Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar wind the clock back

Mon, Mar 9, '20

There were no serpentine queues outside the stadium, no rush to buy tickets from the counter, nobody offering to paint your face as you approached the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday evening. Sure, it was no international match, but this is Mumbai, where Sachin Tendulkar still gets mobbed even if he his inaugurating a mall in the unknown outskirts of the city. So where was everyone as he returned to play after all these years?

Well, by the time the coin was flipped for the toss, as Tendulkar, captain of India Legends, and Brian Lara, of West Indies Legends, walked out in retro-looking blazers, the crowd had already packed the stands. For a 7pm start, office-goers had wrapped up work, students of colleges in south Mumbai hung back after the last class, and the rest took trains from far and wide to throng the stands even before the toss. And all this largely to watch the man who last played a game at this very ground, six and a half years ago in his 200th Test.

There was hardly a cheer when Tendulkar decided to bowl. It meant these fans, who had already waited for all these years, had to wait for another 90-odd minutes to watch the master bat. That's another thing that in a charity match they took nearly two hours to bowl 20 overs, and in those two hours too, the crowd got plenty to cheer for.

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