Sachin Tendulkar Retire

Sachin Tendulkar Retire, Sachin Tendulkar tiptoed with some difficulty down the steps of the Wankhede Stadium pavilion, loaded with two sets of pads, a helmet and two bats as a lone kid, invited to watch practice, stretched his arm up from behind the partition grille, hoping for the autograph that every Indian boy wants.

It did not look promising yet somehow Tendulkar managed to extricate one hand to sign and make another dream come true. As usual. The way in which the boy’s look of desperation turned to melting joy could have stood for a nation’s mood of anxiety and pleasure. Please, Sachin, just one more time.

Thursday will mark the start of the 40-year-old’s farewell to cricket in India’s second Test against West Indies, an event of such magnitude here in the little titan’s home city of Mumbai that it is impossible to credit the fever, fervour, high emotion – and, yes, plain silliness – that is being generated. It feels like sport’s most spectacular act of veneration.

As the murals of that cherubic face were being painted along with the faces of his craziest fans, an armoured personnel carrier was leading the Indian team bus into the Wankhede for practice with hundreds sprinting and screaming alongside, thrusting arms aloft brandishing mobile phone cameras just for an image of their God.

Meanwhile, the man himself was looking shyly out the window, having thought he must have seen it all now. He certainly had not heard it all, for in a hotel across the city, a surreal whole day’s homage, called the Salaam Sachin Conclave, was underway, featuring a non-stop series of luminaries, like Brian Lara and Sunil Gavaskar, pontificating about Tendulkar’s greatness. For hour upon hour.