Kolkata: A trophy bearing Sachin Tendulkar’s name is one of the infinite ways cricket recognises its biggest modern promoter. Sharing that honour with James Anderson makes the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy more than just a prize for the Test series involving India’s oldest rivals. It’s a symbol of a shared era, their careers collectively spanning 35 years and nearly 388 Tests, a phase that shaped Test cricket’s modern landscape through dogged battles of skill and determination. So as far as icons go, it can’t really get bigger than Tendulkar and Anderson.
They are also the two most capped players in the history of the game, a record that will probably stand the test of time. Most Test runs, most Test wickets, with a head-to-head that very few individual battles have produced. Anderson has dismissed Tendulkar nine times in Test cricket — more than any other bowler. But those dismissals also came over 533 deliveries, with Tendulkar scoring 339 runs off Anderson, giving him a strike rate of nearly 64, scintillating by the standards of over a decade ago.
Tendulkar was 17 when he first toured England in 1990. By the time Anderson had made his debut in 2003, Tendulkar was already 14 years into his Test career. It was only because of Tendulkar’s longevity that he could play Anderson in his prime, leading to a memorable montage of performances in the 10 years their careers overlapped. It started with Anderson dismissing him for 1 in the 2006 Mumbai Test—Tendulkar loosely driving and getting caught behind—and ended in 2012 at Nagpur with the seaming into him and inducing an inside edge onto his middle stump.
Preceding that dismissal was possibly one of Tendulkar’s finest innings, a gritty 76 on an abrasive pitch at Eden Gardens where Anderson was hiding the ball till the last second like Zaheer Khan, making it impossible to make out which direction the shiny side of the ball was. A reverse outswinger finally got the better of Tendulkar, but replays of that dismissal actually suggest it was reverse of reverse. Tendulkar at least believes Anderson was capable of that.
Devastating at home, especially at Lord’s, Anderson taking the bulk of his wickets there isn’t surprising. But on subcontinent pitches, he grew into an artist of sorts over subsequent tours. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that only Tendulkar perhaps managed to get a measure of him through technique and footwork, though Anderson had opened him up famously at Nagpur. Tendulkar countered him magnificently though. The 56 at Trent Bridge in 2011, or the 37 at Lord’s in 2007 enhanced the value of Tendulkar’s leadership under duress but towering above the rest was the unbeaten hundred he scored at Chennai in 2008, when India chased 387 in the fourth innings where their chances of winning was next to none.
Which is why this feels like an appropriate tribute to not just Tendulkar but what he once meant to an entire generation of Indians as well as cricket realists around the world. Emerging as a boy wonder, his was a modern batting template that retained a touch of conservatism, allowing Tendulkar to swing between outrageous and measured, something that excited even Don Bradman. Cricket is a game of plots. And for 25 years, nothing figured bigger on the oppositions’ agenda than how to get Tendulkar’s prized scalp.
With time, visuals of Tendulkar walking out had the potential to fan hope in the most hopeless of situations. It was a relationship that on an average day was like a one-way street, a pact too sacrosanct, too personal. With Tendulkar rose India, as a nation, as a cricketing power. It’s why Tendulkar resides in our minds not just as a cricketer, but as an icon, a statesman. To have a trophy named after him is thus the least cricket could have done to honour that emotion.
