some have called him a choker. Some have compared him to Brian Lara. Some have sworn. Others have sworn back.
Had India won, ceteris paribus, they would have gone on to play New Zealand in the quarter-final and West Indies in the semi-final. And maybe even Sri Lanka in the final where (who knows) Tendulkar could have led them to victory. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
These are the “what ifs” that keep me awake some nights. I was 14 in 1996. This was the first match I saw with my dad, a man who was convinced cricket was “the worst opium of the masses”. Even he couldn’t escape Tendulkar’s magnetic pull. He flew off his seat when Tendulkar thundered a six off McGrath and screamed in delight at various other points. And he didn’t speak for a couple of hours after the defeat.
This was anything but a perfect Tendulkar knock. Neither was it a match-winning effort. His 84-ball 90 required large slices of luck. He wasn’t up against a genuine quick bowler. And there were no adverse conditions to counter.
Yet it remains my favorite Tendulkar one-day innings, a daring high-wire act where he walked the razor-thin line between recklessness and bravado.
Writing of his 254 at Lord’s in 1930, an innings many consider the greatest of all, Sir Donald Bradman said: “Practically without exception every ball went where it was intended.” We are yet to hear much of what Tendulkar makes of his 90 in Mumbai but, for a 14-year-old watching on TV, practically without exception every ball could have gone anywhere. The possibilities were endless. What greater thrill is there than that?
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