One of the best written articles on Sachin Tendulkar ........by Suresh Menon......read on!

In November 1989, a London-based writer came to the Indian team's nets in Karachi to seek out a player he was told had the "best on-drive in the game". That player, Sachin Tendulkar, was 16 and yet to play a Test, but he already had his future mapped out - by others as much as by himself. Anything less than the most centuries and the highest aggregate in international cricket would count as failure.

Nearly two decades later, when the inevitable has come to pass, fans may be merely satisfied rather than overcome, and even quite blasé about it. If it was ordained, where is the surprise? Such is the tyranny of inevitability. It throws a veil over the hard work, the physical toll, the mental strain that have gone into the making of a record-breaker. Of the 19 batsmen who have scored more than 8000 runs, only five have held the highest aggregate record, only three have played 150 Tests, but only one, Tendulkar, has been two different batsmen.

Tendulkar made his debut in Pakistan. Of his team-mates then, one has become an insufferable television commentator, and two others have become good ones; one was convicted of murder and sent to jail, another banned for life for match-fixing. One eliminated the line between whistle-blower and perpetrator, one ran a banned series of matches, another was chairman of selectors. One has dropped out of the public eye and another has turned television actor. But Tendulkar bats on. Longevity is intrinsic to greatness.

At 19, the Mumbai boy was already the world's best batsman. Interestingly, Tendulkar seemed to agree with this assessment in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. This lack of arrogance possibly caused him to be less destructive in Test cricket than he might have been, but it was a crucial element in his becoming a national icon. Indians don't like their sporting heroes to be conceited; they give their hearts to modest players who underplay their emotions while performing consistently.

Of the two Tendulkars who played for India, the first had three or four shots for every ball; the second seemed conscious of three or four ways it could have got him out. Yet, amazingly, the spirit of the boy is ever present in the batsman, whether 16 or 35. A decade after making his debut, he was still teaching Shoaib Akhtar at the World Cup the difference between a good batsman and a great one. When pushed to the wall, Tendulkar continues to exhibit a rare creativity. It is not enough to somehow escape, it is necessary to escape while teaching the bowler a lesson he will never forget.

In sport as in art, late works usually crown a lifetime of effort. Looked at from either end of their careers, sportsmen present a harmonious picture. Occasionally, the "late style" (to borrow a phrase made popular by Edward Said) is about intransigence and unresolved contradictions. It doesn't fit into the whole.

Of the batsmen who have made over 9000 Test runs, six found their idiom at the start of their careers and kept with it (including, so far, the three still active). The later Brian Lara was not much different from the early Lara, the Allan Border who made his first run was the same as the one who made the 11,000th. The two exceptions are the Indians, Sunil Gavaskar and Tendulkar.

It is not uncommon for batsmen who began their careers as leading stroke-makers to finish as part of the supporting cast. Age converts the carefree into the careworn. Rohan Kanhai is a good example of a batsman who began by inventing strokes against the best bowling and ended by playing "experienced" innings in the shadow of the next generation.

Experience often means that players are more aware of things in their own game that do not work, and are chary of taking chances. Why attempt a risky boundary when there is a safe single to be had? Firebrand speakers become merely adequate, daredevil adventurers become boring teachers, those renowned for thinking out of the box show how comfortable they are sitting in it. It is the same with sportsmen.

"Late style is what happens," wrote Edward Said in his study of musicians and writers, "if art does not abdicate its rights in favour of reality." Great players go against the grain as well as place themselves at the head of a trend.

Gavaskar who began his career as a generic name for batting technique, discovered late the joys of hooking fast bowlers; a ferocious attack on Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding featured in his 29th Test century. It took him just 94 deliveries, and was one of the fastest in the game's history. This from a batsman who once took 60 overs to make 36 not out in a World Cup match.

Tendulkar's journey, though in the reverse direction, is no less dramatic. If Gavaskar found his responses within the tenets of orthodoxy, Tendulkar, no less orthodox for being a more attacking player, extended the reach of such orthodoxy. Five years ago he began to play a shot to the left of third man, which began with him withdrawing from the line of the ball delivered by a fast bowler and glancing it fine - but on the off side. It called for remarkable control and steely wrists. It wasn't as ugly as the reverse sweep, but lacked the grace of the "straight-bat pull", where he (and later, Virender Sehwag) whipped the ball, tennis-style cross court. Both strokes were created for the one-day game, but are no less effective when played wearing whites.

It may have been the Chennai defeat against Pakistan a decade ago that first sowed the seeds of the new Tendulkar. He was distraught at getting out so close to a win. He saw the need to be around; occupancy of the crease was not just a personal quirk but a team requirement. Tendulkar, the champagne cricketer with a dancer's footwork, curbed himself. He didn't actually become a clock-watching clerk, but he understood the need.