How time has frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar

Twenty one years is an age when you can go to a bar and legally drink beer in India. Twenty one years is an age at which a male here can, as a constitutional right, get married. For Sachin Tendulkar, 21 years, means the period he has been padding up in international cricket.

Acknowledging the longevity of arguably the greatest sportsman of our times is Time magazine. The Indian megastar last week became the first cricketer to score 50 Test hundreds.

He also was the first man to score a double hundred in One-Day International. And all this started in 1989, when 16-year-old Tendulkar confidently took strike against the deadly Pakistan duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

“When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam,” the Time magazine says about the cricketer.

“When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of, Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters,” adds the magazine.

Much has changed in the world since young Tendulkar burst into the cricket scene. Time notes many such events, “The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Manmohan Singh was yet to “open” the Nehruvian economy.

“It seems while time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.”

Tendulkar better than Bradman: Dhoni
Tendulkar’s ability to adapt to the pressures of modern day cricket makes him better than Australian cricket legend Don Bradman, feels India captain MS Dhoni.

“There is no doubt that both are brilliant batsmen, but Sachin has been around for two decades, the best in the world and had moreover throughout his career could adapt even with the demands of one-day cricket and more recently the Twenty20 version,” the skipper was quoted as saying by the South African daily The Beeld on Friday.

“I do not like comparisons between Sachin and Don because they played in different eras,” said Dhoni.