Beginnings of a legend: Sachin Tendulkar’s 1989/90 debut Test series teammates share memories

Sachin Tendulkar turns 50 on Monday, April 24, 2023. (Image source: Instagram/SachinTendulkar)

On November 15, 1989, Sachin Tendulkar made his Test cricket debut in Karachi. India was playing against Pakistan, and the 16-year-old (16 years and 205 days, to be precise) Test debutant scored 15 runs off 24 balls with two fours. He was the youngest player to debut for India. In all, Tendulkar played 664 international cricket matches, scoring 34,357 runs, and rewrote almost all batting records in the history of international cricket.

Not many saw a legend being born that November morning in Karachi. The Test match was not telecast live because the Lok Sabha elections were being contested and Doordarshan decided to give the first two Tests a skip.

Thirty-four years later, Tendulkar’s debut Test series teammates remember him.

“There was something very unusual about Sachin Tendulkar. When the 16-year-old walked on to the crease, that sparkle in his eye was unmissable. You do not see that spark often. Of course, that debut Test match in Karachi is unforgettable but I had also watched Sachin play a 20-over exhibition game in Peshawar that was held in parallel with the bilateral series. In that match, he made 53 runs off 18 balls, including an over in which he scored 27 runs bowled by leg-spinner Abdul Qadir. The talent was so evident, but what really stood out was his mindset: focused, confident and in know of the craft,” Arshad Ayub, Sachin’s teammate in the debut Test, remembers.

Krishnamachari Srikanth, captain of the Indian cricket team, called Sachin’s Peshawar knock as “one of the best innings I have seen.”

Karachi was not the first time Ayub had played with Sachin Tendulkar. In 1988, a year before donning the Test cap, Tendulkar, then 15, was playing the Ranji Trophy match – he for Mumbai, Ayub for Hyderabad. Even then, as Ayub says, “there was something very remarkable about the really young batsman”.  The youngest in the team, “Sachin was never intimidated by his seniors. At least, he never showed that he was intimidated,” Ayub added over a long call from Hyderabad where he runs the Arshad Ayub Cricket Academy.

“I am not surprised Sachin became what he is known as today. Off the field he was very shy, did not talk much, but the moment he stepped onto the crease, he transformed into a cricketer with amazing grit and confidence,” said Ayub, who played 13 Test matches for India.

The 1989 India-Pakistan Test series was marred by a rift between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the touring players. As a mark of protest, the senior players refused to accept any remuneration for playing for India. But Ayub remembers that Sachin Tendulkar and Vivek Razdan, the two young players, were permitted by the seniors to accept the remuneration that was barely Rs 7,000 for one Test.

Woorkeri Venkat Raman (WV Raman) debuted a year before Sachin Tendulkar during India-West Indies Test match series in 1988 and snatched Courtney Walsh’s wicket in his first over. Part of the 1989/90 Pakistan tour, Raman’s first memory of Sachin Tendulkar is from the Irani Trophy match where both Raman and Sachin were part of the Rest of India team vying for the trophy against Delhi. In the first innings, Sachin had scored 39 runs, in the second he was 103 not out and had bowled 9 overs with two maidens and gave away 19 runs.

“When I first played alongside Sachin Tendulkar, he was barely 16. But even at that young age, he was absolutely fearless. Nothing daunted him; he was always ready for challenges on the field. Everyone knew he’d make it big,” Raman dug into his memories of the legend.

“At that time, K Srikanth, the Indian Test captain, had not seen Sachin play. But I had told Srikanth to ‘watch out for this boy, he is extraordinary’. Soon after, he was selected for the Indo-Pak Test series and the rest, as they say, is history,” Raman, who later became the Head Coach of India’s women’s cricket team, remembers.

Everyone talks of Sachin as that shy young cricketer but what charmed Raman was his sense of humour. “If I were to pick up one unusual thing about Sachin, it would be his impish sense of humour. Of course, when he became the legend that we all know, he had to curtail and curb that humour. Perhaps that, I would say, is the price he paid for his mega stardom,” Raman said and quickly added that it is “rare to find such a matchless cricketer and an equally brilliant human being who was always ready to help others.”