The youngest ever player to captain India - Mansur Ali Khan of
Pataudi, at the age of 21 years and 77 days - got the honour when
Nari Contractor was felled by a Charlie Griffith bouncer during
the 1961-1962 tour of the Carribbean.
Sachin will, however, be the youngest-ever player to captain India in one-day internationals when he leads the side out against World Cup holders Sri Lanka on August 24. On that day, he will be 23 years 122 days old - considerably younger than Kapil Dev, who was 23 years and 250 days old when he first led India in a limited over inter- national. Tendulkar will be the 13th player to captain India in the shortened version of the game. His predecessor, Mohammad Azharuddin, has led India 118 times in one-dayers.
A right-hand middle-order batsman in Test cricket and attack- ing opener in one-day internationals, Sachin Tendulkar bats in the clas- sical style of Sir Donald Bradman. He is, besides, a useful right-arm bowler who makes up for his lack of pace with variety in ever single delivery, keeping the batsman guessing with his changes of length and direction.
Tendulkar became a club cricketer at the very tender age of twelve, when he played in the Kanga League, Bombay's highly competi- tive league tournament, 1985-'86. The very next year, he scored his first hundred in Bombay inter-schools tournament.
It was in the 1986-'87 season that Sachin hit the headlines, when as a 14-year-old he hit two triple hundreds in school cricket. And on the second occasion, he got his first glimpse of the internation- al spotlight when, batting for Shardashram school against St. Xavier's, he hit an unbeaten 326 and, in partnership with buddy Vinod Kam- bli (349 not out) for the third wicket, put on 664 runs - a world record in any class of cricket.
In fact, the ironical part of this situation lies in the fact that after having made such high scores while just a schoolboy, Sachin has not yet managed to cross even the 200-run mark in Test crick- et - a glaring deficiency, given that Sir Donald Bradman, who in a recent interivew likened Sachin's playing style to his own, has two triple hundreds and ten double centuries in Test cricket.
Anyway. When the Indian cricket team visited Pakistan the last time, in 1989, Sachin Tendulkar became the youngest Indian player to play in a Test when he was part of the playing eleven at Karachi. At the time, the Bombay prodigy was just 16 years and 205 days old.
On that occasion, he scored just 15 runs.
Sachin however came into his own in the summer of 1990 when, in the second Test against England at Old Trafford, in Manchester, he scored 68 in the first innings and 119 not out in the second to save his side from defeat. In the process, he also became the second young- est cricketer ever, after Pakistan's Mushtaq Mohammad, to score a Test century.
From then onwards, Tendulkar has never looked back, going on to hit ten hundreds in Tests and another eight in one-day internation- als. On innumerable occasions, Sachin has been the difference between victory and defeat. And it was widely recognised that getting the captaincy was, for this most involved of cricketers, merely a matter of time.
Two years ago, he was appointed deputy to Mohammad Azharuddin, and he now takes over from his former captain after Azhar had a par- ticularly dismal run beginning with the 1996 World Cup and extending through Singapore, Sharjah and England.