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Wikipedia
Of the 11 Bangladesh players whom he will come up against on Saturday, only the 28-year-old Abdur Razzak is old enough to have memories of Sachin Tendulkar's first World Cup game back in 1992 when Ian Botham dismissed the still teenaged batsman for 35 runs in Perth.
Now, 19 years on, after a semi-final defeat on home soil (1996) and a final thrashing (2003), Tendulkar has the opportunity to script the perfect exit from a form of the game where his records – 46 hundreds and 17,629 runs – are as out of reach as Sir Donald Bradman's Test average. Not only is India a co-host, but the final on 2 April is to be staged in Mumbai, his home city from where rumours of a prodigious talent began to circulate in the late 1980s.
The younger generation of Indian fans, many of whom first picked up a bat after watching him play, venerate him to such an extent as to leave outsiders perplexed. Criticise him and prepare to face their wrath. It is the sort of blind faith seldom seen in sport.
Tendulkar came on the scene towards the end of a decade in which India's obsession with cricket was crystallised. Victory at Lord's in the World Cup final of 1983 gave the game a status that overshadowed every other sport. When a new breed of administrators led by Jagmohan Dalmiya started to tap into cricket's commercial potential in the early 1990s – a time of rapid change, with economic reforms newly introduced – they found the perfect poster boy in the son of a Marathi poet.
By then, the country already knew that he was a class apart. He had helped save a Test with his maiden century in England (1990) and on his first tour of Australia 18 months later, he scored magnificent hundreds at both Sydney and Perth. Unlike an Ian Craig or other prodigies that eventually failed to live up to advance billing, Tendulkar ticked off one milestone after another.
Some of his greatest feats came in the limited-overs arena. In 1998, he scored nine centuries, the most thrilling of them against Shane Warne and Australia in the midst of a desert storm in Sharjah. By then, he was firmly established at the top of the order, having spent his first four years in the game at various middle-order positions.
Who knows what might have happened if Navjot Singh Sidhu had not hurt his neck before a game against New Zealand at Eden Park in 1994. Tendulkar begged Mohammad Azharuddin, his captain, and Ajit Wadekar, the coach, to let him front up to the new ball. If he failed, he said, he would never request again. He made 82 from 49 balls, and in the years that followed, the runs and hundreds came in a torrent.
His team-mates from the early days now populate commentary boxes and the pages of newspapers. The greats he played with in 2003, when India reached the final for the only time since winning in 1983, have also gone. Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble will be watching and hoping that the boy-man who outlasted them all can clear the final hurdle where their hopes ran aground.
That he's here at all is testament to unbending will. Four years ago, in Trinidad, Dilhara Fernando bowled him off the inside edge with a delivery that nipped back off the seam as India departed the tournament in their last group match. At the time, most reckoned that it was an ignominious end to a prolific World Cup career – 1,796 runs at 57.93 in 36 games.
He would not go quietly. With Greg Chappell leaving the team after that debacle, both Tendulkar and the team have taken big strides on the road to redemption. He often stresses how a more harmonious dressing-room atmosphere has helped him enjoy the most successful of Indian summers. There's a wealth of experience – seven of those likely to start today have more than 100 ODI caps – but the inclusion of Virat Kohli and Piyush Chawla means that it is no Dad's Army either.
For more than two years, his own focus has been on Test cricket and this one last chance at emulating his World Cup heroes. To that end, he has skipped most bilateral one-day games, while sporadically reminding everyone of his game-changing ability with stunning innings against New Zealand (163), Australia (175) and South Africa (200).
What he does, perhaps better than anyone who has played the game, is gauge the percentages perfectly. It would be trite to call him a run-machine, but such is the efficiency with which he bats. He still possesses a considerable repertoire of strokes but each one has been practised and executed so many times that the element of risk had been whittled wafer-thin.
More importantly, he understands the format perfectly. The David Warners of the world view opening a certain way. Tendulkar marries aggression and circumspection. He knows that if he bats through the innings, a score in excess of 150 and a team total of more than 300 are certain. To that end, he picks and chooses his battles, seeing off some bowlers and targeting others. Some call it bloodless and clinical. Others appreciate the intelligence and skill of a man who has become cricket's Master of Go.
When he became the first to score 200 last February, he scored exactly half his runs in fours. There were three sixes as well. But the real highlight was the way he scampered between wickets. There were 56 singles and 13 twos and though he had his share of energy drinks and attention from the physio, there was no wimping out and calling for a runner. From someone nearly 37, it was a virtuoso performance.
Despite all this, there's little danger of this Indian World Cup adventure being hijacked by the sentimental Tendulkar-farewell bandwagon. Both MS Dhoni and Gary Kirsten are too sensible to indulge such maudlin thoughts. For them, Tendulkar remains a hugely important cog, but he too is just one of many. In a team full of matchwinners with the bat, there will not be undue focus on one man.
Imran Khan was 39 when he crowned his World Cup obsession with victory at the MCG in 1992. Sports throws up other examples too of veterans overcoming aching muscles and tired minds to scale the highest peaks. Dino Zoff was 40 when Italy won the football World Cup in 1982 – he conceded just six goals in seven games – and the Denver Broncos' John Elway had a fairytale ending, winning two Super Bowls after the age of 37. His personal performance was not what it had once been, but only the mean-spirited begrudged one of the sport's legends such an appropriate finale.
Eight years ago, Tendulkar overcame nearly a fortnight of nervousness-induced sleep deprivation to play one of the greatest one-day innings, a 75-ball 98 against Pakistan at Centurion in a match that brought life on the subcontinent to a standstill. He finished that World Cup as top scorer with 673 runs, but saw a matchless Australian team walk off with the trophy. In 2011, he will settle for fewer runs if those around him can breathe life into the childhood dreams that Kapil Dev and others inspired nearly three decades ago.
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