Sachin Tendulkar a perfect batsman

Sachin Tendulkar has been the most natural batsman of his time, and possibly the biggest cricket icon as well. His batting is based on the purest principles: perfect balance, economy of movement, precision in stroke making, and that indescribable quality given only to geniuses, expectation. If he doesn't have a signature stroke - the upright, back-foot punch comes close - it is because he is equally gifted in each of the full range of orthodox shots (and plenty of spontaneous ones as well) and can pull them out at will.

Though he has adopted a noticeably conventional approach in the last quarter of his career, there are no apparent weaknesses in Tendulkar's game. He can score all around the wicket, off both front foot and back, and has made runs in all parts of the world in all circumstances.

Some of his most excellent performances have come against Australia, the overwhelmingly leading team of his era. His century as a 19-year old on a lightning fast pitch at the WACA is considered one of the best innings ever to have been played in Australia. A few years later he received the ultimate flatter from the ultimate batsman when Don Bradman confided to his wife that Tendulkar reminded him of himself.

Blessed with the keenest of cricket minds, and armed with a disgust for losing, Tendulkar set about doing what it took to become one of the greatest batsmen in the world. This was after Dennis Lillee turned him away from a fast-bowling camp in Chennai.

Tendulkar's greatness was establish early: he was only 16 when he made his Test debut. He was hit on the mouth by Waqar Younis but persistent to bat, in a blood-soaked shirt. His first Test hundred, a match-saving one at Old Trafford, came when he was 17, and he had 16 Test hundreds before he turned 25. In 2000 he became the first batsman to have scored 50 international hundreds, and he presently holds the record for most hundreds in both Tests and ODIs - remarkable, consider he didn't score his first ODI hundred till his 79th match.

Tendulkar's considerable achievements seem greater still when looked at in the light of the burden of opportunity he has had to bear from his adoring but somewhat unreasonable followers, who have been level to watch anything, less than a hundred as a failure. The quality may have dimmed, if only faintly, as the years on the international path have taken their toll on the body, but Tendulkar remains, by a distance, the most worshipped cricketer in the world.