Tendulkar at new heights as World Cup nears
LONDON: Unruffled composure over two decades, in the face of the world's most hostile attacks and the frenzied demands of a celebrity-fixated society, confirms the true greatness of Sachin Tendulkar.
For a man in his 38th year, Tendulkar's appetite for runs remains unsated and his unrelenting determination to keep wringing the utmost out of the gifts so lavishly bestowed on him at birth is phenomenal.
So, too, is his ability to remain unaffected either on or off the field by the relentless glare of public adulation which makes a private life impossible in his native India.
No hint of scandal has touched the man who last weekend became the first person to pass 14,000 Test runs in the second Test against Australia and he remains the complete team player.
"It is about what I want to do for my team," he said after scoring his sixth Test double-hundred in 171 Tests and his 11th century against the team who have dominated cricket during his career. "And I will not compromise on that."
Tendulkar has shown unqualified commitment to his team and his sport since Pakistan's Waqar Younis bloodied his mouth with a short-pitched delivery in his debut Test in 1990 at the age of 16.
Eight days later he became the youngest man to score a Test half-century and 20 years on he holds the records for most Test and one-day runs and the most Test and one-day centuries, a scarcely believable 95 in total.
For a man in his 38th year, Tendulkar's appetite for runs remains unsated and his unrelenting determination to keep wringing the utmost out of the gifts so lavishly bestowed on him at birth is phenomenal.
So, too, is his ability to remain unaffected either on or off the field by the relentless glare of public adulation which makes a private life impossible in his native India.
No hint of scandal has touched the man who last weekend became the first person to pass 14,000 Test runs in the second Test against Australia and he remains the complete team player.
"It is about what I want to do for my team," he said after scoring his sixth Test double-hundred in 171 Tests and his 11th century against the team who have dominated cricket during his career. "And I will not compromise on that."
Tendulkar has shown unqualified commitment to his team and his sport since Pakistan's Waqar Younis bloodied his mouth with a short-pitched delivery in his debut Test in 1990 at the age of 16.
Eight days later he became the youngest man to score a Test half-century and 20 years on he holds the records for most Test and one-day runs and the most Test and one-day centuries, a scarcely believable 95 in total.
