To say that Sachin Tendulkar is the Tiger Woods of cricket does not do the man justice.
Tendulkar, that is, not Woods.
The Indian cricket legend had begun the final five-day Test match for India as it takes on West Indies. The 200th and final test in Tendulkar's career had a month's worth of anticipation from India, whose embrace of cricket arguably has no equal with any sport in any other country.
"(Michael) Jordan, Woods and(David) Beckham may cross more boundaries," American writer Mike Marqusee wrote in 2002, in a profile of Tendulkar on the ESPN Cricinfo website. "But nowhere do those players carry the weight of expectation that Tendulkar carries in India (and among the Indian diaspora)."
Multiple media outlets reported that when a website began selling tickets Monday for Tendulkar's farewell match, some 19.7 million hits in the first hour of the sale caused the site to crash.
The New York Times reported that "Tendulkar has been burdened with the aspirations of 1.2 billion Indians."
The 40-year-old Tendulkar is the first player ever to participate in 200 five-day tests, and he already holds the record for one-day international matches with 463.
According to the New York Times, Tendulkar was a child prodigy that actually exceeded outsized expectations of his greatness. Tendulkar was the youngest active test cricketer when he made his debut in 1989.
As recently as two years ago, Tendulkar was India's top run-scorer as it won the World Cup for the first time in 28 years.
As he plays his final test, the BBC Sport website reported that fans staged protests over the fact that only 5,000 of the 33,000 seats available for the test went on sale to the public because the remainder of the seats was designated for politicians, celebrities, former players and corporate guests.
West Indies great Brian Lara described the India star as "the Muhammad Ali and the Michael Jordan of cricket."
"There will not be another Sachin Tendulkar," former Australia Shane Warne, who took 708 Test wickets, wrote in his Daily Telegraph column. "He was the best batsman of my generation."
© Copyright 2024 Sports World News, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
