Fellow cricketer's remarks!!!

Warne: "You have to decide for yourself whether you're bowling well or not. He's going to hit you for fours and sixes anyway." Kasprowicz has a superior story. During the Bangalore Test, frustrated,he went to Dennis Lillee and asked, "Mate, do you see any weaknesses?" Lillee replied, "No Michael, as long as you walk off with your pride that's all you can do."

Warne says, he has enormous power
"It's a bit discouraging. In India he ran down the pitch and hit me off the toe of the bat. It should have gone to mid-on but it went for a six."

On that day in Sharjah,when he scored an epic 142, it was in evidence again. Gaekwad was stunned, for Tendulkar was running singles like a demon -- four 3s, fifteen 2s, thirty-five 1s -- yet hitting sixes (five of them) in between.
"The running tires you, yet he was never out of position for a shot."

"In an over I can bowl six different balls. But then Sachin looks at me with a sort of gentle arrogance down the pitch as if to say 'Can you bowl me another one?'" -- Adam Hollioke to a friend.

So what is it Tendulkar, what's the motivation, what moves you? Records? No. He just says, flatly, "It's the challenge that drives me."

Says Shastri: "I have never seen such arrogance, such contempt for bowlers since Richards."

Yet it takes work, talent bolstered by industry. Tendulkar will sweat at the nets on a line that troubles him. He would, prior to tours of the West Indies, get net bowlers to fire away at him from 18 yards. When he was told that like the Sri Lankans who discomforted him by bowling down the legside, Warne might aggravate him similarly, he went to the nets in Mumbai, snuffed the pitch where he expected the ball to land and asked the bowlers to bowl there. When Warne arrived, the greatest batsmen in the world awaited him. Ready. Now the search begins, in all earnestness, for the chink of daylight in his stance, the edge of weakness in his method. Tendulkar himself sees none. "I don't think I need to improve in any specific area, just generally." The aussies are as unhelpful. Steve Waugh feels -- and check this for a weakness -- "his only danger is seeing the ball too well and going for his shot too early". Warne says bowl dot balls to frustrate him. Kasprowicz says, "Don't bowl him bad balls, he hits the good ones for fours."

They know, Tendulkar knows there is no fragility apparent. As with all such men, it is only themselves who can prove to be the enemy; Tendulkar may nurture his genius or spurn it, the responsibility of greatness lies with him. It seems he understands that. He is surer now than before, less driven to petulant strokes or rakish indiscretion. That innings was just a reminder, a page from a book, that this is a batsman who was conceived under God's full attention. Imagine, what greater deeds remain, the other pages of that book are yet to be turned. Of that night some final stories remain. Chappell saying, "What would I want of his batting? Everything." And then finally, Ajay Jadeja, echoing us all: "I can't dream of an innings like that. He exists where we can't."