Sachin Tendulkar The greatest living exponent of his craft

Cricket's greatest ever player, Sir Donald Bradman, was watching a 1996 World Cup match on television when he first saw Sachin Tendulkar bat. The Indian player's technique seemed strangely familiar. Though his stance and his movements were compact and efficient, he hit the ball hard and his shots were ruthlessly effective. The Australian called his wife into the living room of their suburban Adelaide home. "Who does this remind you of?" asked Bradman, then 87. The answer was obvious. "I never saw myself play," Bradman said later. "But I feel that this player is playing much the same [way] I used to play."

Being labeled the next Bradman has never been an easy honor. But perhaps no batsman has worn the tag with so much grace—and so deserved it—as Tendulkar. West Indian captain Brian Lara, the only contemporary of Tendulkar's to consistently threaten his position as the batsman of the age, told the Times of India last month that the Indian was the greatest he had ever seen. "You know genius when you see it," said Lara. "And let me tell you, Sachin is pure genius."

When he's in form, which is often, Tendulkar can rout the world's best bowlers with ease. Just ask Australian leg-spinning great Shane Warne, who once joked that he had nightmares about bowling to Tendulkar. India's "Little Master" has scored a record 75 centuries in test and one-day internationals and helped revolutionize the speed at which runs are made. But statistics only hint at Tendulkar's greatness. It's the way he scores all those runs that is the most thrilling thing about his game. Tendulkar waits for the bowler's delivery like a martial arts black belt ready to parry an opponent—moving quickly into position, flashing his bat to guide the ball where he will. It's a rare combination of textbook classicism and the inventive violence of modern one-day cricket.

Tendulkar isn't perfect, of course. Critics have long argued that he seems to play for the record books first and his team second—rarely rescuing his comrades when they're in trouble in the way other batting greats such as Lara or Australia's Steve Waugh have done. In the past couple of years, Tendulkar also seems to have lost some of the aggression and daring that made Bradman sit up in front of the TV. In January, he was booed off his home ground after scoring just one run off 21 balls. Perhaps the years and the injuries are catching up.

But his success to date means that Tendulkar could leave the field tomorrow without any diminution of circumstances. The middle-class boy from Bombay gets paid millions of dollars to appear in television commercials and on billboards selling everything from luxury cars to credit cards, soft drinks to shoes. Reserved and modest, he also appears to carry his fame—and the expectations of a billion people—quite well. A few years ago, Australian player Matthew Hayden wrote that Tendulkar was like a god in India. Tendulkar responded with typical humility. "I do not think anyone can become God," he said. "I am a normal person who plays cricket." And yet sometimes, when Tendulkar has the measure of every ball and is smacking them cleanly through panicking fielders, it's hard not to see the divine spark at work.

src: time magzine