Tendulkar is egoless, gracious god : British media

London, Dec 18 (PTI) Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is god to billion Indians but he is a "gracious god" who lifts his people out of the pit of despair in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks, a leading British newspaper said, paying tribute to the champion batsman who has "not a scrap of ego".

Tendulkar offered balm to a country which was devastated
by terror attacks in its finacial capital yet he remained a
modest god, according to a write-up in 'Daily Telegraph'

"He (Tendulkar) is an unlikely-looking god. He stands
there in the middle dwarfed by the gigantic Andrew Flintoff
and the strapping Yuvraj Singh, a boy-like figure with a
cherubic face whose Michelin man-style pads come half way up
his thigh," Simon Hughes wrote.

"The poor Indian lifts his hands to Sachin Tendulkar in
supplication; Give us respite, a sense of liberation; lift us
up from the dark pit of our lives to well-lit places of the
imagination with your skill-wrought perfection. He has not a
scrap of ego. He is a gracious god. We will never see his like
again".

The writer said that Tendulkar never shirked his enormous
responsibility and spent considerable time preparing for a
game.

"Tendulkar never shirks this enormous responsibility. He
spends almost every waking hour seeking that perfection,
practising, planning, preparing. He rings his brother, the man
who knows his game best, every day, talking bowlers and bat
angles and shot selection. He looks at the pitch and
contemplates how he will make runs on it. He is thankful of
his talent and dutifully delivers it to his public, the
majority of whom have nothing," Hughes wrote.

A self-effacing man who keeps his emotions private,
Tendulkar's inner urge to express the hurt caused to him by
the audacious terror attack at the city he was born and
brought up led him to dedicate his century in Chennai to the
people of Mumbai and India, but he admits it was not his
nature to play the role of a statesman too often.

"Sometimes I do it, but it is not my way," Tendulkar
was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"Tendulkar lives in Bandra, in the north of Mumbai,
Bollywoodville. But he often goes south to Colaba with family
and friends, to eat in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel or the
Oberoi.

"The Mumbai attacks were close to home and affected him
deeply. The England players remarked on his extra patience and
intensity at the crease. This time he was doubly determined to
lift his people out of their pit," the article said.

Tendulkar wields a heavy bat unusual for his small frame,
but he says he would not be the same batsman without his
willow.

"I like a bow in it. I can't bat with anything else. I
would not feel right at the crease," the master batsman said.
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