Tendulkar mastery built on attention to detail

Meticulous planning by Indian batsman has brought unparalleled success and god-like status on subcontinent

A discreet ceremony amid all the cacophony and razzmatazz at Silverstone last weekend summed up the public life of Sachin Tendulkar.

India's master batsman, who will be hoping to inspire his country to victory over England in today's NatWest Series one-day final at Lord's, is an avid follower of Formula One and a great fan of Michael Schumacher. Fiat, which owns Ferrari and for whom the batting maestro is an ambassador in India, arranged for a VIP visit to official practice. Tendulkar spent a couple of hours in the presence of Schumacher and so taken was the German driver that he extended the visit by inviting the cricketer to dinner that evening in the Ferrari team's motor home in the paddock.

It was during the visit that Tendulkar handed Schumacher a cricket bat signed by members of the Indian, Sri Lankan and English squads. For his part Schumacher, whose knowledge of cricket may be a trifle more limited than is Tendulkar's of Formula One, presented Tendulkar with a pair of his driving gloves and a set of car keys.

So far so good. But the set of keys belonged to a special car: a Ferrari 575 Maranello, worth £154,350. As deals go Schumacher definitely got the raw end of this one. Unusually for the glamour sport the whole episode took place in the penumbra of the Formula One publicity machine, out of the limelight, which is just how Tendulkar likes it.

And he will drive his new car 'in private' as it were. He enjoys driving anything and everything, but it is impossible to do so in India during the day when the streets teem with life, from bullock carts and bicycles to beggars and businessmen. So he waits until nightfall, then out he comes to enjoy the 'open' road for a brief moment or two.

That is also the time when he practises his devotions. Tendulkar is not an unduly devout man, but he has a healthy respect for, and appreciation of, his religion and he will visit the temples of his favourite deities, Sai Baba and Ganapati. The former is not quite a deity, but someone who professed to being neither Hindu nor Muslim, but rather wanted to promote communal harmony; the latter is the elephant son of Lord Shiva, one of the Hindu religion's Holy Trinity completed by Brahma and Vishnu. Ganapati signifies peace, happiness and prosperity. That both are followed by Tendulkar is no real surprise given what he has achieved and what it is said he is seeking.

Perhaps if there were a god of privacy Tendulkar would spend even more time in that shrine, as it is he relies on the hours of darkness and his own iron will and implacability when confronted by the twin evils of media greed, for every morsel of information about him, and public thirst for every last drop of knowledge about his life off the pitch.

He really cannot move very far in public before he is mobbed by seemingly crazed individuals who treat him as a demi-god. They will reach out to touch him or his clothes. They will shriek his name in hysterical tones as he makes his way from car or coach to his destination.

His team-mates prefer to walk apart from him because even when no fans are evident at first, word that their cricket idol is in the neighbourhood moves like wildfire and suddenly the team will find themselves in a crush of fans. "I sometimes feel dizzy in among all the fans as they press for an autograph," Tendulkar has said, yet he also acknowledges: "That is normal life for me; it's been like that since I was 16."

The public is not the only sector of society which deifies Tendulkar, even his cricketing contemporaries give credence to the perception of that status. "Sachin is a genius," says Brian Lara, no mean bat himself. "I am a mere mortal." Mark Waugh adds: "He, like God, must never fail." Sir Viv Richards: "He is blessed... I would say he is 99.5 per cent perfect." And finally team-mate Ajay Jadeja: "He exists where we cannot."

Long before the teenaged prodigy made his Test debut aged 16 years and 205 days – fifth on an all-time list that is headed by Pakistan's Hasan Raja at 14 years 277 days – Tendulkar was immersed in cricket. As an 11-year-old he came under the tutelage of Ramakant Achrekar, someone who drifted into cricket coaching almost by accident and who is visited these days by his star pupil before the start of every Test for his blessing and to discuss certain cricketing points.

Under Achrekar the rest of Tendulkar's disciplined approach to his game was etched out. Dedication was the by-word as the youngster practised and played for up to 12 hours a day. That single-mindedness is evident every time he goes out to bat; his apprenticeship taught him to be analytical and self-critical, to the extent that nowadays he can recall with absolute clarity, details of every innings he has played and the minutiae of every dismissal – and he hates being dismissed, whether it be for a duck or 150.

According to friends Tendulkar will replay his innings and brood over his dismissals for up to 12 hours afterwards. And he spends probably even longer before a match, especially the night before when he is unlikely to sleep, imagining himself playing every ball from every bowler he is likely to face. He will picture the background and go through in his mind how each ball should be dealt with so by the time he goes out to bat he is thinking far ahead of his opponents.

An example of this preparation came in a one-day international in New Zealand in 1994. Tendulkar was called up to open the innings in place of the injured Navjot Sidhu. His partner that day was Ajay Jadeja, who was bemused by the way Tendulkar dealt with Gavin Larsen initially.

"He pushed the first five balls back to the bowler, stretching further and further forward each time. When I asked him what he was playing at he replied: 'Wait until the end of the over, then you will see.' The last ball was even shorter than the previous five and Sachin hit it for six off the back foot. And afterwards Sachin explained to me: 'I wanted Larsen to bowl that length, that is why I played five balls off the front foot.'"

That is attention to detail and demonstrates a mastery that reaches far beyond cricket. Tendulkar reaches out to the bowlers, out-thinking them, out-flanking them; It is chess by any other name.

He is committed to his family, Anjali, a paediatrician and his wife of six years, and his children Sara, five, and son Arjun, two. They are protected from the media as much as possible. Television companies offered huge sums for the broadcast rights to his marriage ceremony but Tendulkar was having none of it. It remained very much a gala affair but only for family and friends.

Tendulkar did not, indeed does not, need the money. Although he is inevitably associated with the stuff and three years ago, just before the 1999 World Cup, a couple of Indian banks underwrote the launch of a commemorative medallion struck in 24 carat gold. On the obverse was Tendulkar's head in profile, on the reverse was depicted the seam of a cricket ball. It was valued at £65.

It satisfied the twin obsessions of the subcontinent, namely wealth and himself, but money is not that important to Tendulkar. Estimates put his annual earnings at a conservative £4m a year, making him comfortably the world's richest cricketer.

It does not quite equate to Schumacher's £45m annual income, but Tendulkar now owns a Ferrari, and on certain tracks he is arguably the superior driver.

Sachin Tendulkar: The life and times

Name: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

Born: Bombay, 24 April, 1973.

Family: Wife: Anjali. Daughter: Sara. Son: Arjun.

Test debut: Pakistan, Karachi, first Test, 1989-90.

Test average: 57.58 (8,004 runs in 96 Tests).

Highest Test score: 217.

Test 50s: 32.

Test 100s: 29.

One-day international debut: Pakistan, Gujranwala, 1989-90.

ODI average: 44.53 (11,491 runs in 294 matches).

Highest ODI score: 186 not out.

ODI 50s: 56.

ODI 100s: 33.

Wisden Cricketer of the Year: 1997.

Earnings: £4m a year.

Interests: Playing table tennis, seafood, cooking (prepares meals for team-mates), Western pop (of which he has vast collection), socialising with cricketing friends, including Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.

He says: "I want to go as far as I can. When I started playing cricket, I never thought about how far I was going to go. I just want to go out and enjoy playing."

They say: "No other batsman in the world is as consistent as he is. I've never come across such a dedicated player. And he is a master against any form of attack."

Brian Lara