Promise fulfilled

There isn't a cricket follower alive today who cannot recite the greatest of Sachin Tendulkar's achievements: highest run-scorer in Tests and ODIs, most centuries in international cricket, a career spanning 22 years and still running strong.

And all of these seemed pre-destined the moment he started making news as a teenage prodigy. Hitting first-class hundreds in his early teens, sharing in that mammoth 600+ partnership in a school match with his childhood friend Vinod Kambli -- these feats only confirmed to followers in India and all over the world that here was a player who would take the cricket world by storm.

From his youngest years he worked as hard as possible to hone his skills. His batting is the closest thing to perfection that can be seen on a cricket field -- bat and pad always close together, head still as he unfurls the most daring of shots, and perfect balance to the extent that it will be near impossible to find footage of him falling over when playing the ball off the pads. He remains as comfortable against high pace as he is against the swinging ball or the wiles of spin.

His first claim to greatness was at the WACA in Perth in 1992. Two months short of his 19th birthday, Tendulkar faced up to the fiery Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes on the fastest and bounciest pitch in the world, and scored 114 in an Indian innings in which none of his seniors crossed 43. India lost the match though, giving birth to a recurring theme throughout the 1990s in which Tendulkar scored a century only to see his side lose. It was more a function of him being the only outstanding player in a poor team, and since the 2000s this imbalance has been restored somewhat.

He played probably his best innings in similar circumstances, when his sincerest efforts could not avert heartbreak. It was in Chennai in 1999, in the first Test against archrivals Pakistan. Against a formidable bowling attack that included Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Saqlain Mushtaq, India were 6 for 2 in their fourth innings chasing 271 to win when Tendulkar walked in. He saw his side slip to 82 for 5, but seemed immune to everything around him.

At that point he found a reliable ally in keeper Nayan Mongia, with whom he shared a 136-run stand. Throughout his innings of 136, Tendulkar was a man possessed, reaching realms of concentration not possible in lesser beings. But when Mongia was dismissed 53 runs short of the target and with back spasms breaching Tendulkar's Zen-like state, he stepped out to loft Mushtaq for six, only to find Wasim Akram at long on. India were 17 runs shy of the target, and lost their remaining three wickets for four runs.

But more than his near-hundred international centuries, and his 32,000 international runs, Tendulkar's legacy will forever have to do with how he lifted his country by dint of his performances.

In late 2008, when India were devastated by the Mumbai terror attacks and the ongoing English tour was in jeopardy, it was Tendulkar who, however fleetingly, poured balm on his nation's wounds by scoring a fourth innings century to chase down a mammoth 387 in the first match following the attacks.

Critics have been calling for his retirement since 2005 when he was in the midst of the only lean patch in his 22-year career, but the man has reinvented himself since and has once again climbed the top of the cricketing world, in the process setting records, some of which may never be broken.