I didn't realise Sachin Tendulkar was going to be such a big name in cricket: Waqar Younis

Sachin Tendulkar’s debut in international cricket as a 16-year-old couldn’t have come against a harder opposition than Pakistan. The Little Maestro, who was already dubbed a ‘batting prodigy’ on the back of his exploits at school, faced the combined pace battery of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Imran Khan in his first-ever Test outing.

Pace legend Waqar Younis, who was himself just an 18-year-old during the 1989 India-Pakistan Test series, has now recalled the first face-off against Sachin Tendulkar.

Speaking on The Greatest Rivalry podcast, Younis said:

“About Sachin, the entire India Under-19 team, they were just raving about him, saying how good that little kid is. He’s only a schoolboy, scoring triple-centuries at school. Who scores triple-centuries at school? Even scoring a century at school is an amazing thing.”

After Pakistan scored 409 in the first innings in Karachi, Sachin Tendulkar came out to bat with India struggling at 41/4, with Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis already wreaking havoc. Sachin Tendulkar only lasted 24 balls on his debut and scored 15 before Younis sent him packing.

Waqar Younis admitted that while he had heard that the young Sachin Tendulkar was "amazing", he did not anticipate that the Indian would hit become such a big name in cricket.

“We always knew there was this young kid coming on the block who was going to be amazing. At first look, he didn’t really give me the impression that he’s going to be the great Sachin Tendulkar, what he is today. What he has done over the years is amazing, on the field, off the field. At that particular time, I didn’t realise he was going to be such a big name in cricket. But his hard work paid off.”

Sachin Tendulkar had scores of 59, 8, 41 and 35 after the Karachi Test before finishing the series off with a knock of 57 in Sialkot. It was during this last Test that he got a bloody nose thanks to a Waqar Younis bouncer.

Younis, who picked up 373 Test and 416 ODI wickets, recalled:

“The first Test was at Karachi and I got him early. I think he scored 15. He played a couple of really classy on-drives and straight drives in that 15. He didn’t score much after that in that series but the fifty you were mentioning which he scored in Sialkot, that was on a green top wicket. We wanted a result. We wanted the series to have a result and we produced a real green-topper. He came in and got hit on the nose very early in the innings. For a 16-year-old kid, he looked pale at the time, but very determined."

The 48-year-old then stated that it was Tendulkar's performance in Sialkot that convinced him that he was something "very special". He said:

“I remember (Navjot Singh) Sidhu was batting with him and they both took five, seven minutes and (then) he was ready to go. Then he played that knock of fifty which really showed his class. We knew he was going to be something very special by then.”

Sachin Tendulkar, of course, went on to become a modern-day legend scoring 15921 Test runs and 18426 runs in ODIs in a career spanning 24 years.