30 Years of Sachin Tendulkar; a tribute to the God of cricket

Thirty years is a long period in any field. It is a passage of time long enough to make a person fade away, long enough to take the sheen away from some of the illustrious legacies of various fields of human excellence and is more than capable of rendering people irrelevant. However, some fortunate individuals have been able to transcend all such obstacles to remain important, no matter the time or place. One such person is Sachin Tendulkar.

November 15, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of Tendulkar's debut in international cricket. It came against Pakistan in Karachi in 1989 in a match that also introduced the world to one of the most fabled swing bowlers the game has ever seen; Waqar Younis.

30 years after a teenager walked out for India for the first time, Tendulkar remains the darling of the nation. Even today, he continues to be venerated and is placed at a pedestal that is inaccessible to the lesser mortals of the sport.

Children picking up a cricket bat continue to imitate his mannerisms in their inconsequential matches. parents want their kids to be him while players who represent the nation want to emulate his legacy. That is why the Tendulkar phenomenon spreads its wings way beyond the cricketing arena.

While the multitude of the Master Blaster’s fans love to rave about the statistics and the records that Tendulkar managed to amass in his unbelievable career, the numbers form just a miniscule part of the man's story. It was the hope that every Indian felt when Tendulkar walked out to the middle, it was the unbridled joy that he gave his countrymen every time he scored runs by the bucketful that makes Tendulkar the most worshiped Indian sportsperson. When Tendulkar was at his best, people forgot their troubles. He had the ability to rescue people from their own mundane world and gave them a glimpse into the land of the impossible.

The master batsman scored runs in every land he went to, he thwarted every bowling attack that he faced and he did so with an elegance and poise that nobody could match. The way he dissected the opposition time and again during the peak of his powers is unparalleled and he was often the lone warrior with the bat for the Indian team.

He was, and continues to be an eternal part of the loves of a mearly a billion peole in the sub-continent and the childhood idol for almost two generations of Indians. Yes, there might come a day when Virat Kohli might manage to go past many of his gargantuan records, a day when the numbers that he generated might start to lose their sparkle. However, no Indian sportsman could capture the hearts of so many people and stay there for such a long time as Tendulkar did and continues to do even today. Needless to say, he shall continue to be the ultimate personality of Indian cricket not just for all that he did but the way he did it.