Sachin's last innings at Wankhede

Last hurrah
Tendulkar is always received with reverence here at the Wankhede Stadium - although even he cops a fair share of abuse from the infamous North Stand - but today was special in many ways. Not only was it likely to be Tendulkar's last international at the ground - it's set to be refurbished and will only be used for an international next in 2011 for the final of the World Cup - but it was exactly twenty years ago to the day when Tendulkar did duty here as a ball boy, returning the ball to the players from the ropes in an India-Zimbabwe match. Only 26,863 international runs have flowed from his bat since. Not bad, for a ball boy.

Reproduced from here. Instantly felt goosebumps on reading this and didn't want to miss out on posting it here.

BTW, what a victory the Indians just carved out!! I guess, Murali Karthik & Uthappa have sealed their places in the team for a long time to come, something they both fully deserve. The fact that the Australians fielded their best XI for this game should put all those "this came in a dead rubber" critics to rest. I was immediately reminded of that miracle victory that the local boys - Kumble & Srinath - pulled off, in 1996 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. And now for the eerie resemblance to that game - it was a 2 wicket victory too, like this one and more importantly, the 9th wicket partnership in both the games yielded the same - 52 runs. Wow!! What a coincidence....