Congratulations

to Sachin Tendulkar for a wonderful innings today and to Vijay for a patient good innings. I was sitting behind the sight screen all day watching Sachin play and the whole crowd was enchanted. An Australian newspaper said,

At 37, he played like the kid who wished it wouldn't get dark. When Tendulkar made his Test debut, his teammate Cheteshwar Pujara was one. Now 22, Pujara, who has never known his national side without Tendulkar, waited and watched in the pavilion, itching to make his first walk onto a Test pitch, yet remaining as entranced as the rest. Cricinfo had this to say,

Only a man blessed with immense powers of endurance could sustain a 20-year Test career and Sachin Tendulkar displayed exactly that quality on a day of Indian dominance in Bangalore. ..... 

The only man who didn't seem tired at stumps was Tendulkar. That's the benefit of 20 years of practice.

On his last tour of Australia, he was given rapturous ovations by an adoring public each time he went in or out. But the Australians might not have seen the last of him. Fifty Test hundreds is but a formality. Hundred international hundreds are there for the taking. But Tendulkar endures not in the pursuit of milestones, but because he can't fall out of love with cricket. And that's why, above anything else, he remains the most loved cricketer.