My memories of watching Test cricket go back to the early eighties so that will tell you how many batters I've seen, and Sachin Tendulkar is the best.
Between his debut at 16 and retiring at 40, he made 34,357 international runs. Kumar Sangakkara is the second all-time run scorer with 28,016, and Ricky Ponting is third with 27,483.
See how easily I turned to statistics? That's a cricket-lover's habit, usually about half the story.
But I rated him highest before his numbers shot off the charts.
He was one of those fearless few who could raise the pulse of a game by attacking the bowling.
"Just the sheer audacity to play the kind of shots he did was remarkable," former Indian captain Ravi Shastri says.
Shastri batted with teenager Tendulkar on the 1991-92 tour of Australia, Sachin making statement centuries in Sydney and Perth.
"That's when I first saw greatness from 22 yards. Because it's one thing getting runs, it's another thing watching a kid who's 18 years of age dominate an Australian attack, like the way he did," he says.
Tendulkar's consistent excellence gave him a test average over 50 in three consecutive decades.
The averages-over-50 club used to be more celebrated. Only six men did it in the 70s (Javed Miandad, Sir Viv Richards, Geoff Boycott, Sunil Gavaskar, Greg Chappell and Ian Redpath), five in the 80s (Chappell, Allan Border, Miandad, Clive Lloyd, and Dean Jones) and four in the 90s (Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, Brian Lara, and Graham Gooch).
In the 21st century, numbers went up — no fewer than 19 men surpassed an average of 50 in the 2000s. There were 11 in the 2010s. And Tendulkar was on both lists.
But it was his world-best average of 58 against the top shelf bowlers of the 1990s that set him apart. At the same time, he was crowned king and chief attraction of a new professional era of around-the-clock, around-the-world one-day internationals.
"Being of Indian background, we used to love watching the Indians play," Australian leg spinner Alana King remembers.
"I used to wear my Sachin shirt even though I was Australian, but just because I loved him. And then as soon as he stopped batting I'll put my Aussie shirt back on."
Renowned Indian film director Prahlad Kakkar, who produced famous Pepsi commercials with Tendulkar during those boom years, says the man who wore number 10 — originally nicknamed Tiny Ten(dulkar) — changed the viewership of cricket.
"There was a certain economic liberalisation. There was a buoyancy and positivity. When young Sachin came onto the scene, with his curly hair and his boyish look, the country actually adopted him almost instantly, like a son," Kakkar says.
"Women traditionally weren't interested in cricket, but started getting interested in cricket and Sachin was one of the reasons."
At his powerful peak in 1998, while duelling with Shane Warne on the Australian Test tour of India and one-day tournament in Sharjah, Tendulkar resembled a superhero at the crease.
"To bowl to Tendulkar, at his very best, was a privilege," former Aussie quick Damien Fleming says.
"I also feel like it improved us because your margin for error got littler and littler. The avenue of apprehension, you know, when you're playing grade cricket, might be a metre by two metres. When you're bowling to Tendulkar in India and Sharjah in a one-day game, you're almost having to get it on a 20 cent coin. You know, because he is such a great player."
"What a player, what a wonderful player," the late Tony Greig said in commentary during Tendulkar's back-to-back century making 'Desert Storm' series against the Aussies.
"This little man is the nearest thing to Bradman there's ever been."
'This fellow is playing much the same as I used to play'
Increasingly, Tendulkar was being mentioned in relation to Sir Donald Bradman, average 99.94, not only the greatest batter of all time but arguably the greatest statistical outlier in major world sports.
On Warne's homecoming in 1998, the leg spinning champion said: "I don't think there's been anyone, besides Bradman, that's in the same class as Sachin Tendulkar. He's just such an amazing player."
Of course, the most famous comparison to Bradman had already been made by Sir Don, to journalist Ray Martin in 1996.
"I've only seen Tendulkar on the television," Bradman told Martin.
"But I was very, very struck by his technique. I asked my wife to come and have a look at him. Because, I said, 'I never saw myself play. But I feel this fellow is playing much the same as I used to play'.
"I can't explain … it was just his compactness, his stroke production, his technique. It all seemed to gel as far as I was concerned, that was how I felt."
It was an observation that Tendulkar said was the greatest compliment a cricketer could receive.
"It was huge in India," commentator Harsha Bhogle remembers.
"Because everybody in India said 'right, who's the greatest has ever been? There's Bradman.' And now Bradman's saying, 'This kid plays like me?'
"And suddenly the parallels with Bradman started to emerge."
Two years later, on Bradman's 90th birthday, Tendulkar was invited alongside Warne to visit Bradman at his home in Holden Street, Adelaide.
Bradman. Tendulkar. Warne.
The meeting made news all around the world and created a bond between the three men.
'Bradman is the best. Period'
Bradman once said it was impossible to accurately rate players of different eras.
"If you've got a champion in one era, he would've been a champion in any other era," he said.
"He would simply change himself to adapting rules and conditions. That's why it's so difficult to compare people in the game of cricket. You go out and it's one adversary against another on a pitch, which varies from day to day, weather, which varies from day to day.
"In swimming you compete directly against one another under identical conditions at the time. Billiards — you play on the same table, same conditions and so on. But it's quite different (in cricket)."
However, almost all cricket watchers agree that in this unique English-born 140-year-old game, Bradman is not so much a night sky star as the sun.
Indian economist Surjit Bhalla produced a book in 1987 called 'Between the Wickets: The Who and Why of the Best in Cricket'.
"The attempt always was, and is, to search for the Holy Grail," he wrote.
"That is, to be able to compare players who played at different times whether 10 or a 100 years apart and to answer the child-like yet tempting question — who was the greatest?"
Bhalla looked at the greatest of all time (now popularly known as GOAT) question from all angles, including pitch conditions and class of opposition bowlers.
You don't have to search far for his conclusion — the book's dedication reads: "To Sir Donald Bradman for helping define greatness by being the greatest cricketer. Ever."
Later, Bhalla wrote: "Bradman was a phenomenon of his and all time. Adjustments for opposition bring down Bradman's overall average from 99.94 to 82.89 suggesting that some of his runs were scored off weaker bowlers (715 runs in six innings, 1 not out, 1 retired hurt, for an average of 178.75 against the hapless Indians; 201.50 average against a weak South African team, 1931-32).
"Nevertheless, the data suggest that Bradman would score 83 runs against an average bowling team on an average pitch. In a series against the present battery of West Indies pace makers, his traditional average would only be 72.63.
"Bradman is the best. Period."
Bhalla went on to serve as executive director for India at the International Monetary Fund, but never stopped analysing cricket.
I contacted him in Washington to ask whether the past 35 years of data had altered his conclusion.
Tendulkar, for example, had since made 100 international centuries (the next best was Virat Kholi on 72, and Ponting on 71). And Sachin had made his Mount Everest aggregate of runs by playing all over the world, against many more opponents than Bradman.
"Not at all," Bhalla says, while acknowledging Tendulkar's greatness.
No matter how he 'cut it up', Bradman was still a long way ahead of everyone.
'There was nobody who didn't like him'
A more interesting essay is the comparison of Bradman and Tendulkar without the statistical handcuffs.
"Everybody draws comparisons with Bradman and Sachin in terms of record," Prahlad Kakkar says.
"But this is first time that anybody is coming to me with a comparison of impact and of conduct, and the timing of that impact and the conduct, and what it did to the two different countries.
"With Sachin, it was universal. There was nobody who didn't like him.
"Bradman had the same unifying power in Australia. And he actually inspired an entire generation of young kids to play cricket the right way."
Bradman's brilliance was a gift to Australians during the Great Depression. He became the world's best on the 1930 tour of England.
"I try and get as many runs as I possibly can," he said with a smile at the time.
"And if in getting those runs I should happen to break any record, well naturally I'm very pleased. But I do not deliberately set out to try and break any records."
Another current Australian champion, Ellyse Perry, says Bradman and Tendulkar gave their people comfort.
"Countries and populations of people rely really heavily and gravitate quite strongly towards consistency," she says.
"You know, if you look at political stuff, (when) countries are doing well, they have really stable political circumstances.
"In a weird way, if you were to draw a parallel, it's like Bradman and Tendulkar, their consistency and dependability with runs becomes so important for a country who's supporting them.
"When they walk out onto the field, they're representing you as well. And people gravitated towards that and I think there's no coincidence that they're both really strong gentlemen as well, never put a foot wrong on or off the field, they were just incredibly respectful of their opponents.
"People could just depend on them in so many different ways. And they really represented stability."
Tendulkar famously made headlines as a schoolboy run machine in Mumbai before making his test debut against Pakistan in 1989.
The teen's rise mirrored India's economic international emergence.
"The timing was just right," Kakkar says.
"India had just liberalised. And they were just about getting confident of who they were. Because we already suffered from a slight inferiority complex, you know, because we had been ruled for so long by so many countries and races, that as Indians, we felt that we were, even in our own country, a second class citizen.
"He actually unified the country into a nation. He was the ambassador of this country, and he took it very seriously. And that is when we started comparing him to Bradman because Bradman had the same unifying power."
Gideon Haigh reckons Tendulkar's performances mapped a new course for the sport.
"If Bradman's the great imperial cricketer, then Tendulkar's the great post-colonial cricketer, when the kind of the new imperium establishes itself in cricket, which is India," Haigh says.
"India is at the centre of cricket now, and will be forevermore, just simply for economic and demographic reasons. And Tendulkar is in the vanguard of that. He's the best batsman of his era, in what is becoming the best cricket country of its era. So he's a Saturnalia, he's a kind of a premonition of Indian cricket power to come."
'He thought that he had done his bit'
Hero worship brought unnatural fame to both players.
In turn, they willingly became servants of the game, as well as exemplary role models.
"That's a common thread between them that they'd stay grounded with this huge, huge fame around them," Bradman fan and renowned musician Paul Kelly says.
"And that's hard to do."
Bradman was sent a lot of fan mail.
"I got to the stage at one point where my own personal mail reached six hundred letters a day," he said.
And he continued to receive mail all his life.
"That is absolutely astounding," Bradman said in 1990, aged 81.
"I would think, apart from the 1948 tour when the mail was absolutely horrendous, I would honestly think I would get just as much mail today as I ever got in my life. And it is quite common for me to spend three to four hours a day just dealing with the mail."
He replied to everyone.
Tendulkar first learned about Bradman through one of his letters, which was sent to a cricket lover in Bandra East, Mumbai.
"I remember my neighbour, Mr Gowariker," Tendulkar says.
"His son is my dear friend Avinash (now a famous Bollywood photographer).
"So I had gone to his house and that's when his father was talking about Sir Don. And he said, 'I've got something really, really precious, a handwritten letter by Sir Don'.
"He had received that letter in 1970. I was born in 1973. And this conversation took place, I think, in the late 70s, or maybe in 1980. I was only seven or eight years old. And that's when he showed me the letter of Sir Don."
Among other things, the letter from Bradman to Tendulkar's neighbour said Bradman was disappointed he never got the chance to play cricket in India.
Tendulkar is approaching his 50th birthday and he seems at ease with his undiminished popularity. On social media, he seems content posting regular videos and pictures to fans regarding his personal interests — cooking, family, travel and all sport.
"It's a package deal," he says.
"And a number of people asked me, what about your privacy? Do you get any privacy? I feel, you know, it's a blessing. People love you.
"They wish well for you. I wouldn't compromise on anything. I mean, I think whatever I've received so far in my life, it's a blessing from above. I think without all that, life wouldn't have been the same. It gave me the strength to go out and give my best for the country. And then that's all I wanted to do as a child.
"So there are a few people in this world who love doing something. And people actually love watching what they are doing. So for me, that combination worked brilliantly."
Even today, 22 years after his death, Bradman is heavily scrutinised — a letter of congratulations he sent to the Prime Minister in 1977 recently made headlines.
"I personally had letters with him on certain issues where he made it patently clear that he was sick of the intrusiveness," journalist Mike Coward says.
"He thought that he had done his bit. And in fairness to him, he did do his bit.
"And there's no doubt that Bradman particularly had to contend with a lot with the illness to his children when they were growing up, and an enormous pressure on Lady Jessie.
"Lady Jessie was just a wonderful woman. She was not only the great love of his life, the great support of his life, the great influence of his life."
Bradman's lifelong partnership with Lady Jessie mirrors the family life of Tendulkar, who is married to Anjali with two children, Arjun and Sara.
Tendulkar said to a packed crowd at Wankhede Stadium after his 2013 farewell test: "The most beautiful thing happened to me in 1990 when I met my wife Anjali. Those were special years and it has continued and it will always continue that way.
"I know Anjali being a doctor there was a wonderful career in front of her. When we decided to have a family, Anjali took the initiative to step back and say you continue with your cricket and I will take the responsibility of the family. Without that I don't think I would have been able to play cricket freely and without any stress.
"You're the best partnership I've had in my life."
'That's a superpower'
In searching for the things Bradman might've seen in Tendulkar, another question keeps presenting itself.
How did these two boys — one from Bowral, New South Wales, the other from Bandra East, Mumbai — come to be so good at batting that their world records may never be broken?
"It's hard to measure the brain isn't it," former Australian captain and all-time great batter Allan Border says.
"Obviously his brain was calculating what was happening just that fraction quicker than everyone else. That's all I can put it down to."
Greg Baum, writer with The Age, raises Bradman's boyhood game of hitting a golf ball into a tank stand. Tendulkar also practiced with a golf ball, while living with his aunty and uncle to be closer to the Shavji Park cricket grounds.
"The famous tank stand story," Baum says.
"If you do that for long enough and you've got nothing else to do, which was the story of his childhood. That's the only clue or key we have isn't it? Because his eyesight wasn't exceptional, his health wasn't exceptional."
Journalist Jack Egan was granted a rare TV interview with Bradman in 1990.
"How much of cricket is physical and how much is mental, do you think?" Egan asked.
Bradman, who once told another reporter he got more nervous playing in front of 60 people than 60,000 people, was almost lost for an explanation.
"I suppose a lot of it is mental," he offered.
"Although that never intruded in my particular play. In other words, I didn't let the mental side of it worry me.
"I always had confidence in my own ability. If I made a mistake, I felt that nine times out of 10 it was a physical mistake and I tried to do something — and I didn't get there in time or I was too slow or something like that.
"But I'm sure with a lot of players, their mental attitude is terribly important. They imagine there are difficulties that are not really there."
Tendulkar says something similar.
"Right from my first game in my life until the last game in my life, I got nervous before I was playing," he says.
"And once I walked out in the middle, I was fine. But until that moment, I used to be like, you know, when do I get to go in and bat? And let me play the first ball. And after that everything was fine.
"Then it was all about owning 22 yards. And controlling the game. There were occasions when I was not able to do so, there were occasions when I did it really well. But I always got nervous.
"And I kind of accepted that. Because the first 10 years of my life, I was not able to sleep on the eve of the game. I was restless, jittery, and literally until 2am, 3am I would be tossing and turning in bed. But then later on, I started accepting that. And the day I started accepting that this is the way I prepare before a game, then things were different."
As an acclaimed opera singer, Greta Bradman saw her grandfather's performance mindset as ahead of it time.
"I reckon that what grandpa would have said is he did all of this prep work when he was a child growing up," she says.
"He didn't think of it as prep work at the time. But it turned out it was and it was just training those neural pathways, that brain-body connection, and that enabled him to kind of not have to think about it particularly much when he was out in the middle.
"I think it helps also when you're doing things that you really love, and where you're in that perfect state of doing something that is within your realm of competence. And when you can find that, I think that's where if you can maintain the joy in that state, as well as finding yourself in the present moment, that's where I think great performance can come.
"At least that's what I sort of learned from grandpa."
Tendulkar says his coach and family were wonderful supporting influences in his development.
"My parents had a tough life and things were not easy to look after the family. And, of course, both my brothers, my sister, everyone, I mean, it was a combined effort," he says.
"I felt like a Formula One car where multiple guys were working for the team. And I was the face of the team. But without everyone's contribution, my childhood wouldn't have been saved. You know, from there on, things started changing in my life."
Much like Bradman, Tendulkar was not anxious about what might happen when he faced deliveries.
At that moment, he had already handed over control of his thoughts to his subconscious mind.
"I realised that when I was batting at my best, my conscious mind was always at a non striker's end, and my subconscious mind was at the striker's end," he explains.
"The bowler is constantly asking you questions, be it leg spin, googly, or outswinger, inswinger, whatever that is. Your conscious mind has to pick that and then within that fraction of a second, you have to surrender yourself to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind knows how to react and how to play provided your conscious mind has picked the right information from the bowling end.
"But the moment you've surrendered yourself to your subconscious mind, whatever is stored in the computer, as we call it, it takes over and you react."
Wimbledon champion Ash Barty's renowned mindset coach Ben Crowe believes Bradman and Tendulkar had psychological advantages.
"What happens a lot in sport, and with athletes is they get distracted by the persona, you know, once I win that match, or once I'm famous, then I'll be enough, then I'll be worthy," he says.
"And it just never works. So we're kind of looking for all the wrong places."
Crowe says the best performed people have the right "intrinsic motivations".
"Yeah, there's similarities between Tendulkar and Bradman from what I've read and listening to both of them speak is this incredible connection with themselves," he says.
"They were both incredibly lucky that they had really solid families around them. So there was this real acceptance of self that wasn't determined on having to do something or achieve something."
Crowe says it is significant expectations were never forced upon young Bradman or Tendulkar by parents or coaches.
"Both of them talk about setting dreams," he adds.
"But not necessarily making them expectations, you know, Tendulkar's dad said 'I just want you to try your best and not care about the consequences.'
"Well, that's a superpower, because most of us get distracted by the consequences, you know, what happens if I miss this shot, what happens if I go out and so forth?
"And so the ability just to really connect with themselves, first and foremost, has this self confidence, which for them is to compete, have fun and play because both of them talk about this absolute passion to compete."
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