Indias Sachin Tendulkar proves you can be a sporting icon without turning into a monster

By Simon Briggs Published: 10:15AM GMT twenty-five February 2010

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Receiving the plaudits: Sachin Tendulkar is congratulated by South Africa after his stand in ton Photo: AP

Surely each neutral cricket-lover - and even a couple of South African supporters - contingency have welcomed the headlines that Sachin Tendulkar has scored the initial double-hundred in one-day internationals.

With his unusual performances over the past dual decades, not to discuss his model control off the field, Sachin Tendulkar has valid that it is probable to be a sporting idol but branch in to a monster.

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In the light of the assorted indiscretions committed in new weeks by Tiger Woods, John Terry and Ashley Cole, it would be easy to interpretation that whilst energy corrupts, sporting success corrupts absolutely.

Tendulkar is the idealisation counter-example. In his own way, he can contest with any of these men for eminence. The majority important Indian since Mahatma Gandhi, he has certified resorting to wigs and feign eyeglasses usually to get to the motion picture undisturbed.

And yet, notwithstanding spending some-more than twenty years at the tip of his sport,Tendulkar has never turn tangled up with a Bollywood actress, or been indicted of giving out representation and continue report to an bootleg bookmaker.

A disbeliever competence supplement the rider, "as far as we know". After all, that sleazy PR fixer Max Clifford has regularly insisted that the usually reason Tiger got held was since he was really bad advised.

But all about Tendulkars open persona backs up his squeaky-clean image. The man is medium in feat and friendly in defeat, whilst his post-match comments are constantly diplomatic. It is tough to recollect him being drawn in to a singular debate at least, not one that stood up to scrutiny.

Compare that to Woods, who is scandalous for chucking his clubs out of the bag at your convenience he hits a crippled shot, or the foul-mouthed Premier League stars who take up so majority of the airtime. Even Roger Federer, simply the majority considerable part of of the "Gillette trio", cannot conflict the peculiar poor shot.

In Woodss case, his apologists disagree that his problems begin with his upbringing. By putting him on inhabitant TV at the age of four, they suggest, his father Earl gave him no possibility of building a normal identity.

Well, Tendulkar proposed flattering early too. Not at four, admittedly. But he was well known as a kid expert around Mumbai from the time he was 12. By 14, Indias majority dignified batsman Sunil Gavaskar had since him a span of pads, and the following year he notched a hundred on his first-class debut. No pressure, then!

We could trade census data for days, but sufficient it to contend that Tendulkar proposed scoring general runs at 16, and is still you do so today. The peaceful drop that cheerless him in the center of the last decade - when he was struggling with tennis bend has been resolutely consigned to the past, judging by a method of 4 hundreds in the last 6 Test innings.

And right away we have this staggering 200 an feat never suited in any one of the prior 2961 one-day internationals. Lets listen to it for Sachin Tendulkar, a indeed good sportsman, and usually as importantly a entirely excellent man.