First glimpses of his talent

Sachin had an exceptional season in 1988 and hammered a century in each and every match he played. With former friend and team India colleague Vinod Kambli he took part in an unbeaten partnership of 664 runs against the St. Xaviers High School in a Lord Harris Shield interschool contest. Their dominance was such that the opposition was not keen on going ahead with the match and one bowler was actually crying. Tendulkar notched up a 326 in that game and also scored in excess of 1000 runs in that tournament. His partnership was to stay unbroken till 2006 when a couple of under13 batsmen eclipsed it at a game held in Hyderabad.

They say that morning shows the day and this was absolutely true for Sachin as well. With sheer diligence and hard work coupled with unfathomable natural talent and unsurpassed hunger for runs the young Mumbaikar demonstrated the qualities that propelled him to the national team at the tender age of 16 to face Pakistan which was one of the toughest teams at that time and had a formidable bowling attack. Sachin acquitted himself well on that tour and the rest as they say is history.