The Little Master at Chesterfield

No doubt like a few of you, I have been watching the events of the second Test between India and Australia this weekend with considerable interest. A continuing joy is the form of the ‘Little Master’, Sachin Tendulkar.


At 37 he has most of the records of the game and must surely now be considered the greatest there has been after Bradman. In my time watching cricket I have been privileged to see some of the greatest players in its history and watching the likes of Garfield Sobers, Barry Richards, Viv Richards and Ricky Ponting has been a joy, even when they were making runs against the team I supported.

Dad told me from an early age that I should always see both sides in a match and I’ve always done that, whether in football or cricket. Only the most partisan of fans could fail to enjoy the batting of such players as those above, but Tendulkar has been touched by greatness since we first saw him as a teenager.

That was at Chesterfield in July 1990, when he played for an Indian team managed by the great Bishen Bedi. A pre-match pleasure was seeing the great slow left armer bowling a few in practice, a reminder of that classic, easy style that graced the game for so many years. Derbyshire posted 235 in 55 overs, with a century from Kim Barnett and runs from both Peter Bowler and John Morris, and for a long time in the visitors innings looked like winning easily. At 88-4 with both Azharuddin and Kapil Dev back in the pavilion, we looked like picking up a notable scalp.

The batsmen were all troubled by steepling bounce on a lively track, especially when Ian Bishop was bowling seriously quickly from the pavilion end. Bishop took an early wicket but had moral victories several times an over. The diminutive Tendulkar, coming in at number three, sparred at several balls and the battle seemed uneven, as if one of the world’s fastest bowlers was bowling at a schoolboy. Which is exactly what it was, of course.

Derbyshire continued to chip away at the Indian batting but no one could dismiss the little player, who for a sixteen year old had an obviously impressive technique, as well as time to play his shots against all but Bishop. Even then he was working the lifting ball off his hip and there was a delightful, Boycott-like force off the back foot that brought a murmur of acknowledgement from Dad. “He can bat, this lad,” he said, which has always been the most effusive of praise from his lips.

The calculation came down to a tricky 20-odd from three overs and with Bishop to bowl at least one of them it was obvious where the key to the game lay. Surely the youngster’s charmed life against the scarily quick but genial Trinidadian couldn’t last?

It could. As Bishop dropped another ball short, climbing and homing in on the batsman’s chest/head, the player rocked back and hooked/pulled the ball for a country mile over the trees by the old scorebox. It was an enormous hit for a player who hadn’t looked like a big hitter, but was the result of superb footwork and impeccable timing. After that, the visitors won in a canter, their young star finishing unbeaten on a superb unbeaten 105 out of 239-8, the win coming with two balls to spare. His previous best one-day score was just 36, so I can safely say that we were in at the start of something special.

Since then Tendulkar has become a global brand and an icon of his country, indeed the game as a whole. Despite living his life in the spotlight, he has remained a man of charm, modesty and consummate professionalism.

A Test average of 56, which even now looks set to increase, is impressive, but perhaps no more so than a one-day international one of 45, a first-class one of 60 and a T20 average of 37. By any standards impressive, but Tendulkar has also been a useful bowler and has had stints as captain. It would be understandable by now if his powers were on the wane, but that appears to be some time off. Indeed, his last thousand Test runs have come in just fifteen innings…

The only disappointment has been that his international commitments have seen him spend only one season in the county game, where he perhaps experienced his only disappointment in a year with Yorkshire. It was asking a lot of a teenager, no matter how talented, to adapt to life in a foreign country in such a key role and Tendulkar’s class came through in glimpses, rather than with the evidence of a stack of runs behind him. Like many before him, however, the experience probably did him good and went some way towards the making of the batting maestro we have all witnessed for the past twenty seasons.

Long may he continue to entertain us!

http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scorecards/53/53143.html