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"Nothing bad can happen to us if we're on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it."
Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight

Yaseer Hameed:
"Sometimes you get so engrossed in watching batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar
that you lose focus on your job."

"To Sachin, the man we all want to be"

What Andrew Symonds wrote on an Aussie t-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin

BBC on Sachin:
"Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't
know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a
territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot
even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their TV sets and switch off their lives "

"But the finest compliment must be that bookmakers would not fix the odds -or a game - until
Tendulkar was out."

"Tuzhe pata hai tune kiska catch chhoda hai?"

Wasim Akram to Abdul Razzaq when the latter dropped Sachin's catch.

Brian Charles Lara:

"Sachin is a genius. I'm a mere mortal."

"We did not lose to a team called India...we lost to a man called Sachin"
Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1998)

M. L. Jaisimha:
"The more I see of him the more confused I'm getting to which is his best knock."

Glenn McGrath:
"The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the
adulation and the expectations and his innate humility -all make for a one-in-a-billion individual"

Anjali:
"I can be hundred per cent sure that Sachin will not play for a minute longer when he is not
enjoying himself. He is still so eager to go out there and play. He will play as long as he feels he
can play"

Matthew Hayden:
"I have seen God, he bats at no. 4 for India"

Anil Kumble:
"I am fortunate that I've to bowl at him only in the nets!"

Shahrukh Khan(quoting Shahrukh from an interview)

"Q: Who do you think as most important celebrity ?
Shahrukh: There was a big party where stars from Bollywood and cricket were invited.
Suddenly, there was a big noise, all wanted to see approaching Amitabh Bachhan. Then Sachin
entered the hall and Amitabh was leading the queue to get a grab of the genius!!"

Navjot Singh Sidhu:

"India me aap PrimeMinister ko ek baar katghare me khada kar sakte hain,par Sachin Tendulkar
par ungli nahi utha sakte.."

Waqar Younis:
"He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also."

A banner once said

"I will see God when I die,till then I will see Sachin Tendulkar"

Allan Donald:
"Sachin Tendulkar has often reminded me of a veteran army colonel who has many medals on
his chest to show how he has conquered bowlers all over the world"

Allan Donald again:

"I was bowling to Sachin and he hit me for two fours in a row. One from point and the other in
between point and gully. That was the last two balls of the over and the over after that we (SA)
took a wicket and during the group meeting i told Jonty (Rhodes) to be alert and i know a way to
pin Sachin. And i delivered the first ball of my next over and it was a fuller length delivery
outside offstump. And i shouted catch. To my astonishment the ball was hit to the cover
boundary. Such was the brilliance of Sachin.His reflex time is the best I have ever seen. Its like
1/20th of a sec.To get his wicket better not prepare. Atleast you wont regret if he hits you for
boundaries."

Peter Rebouck, Aussie journalist:

"On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations.The train stopped by for
few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway
officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century.This genius can stop
time in India!!"

NKP Salve, former Union Minister (This was when he was accused of ball tempering):
"Sachin cannot cheat. He is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics. It's clear
discrimination. "

Andy Flower:
"There are 2 kind of batsmen in the world. One Sachin Tendulkar. Two all the others."

"Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even the Lord
is watching."
A placard at the SCG when Sachin Tendulkar was on his way to a magnificent century

Hansie Cronje:
"I had to remind Gary Kristen often that he was in the covers to field against Sachin not to
applaud him"

Shane Warne:
"You have to decide for yourself whether you're bowling well or not. He's going to hit you for
fours and sixes anyway."

During the Bangalore Test, frustrated, Michael Kasprowicz went to Dennis Lillee and asked,
"Mate, do you see any weaknesses?" Lillee replied, "No Michael, as long as you walk off with
your pride that's all you can do."

"Cricket is my religion, Sachin is my God"

"What do you call a critic of Sachin Tendulkar?Atheist"

"Indian defeat was God's way of saying... 'I exist'. He was threatened that Sachin would take
over"

Ravi Shastri:
"Sachin has been sent by God to play cricket and then go back."

Ajay Jadeja:
"I can't dream of an innings like that. He exists where we can't."

Shane Warne:
"I'll be going to bed having nightmares of Sachin just running down the wicket and belting me
back over the head for six. He was unstoppable. I don't think anyone, apart from Don Bradman,
is in the same class as Sachin Tendulkar. He is just an amazing player"

Adam Hollioke:
"In an over I can bowl six different balls. But then Sachin looks at me with a sort of gentle
arrogance down the pitch as if to say 'Can you bowl me another one?'"

Paul Strang:
"What we (Zimbabwe) need is 10 Tendulkars."

Dennis Lillee:
"If I've to bowl to Sachin, I'll bowl with my helmet on. He hits the ball so hard."

Sir Donald Bradman:

"I saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come
look at him. Now I never saw myself play, but I feel that this player is playing much the same as
I used to play, and she looked at him on Television and said yes, there is a similarity between the
two...his compactness, technique, stroke production... it all seemed to gel !"

Desmond Haynes:
"In terms of technique and compactness, Tendulkar is the best."

Sir Viv Richards:

"I think he is marvellous. I think he will fit in whatever category of Cricket that has been played
or will be played, from the first ball that has ever been bowled to the last ball that¶s going to be.
He can play in any era and at any level. I would say he¶s 99.5% perfect."

Mohammad Azharuddin:
"The more I see him, the more I want to see him."

Steve Waugh:
"We won with ten, but lost to one"

Harsha Bhogle:
"For every ball Sachin has two shots in his mind. And he gets out when he plays the third one".

"People say they saw Christ walk water..People say they saw Gandhiji win us freedom..People
say they walked alongside Buddha 'The Enlightened One'. I will always say ~~ I SAW SACHIN
BAT ~~"

Greg Chappell:
"He is a perfectly ablanced batsman and knows perfely well when to attack and when to play
defensive cricket.He has developed the ability to treat bowlers all over the world with contempt
and can destroy any attack with utmost ease"

Mark Waugh:
"The pressure on me is nothing compared to Sachin Tendulkar.Sachin,like God,must never
fail.The crowd always expects him to succeed and it is too much pressure on him.But,he rarely
disappoints them"

Brett Lee:
"You might pitch a ball on the off stump and think you have bowled a good ball and he walks
across and hits it for two behind midwicket.His bat looks so heavy but he just waves it around
like it's a toothpick"

Shane Warne:
"Don't sledge Sachin,rather befriend him"

Michael Kasprowicz:
"Don't bowl him bad balls, he hits the good ones for fours."

Wasim Akram:
"Cricketers like Sachin come once in a lifetime, and I am privileged he played in my time."

Mathew Hayden:
"When Tendulkar goes out to bat, it is beyond chaos - it's a frantic appeal by a nation to one
man."

Shane Warne:
"You have to watch India in India truly to appreciate the pressure that Sachin Tendulkar is under
every time he bats. Outside grounds, people wait until he goes in before paying to enter. They
seem to want a wicket to fall even though it is their own side that will suffer"

Geoffrey Boycott:
"Technically, you can't fault Sachin. Seam or spin, fast or slow nothing is a problem."

Time magazine:
"We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin
Tendulkar and we never will."

"To err is human,not to is Sachin"

"Sachin Tendulkar - Reducing the number of atheists since 1989"

David Shepherd:
"If he is not the best then I want to see the best"

Shane Warne, when asked about who he thought the greatest batsman in the world was:
"Sachin Tendulkar. Then daylight"

Mike Marqusee:
"Tendulkar is one of that narrow stratum of elite sports stars whom people will clamour and even
make great sacrifices to watch, regardless of their national identity. If you care for cricket, you
must love Sachin. In this regard, his peers are few - and mostly found in other sports, and
certainly in other lands."

Shane Warne:
"You have to watch India in India truly to appreciate the pressure that Sachin Tendulkar is under
every time he bats. Outside grounds, people wait until he goes in before paying to enter. They
seem to want a wicket to fall even though it is their own side that will suffer. This is cricket as
Sachin has known it since the age of 16. He grew up under incredible weight of expectation and
never buckled once ± not under poor umpiring decisions or anything else. I place him very
slightly ahead of Lara because I found him slightly tougher mentally."

Daniel Vettori:
"He has been in form longer than some of our guys have been alive."

Some article:
"The silence in an Indian cricket stadium when he gets out is said to be the loudest in the world."

Adidas print commercial:

"When Sachin plays, big-city roads are easy and trains and buses ply empty at rush hour and the
markets take a beating... When Sachin plays, grandmothers who know next to nothing about the
game forget knitting and resting and medicines and pray to their gods as they sit frozen, staring
nervously at their television screen... When Sachin plays , busy, ambitious executives ignore
their calls and cancel their appointments and avoid their clients and miss their deadlines and put
their careers on hold... When Sachin plays, college common rooms are dense and tense and
hushed as an entire generation sits on pins and needles... When Sachin plays, school-yards are
silent and playgrounds are deserted because those who normally make such a racket imitating
their hero are all too busy watching him make batting look so ridiculously easy... When Sachin
plays, fathers who want the news and daughters and mothers who always want soft stuff and
brothers who fight for action, for once all agree on what to watch... When Sachin plays, bowlers
and fielders and opposing captains feel their impotence and inadequacy like at no other time and
curse themselves and wonder what they can do, if anything, to end the shame, the nightmare, the
humiliation... When Sachin plays, commentators and experts run out of adjectives and
expressions of wonder and comparisons... When Sachin plays, lay spectators have no need for
words at all and just jump and scream and whistle and clap and hug each other and cry and wave
their flags and banners and thank their lucky stars for being there... When Sachin plays, India
forgets its differences and divisions and teeters between tensions and exhilaration and breaths
and laughs and cries as one, as its heart fills with pride and joy and patriotism... WHEN
SACHIN PLAYS, ALL ELSE IS IRRELEVANT"