Tendulkar's brilliance

Tendulkar has finally gone past Brian Lara's record for the most runs in Test cricket - he now has more than 12000 runs. For the past 19 years Sachin has made almost a billion people happy, sad, frustrated, disappointed and every emotion in between. I missed the early part of his career (being only 2 when he started playing) but by the time I was 6 or 7 I knew all about how brilliant he was and how great he could become.

19 years after he started, Tendulkar is undoubtedly a great player. I'm not going to debate who is better - him, Lara, Bradman, Sobers etc because they are all magnificent. What Tendulkar did that none of the others did however, is start as a 16 year old and grow up in front of a billion people. He remains a normal humble private person despite all the madness that surrounds him - fans, sponsors, TV cameras and the paparazzi that have followed his every step.

People criticised him as he aged and changed his style of play to become more responsible and tried to steer the team towards winning totals. And yet when he was younger they criticised him for not playing responsibly and getting the big scores his team needed. To be able to play as he did under those contradictory demands is unbelievable. Crowds still go wild when comes out to bat and when he gets out they go eerily quiet - the only time you ever hear silence in an Indian cricket ground.

There are too many wonderful innings to discuss but a few stand out in my memory as being extra special. His 241* no against Aus in 2004 at Sydney after a run of poor scores saved his place in the team. It was his first hundred for 14 months. He made 193 at Headingley against England in 2002 and formed a partnership with Sourav Ganguly that was so destructive that Nasser Hussain pleaded for bad light to save his fielders.

Other people will be moe eloquent than I have managed to be but basically at the end of the day all the plaudits and tributes are based around one fact - Tendulkar is brilliant.